Another Square Enix Financial/Title Loss Report...

I'm at 25-30hrs of gameplay and I'm close to the end of Setsuna. Need last dungeon/zone and some side stuff, so probably like 10hrs.
Game is lovely but it's hard to give a balanced, unbiased opinion.
It's easy to jump from one extreme to another. From people who bash it because "meh it's just an indie RPG" (hint: it's not) to people who exagerate into praising it (game has several limits alas)

Overall I loved it, it's been a nice dive in the past, but even though it's only right to judge the "worth" of money in a relative/subjective way, 40$ is still too much.
I bought TWO copies of this game (yes, I'm crazy, damn me)


The thing is that SE always described Setsuna as an "experiment" title doen with a relatively low budget, and that more titles like that, with much higher budget, would have come if Setsuna met their expectations.
Thing is: did Setsuna meet their expectations? Because regardless of how much it sold or not (we don't even know that) we have no clue what their expectations were.
I'm really really hoping it did because I see Setsuna as a lovely premise of what could come if SE were to invest more for additional titles.

Oh and btw, my personal opinion on Setsuna in points:


* Game could've used more settings. Yes Snow is the leit motif of the game and it's well justified, but it gets boring quick
* More "interaction" with the surroundings. Despite hidden items with the sparks and chests there's hardly anything you can interact with.
* Level design is way too linear. Dungeons and zones should've been bigger, with more things to explore. Like until you're close to 90% of game completition, there's nothing you can do beside the main story. No things to explore, side stuff, nothing
* The Talisman system has potential and depth but I found it a bit too convoluted and random, if not just simply limiting
* The Spritnite system too is cool and I loved how it gives emphasis on character-specific spritnites. But at the same time being forced to choose which spritnites to equip is annoying, to me at least.
* No minimap in the world map =/
* No fights in the world map ><
* Music is awesome in its minimalistic piano tunes, but it gets kinda boring fast and fails to emphasize some different moments

Sales numbers in Japan are out. Worldwide, not yet. No idea what they their expectations are. There is an article mentioning a $2.4m loss, but it was missing a lot of details (other than the worldwide sales figure) and seemed misinformative. Alas, finance isn't my forte (to put it lightly) so I can't readily point out the flaws without spending some time to put things together.

EDIT: Lol, I didn't even read the OP. Disregard my post.

People have already said that FFXV IS the end of SE as we know it.

People have been saying that since SE was Square Soft and merging. People don't know ***about business they just pretend to be armchair DEV's. I remember even Jaerik saying SE will never remake FF7 and lo and behold. SE isn't as dumb as people think

Yeah, they aren't that dumb. They survived two disasters after all; The Spirits Within and FFXIV. They would have already shut down by the time FFXIV was pulled back if they were led by complete idiots, but there might not be a third time... Considering that FFXV took them forever, it isn't hard to imagine they will be in an ever bigger trouble than before if they flop again.

They have been aggresively outsourcing to the mobile market for quite some time. If FFXV fails, at least we know where they are headed...