Square Enix confirms it’s cancelled games which don’t fit with its new development strategy

Square Enix has confirmed that it has cancelled a number of unannounced game projects because they don’t fit with its new strategy.

The publisher had previously suggested that it would cancelling projects but wasn’t specific about the details.

During a meeting held in late March the company said it expected to report “content abandonment losses” as part of its plans to overhaul its development process to improve game quality.

Now, as part of its latest financial results report, it has now officially confirmed the cancellations and explained why they were made.

The new report says profits were down nearly 70% from the previous year, partly due to “the recognition of ¥22,087 million ($141 million) in losses on disposal of content as an extraordinary loss”.

According to the report, these losses were based on “the termination of development efforts for some key pieces of content in the Digital Entertainment segment”, essentially meaning game cancellations.

The company says the projects were cancelled because they don’t fit with its new medium-term business plan, specifcially its new approach to how HD games are developed.

In the new strategy, which is titled ‘Square Enix Reboots and Awakens’, the publisher highlights a number of ways it plans to deliver higher quality games and make more players happy.

Further reading

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Square Enix will make AAA games multiplatform as part of its ‘aggressive’ new business plan

It implies that the publisher's days of platform exclusives may be ending

Among these are plans to “aggressively pursue a multiplatform strategy” which makes AAA games multiplatform going forward, and a revamp of its internal development process to “bring more capabilities in-house” instead of outsourcing to third parties.

According to Square Enix’s financial briefings, the cancelled projects didn’t fit with these two strategies in particular, suggesting they may have been either tied to a single platform or relied too heavily on external developers.

“A project-by-project review of continued development feasibility found these particular efforts to be incompatible with the Group’s revised approach to the development of HD games, which reflects such objectives as multiplatform development and the strengthening of internal development capabilities,” it says.