Category: Gamespot

Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider publisher Square Enix on Tuesday announced financial performance for its fiscal year ended March 31, 2015–and the results were strong.

Square Enix’s video game division, called “Digital Entertainment,” posted yearly revenue of ¥111.9 billion ($932.7 million), up 18.4 percent from last year.

Meanwhile, operating income was ¥17.3 billion ($144 million), which represents an even more dramatic increase of 61.3 percent compared to the prior financial year.

The publisher cited “strong” sales of catalog titles, which was particularly important since Square Enix also noted that it released fewer console games during the fiscal year compared to the year before.

In terms of smartdevices and PC games, Square Enix said Sengoku Ixa and Dragon Quest: Monsters Super Light “continued to show strong performance.” Meanwhile, smartphone games like Schoolgirl Strikers, Final Fantasy Record Keeper, and Kai-ri-Sei Million Arthur also did well during the year.

What’s more, Square Enix said MMOs Final Fantasy XIV and Dragon Quest X “have been making favorable progress,” though no other details were divulged.

Looking to Square Enix’s current financial year, two of the company’s biggest games are Rise of the Tomb Raider and Just Cause 3, both of which are due out this fall. Other high-profile in-development games include Final Fantasy XV, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Dragon Quest Heroes, and Star Ocean 5.

Overall, Square Enix–which also runs various non-gaming business units–posted revenue of ¥167.9 billion ($1.4 billion) for the year. That’s up 8.3 percent. Profit, meanwhile, rose a healthy 49 percent from ¥6.6 billion ($55 million) to ¥9.8 billion ($81.6 million).

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Playtonic Games, developer of Banjo-Kazooie spiritual successor Yooka-Laylee, has revealed a new innuendo-filled character called Trowzer.

The trouser-wearing snake is the first supporting character the developer has revealed, and has been described as a “flash, wheeler dealing serpent.”

“Trowzer is a business-snake whose career never took off,” Playtonic’s creative lead, Gavin Price, explained on the official website.

“Not that he knows it – the smug, serpent salesman thinks he’s the bee’s knees (not that he has knees), and for a little dosh he’ll teach you some of the slick moves he picked up on the high-stakes sales floor.”

Along with his trousers, tie, and fedora, the character completes the out-of-touch business-snake look with a large “Brickcom” phone.

“He’ll take your money and count it (he’s an Adder…) and because he knows best he’ll even demonstrate the moves you just bought for you to replicate… if you can follow his jiggling.”

Playtonic’s character artist Steve Mayles also explained the design process behind Trowzer and attributed the idea of the snake wearing shorts to Price himself.

“I didn’t want him to be a snake in the traditional sense, and when Gav suggested he should have shorts on (do I have to add shorts to all of my characters?!), a great idea for this was his body could curl back up through the other leg hole. So he’ll move with a certain springiness, which will be fun to animate.”

Following its Kickstarter success, GameSpot looked at whether Yooka-Laylee could realise the golden days of Rare again.

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World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Heroes of the Storm developer Blizzard has apologised to European players of its online card battling game Hearthstone for recent connection issues, and offered free content as recompense.

Posting on the official Hearthstone forums, Blizzard admitted the online multiplayer aspect of the game was “spotty last week” and revealed two free Classic Hearthstone card packs would be offered as an apology.

“Sorry about that, and we really appreciate your patience as we worked to get the tavern back into shape,” the studio said.

“As a thank-you for bearing with us, ALL Hearthstone accounts in the European Hearthstone region created prior to May 3, 2015 will enjoy two free Classic Hearthstone card packs, free of charge.”

In order to claim the two packs, players need only to log in to Hearthstone “at [their] convenience” to find the card packs in the Open Packs section. The packs will not expire, so there is no time constraint.

Blizzard recently revealed that Hearthstone has now been played by 30 million people. The milestone was reached shortly after the release of the Blackrock Mountain expansion and the game’s arrival for phones.

In April, Blizzard updated the iOS version Hearthstone to officially support iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android devices. The latest version of the game is said to feature “an all-new intuitive interface handcrafted for the mobile experience. You can see a few screenshots of the iOS version below.

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The face of masked murderer Jason Voorhees has never been revealed in fighting game Mortal Kombat X. However, a forum post on the Testyourmight forums shows a preview of a mod called Camera Hack being developed for the PC version of the game. The hack unmasks Jason to reveal that developer NetherRealm Studios did put effort into modelling the character’s facial appearance, despite the fact that it was never meant to be seen in-game.

Granted, the Mortal Kombat X version doesn’t look as disfigured as other iterations of the character that have been present in the movies, but he does sport a few scars. It’s likely the character’s facial model was animated so that it would not look out of place during fatalities. Voorhees was added to the character roster in Mortal Kombat X through the Jason Voorhees bundle. Players who own the $30 Mortal Kombat X Kombat Pack were able to access the character from May 5. The Jason Voorhees Bundle can otherwise be purchased on May 12 for $8.

Mortal Kombat X enjoyed a record-breaking launch back in April. The game scored an eight in GameSpot’s review, praised for its solid fighting mechanics and the challenges offered, but criticized for its monetization model.

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Valve’s PC gaming platform Steam continues to break records.

On Sunday, May 10, a record 9.5 million people were logged into Steam at the same time. That’s a new concurrent user number for the platform, and is up from 9 million just a couple months ago.

The news comes by way of Steam’s “Stats” page, which reveals that the milestone was achieved in the early afternoon PDT on May 10.

Valve’s free-to-play DOTA 2 is currently the most popular game on Steam, based on unique users, followed by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Grand Theft Auto V.

Steam is a juggernaut in the PC gaming space. It currently has more than 125 million registered accounts.

In other Valve-related news, the company recently found itself in some hot water over paid mods, while its new Vive VR headset–made through a partnership with HTC–will launch later this year.

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Creative Assembly’s horror game Alien: Isolation has now sold more than 2.1 million copies, publisher Sega announced on Monday as part of its latest earnings report for the year ended March 31.

This is up from the 1 million sales figure that Sega announced back in January.

Does Isolation’s success mean a sequel is on the way? It’s too early to say for sure, though Creative Assembly has said it sees a “great opportunity” to make a follow-up.

As you can see in the chart above, Sega’s Football Manager 2015 shifted 810,000 units for PC, while the new Sonic Boom games for Wii U and 3DS combined to sell 620,000 copies.

For Sega’s latest financial year, the company’s total packaged software sales rose to 12.3 million, but Sega still said “performance in the field was weak due to the harsh market environment.”

The digital side was another story, however.

Digital game software for mobile phones, smartphones, and PC “remained strong,” Sega said. The publisher specifically called out games like Ange Vierge, SAKATSUKU Shoot, Phantasy Star Online 2, Puyopuyo!! Quest, and Chain Chronicles — Kizuna no Shintairiku.

Sega’s Consumer Business division–which houses its games business–saw net sales of ¥111.76 billion ($932 million). That represents an increase of 11.2 percent from the previous financial year. Operating income for Sega’s game division, meanwhile, was ¥4.03 billion ($33.7 million)–an increase of 93.1 percent.

Overall, Sega’s entire business–which includes Pachinko machines and even resorts–posted an ¥11.258 billion ($93.9 million) loss for the period, due in part to restructuring costs.

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