Kingdom Hearts 4 Chat

[mukidan 0]

Whats this

Ok so

In the pdf i saw

Of the square enix earnings call or wtva

They didnt include KH in their IP listings

☠️

Guys

Are we cooked

[King Arthur13 51]

correction being a KH Fan means to have tasted the sweetest fruit, only then be plunged into a land of uncertainty and confusion

[dairyprods#0 4]

actually??

[dairyprods#0 4]

NEXT 3 YEARS

2027

UR COOKING MY ASS HOLY SHIT

[King Arthur13 51]

2027 WOOOOOO

[King Arthur13 51]

lets go

better start your timers guys

[Silent Multiverse 7]

No

[Silent Multiverse 7]

It doesn't mean that kh4 or future kh games are canceled. Disney would not let square do that

That doesn't mean kh4 is canceled nor wouldn't release within 3 years between 2025 and 2027

No need to doompost

[Snakeskin94 13]

It's hard to imagine it going out like that

But then again, we lost Metal Gear at one point in time, so

I say just cherish your IP's while they're around now in these uncertain times

[mukidan 0]

This is literally the first time I have ever seen you type so “positively” ig ?

[Silent Multiverse 7]

It's absurd to think that kingdom hearts is no more after kh4

[Fragment 1]

Due to unforeseen budget cuts we decided to scrap KH4. We will revisit this in 2028. In the meantime you can replay all your favorite KH games and stay tuned on yahoo answers for further updates

[FadedSparkle 18]

A serious question: Has KH4 even formally entered development yet or is it still in the ideas and plannings stages? Because if it hasn't there's no way its coming out before 2030.

[Leamax_1559862996 16]

Did you not see the trailer two years ago?

[FadedSparkle 18]

^You mean the one that leaked and was never intended for us to see so soon? And also the one that's barely indicative of an actual game? That trailer?

[Leamax_1559862996 16]

How can it leak when it was announced at their own event?

[FadedSparkle 18]

If I recall correctly they only announced it because the leak was incoming. There were YouTube videos about how someone on the inside was being an idiot for putting their job at risk by leaking it. Also beyond the leak, just from looking at the trailer itself it's something that's not even worthy of being labeled as a proper teaser trailer from how little it reveals. And then you add in how many delays there have been for other KH stuff. The way things went with Dark Road and the way things are going with Missing Link do not inspire confidence in KH4 actually being something they've got a team of people diligently working on. Combine it with them announcing multiple rounds of layoffs and firings of employees and things look even more grim.

[hawk222_1550644792 16]

sounds like you need to lay off some of that doomer juice, friend

[FadedSparkle 18]

I have no doubt the game will release (KH3 did more than well enough to give them confidence that KH4 would do well). I just don't think it's going to be coming out anywhere near as soon as some people like to believe. Generally speaking AAA games are taking longer and longer to make each decade. Throw in companies restructuring to avoid bankruptcy and jobs in every industry soon to be replaced by AI and things really aren't looking good for prompt releases. It's also suspicious that two years into development they wouldn't have anything to show for it and be avoiding speaking about it.

[ocean's rage 772]

2 hours ago, FadedSparkle said:

I have no doubt the game will release (KH3 did more than well enough to give them confidence that KH4 would do well). I just don't think it's going to be coming out anywhere near as soon as some people like to believe. Generally speaking AAA games are taking longer and longer to make each decade. Throw in companies restructuring to avoid bankruptcy and jobs in every industry soon to be replaced by AI and things really aren't looking good for prompt releases. It's also suspicious that two years into development they wouldn't have anything to show for it and be avoiding speaking about it.

by restructuring do you mean the alarming rate at which people are getting sacked?

[FadedSparkle 18]

@ocean's rage - That's only part of the equation. They're getting rid of their top personnel and putting new people in their place to give it what will almost assuredly be their last try not to go bankrupt. They are course correcting incredibly hard. In the case of Kingdom Hearts and other big IPs the main concern is ultimately what happens to the remaining people who worked on past games from those IPs if their new bosses don't get along with them or have a vision that clashes with their own? Some might just choose to quit rather than try to play nice with the new folks in charge. Others might get fired for being seen as expendable and replaceable.

There's also from their own official statements and their actions a very real chance that the company will go back to mostly releasing stuff in Japan only or taking six to eight months (or worse yet over a year) to release them for territories in the rest of the world. The company spent several years catering to North America and Europe and it didn't turn out to be anywhere near as profitable as they hoped.

Some of their releases that should've done well for them just by their name didn't do as well as expected. I.E Final Fantasy 7 Remake's sales started off promising, but in the long run the projection is that it will under perform. From the cost to make it to the cost of marketing they basically overspent and are stuck with diminishing returns.

I've wondered myself if Kingdom Hearts 3 isn't another game like that (haven't read anything on it, but I think it's pretty evident how expensive the game must've been to make especially with it originally not being made in the engine it eventually got completed for, and the marketing costs for it were probably high enough that they only broke even on recouping the cost that went into it).

Final Fantasy 16 also hasn't been the smash hit financially that they hoped for. I guess they burned a lot of their good will with Final Fantasy fans with how the release of Final Fantasy XV went and regardless of how well Final Fantasy 14 has done for them it has yet to have done well enough to recoup all of the money they've lost and are actively losing from the other three mentioned Final Fantasy games in this post.

Ordinarily a company as old and large as this one would make back those losses through smaller games, producing a bunch of cheap ones that would make them more money than went into their production and pouring the minimum budget possible into their marketing. But they mucked up on this front like crazy. Multiple smaller games they put out experienced delay after delay and were so buggy that they couldn't retain the attention of their intended audiences. Patches and updates only go so far at the end of the day.

They also got caught in the DEI trap, making their games with the DEI handbook in mind, ticking off all the wrong boxes. And hiring a mixture of temporary and permanent employees with the same manual in order to earn brownie points so to speak with a certain organization whom's goal it is to ensure that 50% or more of all media is LGBTQ+ friendly and DEI enough (for the record this is not an inherently bad goal, but the way the organization is applying pressure to force it instead of let it happen more organically and naturally is counter intuitive).

The other thing not helping matters is just the pricing of everything. Who with enough of a brain will just fork over $70 or more for an unfinished product? Even gamers who once upon a time defended things like micro-transactions and ads in video games are turning away. The state of the economy in most of the developed world all around the globe is another problem. If people can't afford to game they're not going to. And the industry at large is feeling that.

Edited May 15, 2024 by FadedSparkle

[mukidan 0]

Woah waduh

All this yap for kh4 ?

You guys must be excited

[ocean's rage 772]

43 minutes ago, FadedSparkle said:

@ocean's rage - That's only part of the equation. They're getting rid of their top personnel and putting new people in their place to give it what will almost assuredly be their last try not to go bankrupt. They are course correcting incredibly hard. In the case of Kingdom Hearts and other big IPs the main concern is ultimately what happens to the remaining people who worked on past games from those IPs if their new bosses don't get along with them or have a vision that clashes with their own? Some might just choose to quit rather than try to play nice with the new folks in charge. Others might get fired for being seen as expendable and replaceable.

There's also from their own official statements and their actions a very real chance that the company will go back to mostly releasing stuff in Japan only or taking six to eight months (or worse yet over a year) to release them for territories in the rest of the world. The company spent several years catering to North America and Europe and it didn't turn out to be anywhere near as profitable as they hoped.

Some of their releases that should've done well for them just by their name didn't do as well as expected. I.E Final Fantasy 7 Remake's sales started off promising, but in the long run the projection is that it will under perform. From the cost to make it to the cost of marketing they basically overspent and are stuck with diminishing returns.

I've wondered myself if Kingdom Hearts 3 isn't another game like that (haven't read anything on it, but I think it's pretty evident how expensive the game must've been to make especially with it originally not being made in the engine it eventually got completed for, and the marketing costs for it were probably high enough that they only broke even on recouping the cost that went into it).

Final Fantasy 16 also hasn't been the smash hit financially that they hoped for. I guess they burned a lot of their good will with Final Fantasy fans with how the release of Final Fantasy XV went and regardless of how well Final Fantasy 14 has done for them it has yet to have done well enough to recoup all of the money they've lost and are actively losing from the other three mentioned Final Fantasy games in this post.

Ordinarily a company as old and large as this one would make back those losses through smaller games, producing a bunch of cheap ones that would make them more money than went into their production and pouring the minimum budget possible into their marketing. But they mucked up on this front like crazy. Multiple smaller games they put out experienced delay after delay and were so buggy that they couldn't retain the attention of their intended audiences. Patches and updates only go so far at the end of the day.

They also got caught in the DEI trap, making their games with the DEI handbook in mind, ticking off all the wrong boxes. And hiring a mixture of temporary and permanent employees with the same manual in order to earn brownie points so to speak with a certain organization whom's goal it is to ensure that 50% or more of all media is LGBTQ+ friendly and DEI enough (for the record this is not an inherently bad goal, but the way the organization is applying pressure to force it instead of let it happen more organically and naturally is counter intuitive).

The other thing not helping matters is just the pricing of everything. Who with enough of a brain will just fork over $70 or more for an unfinished product? Even gamers who once upon a time defended things like micro-transactions and ads in video games are turning away. The state of the economy is most of the developed world all around the globe is another problem. If people can't afford to game they're not going to. And the industry at large is feeling that.

last i checked the massive lay offs were happening in the west not japan. so i don't think nomura and the gang have a new boss to worry about

[dairyprods#0 4]

Hallo frenz

[dairyprods#0 4]

Where’s this earnings call I hear of