While the underlying barebone package is also found in products from other suppliers such as Eurocom and OriginPC, those companies focus on the American market. Our test sample barely breaks the EUR 1200 ($1500 USD) mark. While the XMG A102's minimum configuration starts at EUR 749 (approximately $940 USD), this configuration does not include a quad-core CPU, the SSD, or many of the other features. One would be hard pressed to find another notebook on the market that can offer more performance per square inch. The equipment is generous - rather than using boring ULV hardware, the XMG A102 features a third-generation Ivy Bridge i7-3612QM quad-core processor, Nvidia's GeForce GT 650M, 8 GB RAM, and a 180 GB Intel SSD hard drive. The little, 11.6 inch computer is designed to inspire fear in the hearts of other, perhaps bigger or more established, contenders. But to what extent can such high-performance hardware be compressed?īased on Clevo's W110ER barebone, the German retailer Schenker has now released the XMG A102. Square-Enix’s console business is struggling because it doesn’t release products fast enough, or with enough publicity, to make up for the heavy investment that comes with years of development.What comes to your mind when you read "gaming machine"? Perhaps you imagine a very heavy 17" or 18" behemoth, such as Asus' G74SX. Development on titles like Final Fantasy Versus XIII has dragged on for seven years. Rather than develop new console entries in these series, Square poured its resources into developing proprietary engine technology and the aforementioned failed MMO. President Yoichi Wada said it best in 2009: “It takes too long for us to produce a game.” The company’s value in the last decade was born of its Japanese franchises with Western appeal, including Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy. Absolution’s global sales after the past few months are just under 3 million copies while Sleeping Dogs has sold fewer than 1.5 million copies.Ī significant problem for Square-Enix is the gridlock within its Japanese development teams. Both were critically well received, but neither had the mainstream appeal to offset Square Enix’s earlier losses. With the majority of its Japanese console development resources reallocated to finishing Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, and Tomb Raider delayed into 2013, Square’s only major releases were Sleeping Dogs and Hitman: Absolution. Square-Enix’s console business floundered over the past twelve months, though. The August 2011 release of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the January 2012 release of Final Fantasy XIII-2 “favourably grew sales of packaged software.” In fiscal 2012, however, the company recorded a nearly $65 million profit thanks in large part to console games. In fiscal 2011, the company reported a $150 million loss because of the disastrous 2010 release of Final Fantasy XIV on PC, a game that failed so spectacularly that the company was forced to apologize to customers and rebuild it from the ground up. Square-Enix has been hit by hard times over the past few years. Though it would represent a 42 percent drop from totals seen in fiscal 2012, Square said it expects to record a net profit of 3.5 billion yen, around $37.5 million. With Tomb Raider due out in March, Square-Enix still has high expectations for the full fiscal year. 30, 2012,” reads a statement from the company, “ primarily due to the increasingly difficult condition of the worldwide console game market, under which the group is struggling to achieve a fair expected return on its investment.” 31, 2012, the company has not recovered the operating loss posted in the six-month period ended Sept. The Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest company is making an “acceptable profit” on many of its PC, mobile, and social games, but its slumping console game business spurred a nearly 6 billion yen loss for the period, approximately $61 million. Square-Enix reported earnings for the nine-month period between April and the end of December 2012 on Tuesday morning, and the company is not in as fine health as it would like to be.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |