Deus Ex: Human Revolution delayed

Hotly anticipated science-fiction role-playing game Deus Ex: Human Revolution is delayed, Square Enix has announced.

Square Enix today pushed the game into its next fiscal year – which begins in April 2011. The Eidos Montreal developed title was due out early 2011.

"With weak sales performance of console game titles that have been newly released during the current fiscal year as well as harsh market feedback regarding a key title, the Group recognizes the reinforcement of development capability in our Digital Entertainment segment as our most critical managerial issue," Square Enix said in a note to investors.

"We therefore have decided to spend additional time to further polish our upcoming game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, resulting in a shift in release timing from our prior plan of the current fiscal year to next fiscal year."

The "harsh market feedback" regarding a "key title" may refer to embattled MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, which has suffered under the weight of player complaints since its September launch.

"Additionally, since recognizing that our Final Fantasy XIV service has not yet achieved the level of customer satisfaction that fans of our Final Fantasy franchise have come to expect, we have restructured the development organization and will continue the free trial period until we can present customers with a clear plan outlining Final Fantasy XIV's new direction," Square Enix said.

"Furthermore, we have decided to delay the release of Final Fantasy XIV for the PlayStation 3 Computer Entertainment System, previously planned for early March 2011, in order to include all of the improvements we are planning rather than simply converting the current Windows PC version."

All this contributed to a slashing of forecasted earnings for the current fiscal year. Square Enix now expects sales of 130 billion yen (£991m) and net earnings of 1 billion yen (£7.62m), down from the originally forecast 160 billion yen (£1.22bn) and 12 billion yen (£91.5m).