Looking at Square Enix’s recent focus on mobile games, many worried about seeing even the publisher’s biggest franchises shift away from home consoles, but the new President Yosuke Masuda had reassuring words today. He also commented on the PS4 and Xbox One themselves, and on new business models.
On March 3, 2023, Square Enix announced the change of representative director and consolidated subsidiary representative director. From June 2023, the representative director will be transferred from Mr. Yosuke Matsuda to Mr. Takashi Kiryu.
Which is stupid because one of the main reasons the old guy is going is because of the failures in those areas.
Why don't they just admit defeat?
The only issue with Japanese gaming companies like Square Enix, Nintendo and the like are that they are so stubborn.
@Foxrot, Yeah, I'm sure you have all the knowledge in the world how to lead a 133 year old 13 Billion dollar company. It's very easy to lead 7000 employees as well. Just let them all know it's their nationality based stubborness and I'm sure they will follow you to whatever path you will take!
It's not crypto nonsense. It's the next version of the Web called Web 3 and it will utilise blockchain technology.
If you are put off by the crypto bros who invested in NFTs then that cool. But this tech is the next big thing for the internet.
A lot of people(especially Jornos) have come out to bash it because they did not understand what the tech is. They said things like NFT are bad for the environment because of mining which is absolute nonsense. Those people hate it because they did not get into it sooner which means they could not control the narrative around it.
To give you can example, lets say a full game is sold as an NFT. If you digitally buy the game you own that game on the blockchain. This mean if you want to sell it in the future you can do so. Currently, in the version of the web we currently have we can sell our digital games but with WEB 3 it allows you to do that.
Think of it for assets in a video game, you can own an armour type in a game like diablo which dropped in the game or purchased. You own that armour and depending on the rarity it could fetch a high price.
I literally do not care about that stuff, and if I buy a game digitally, I probably want to keep it forever, instead of resell it.
They can go nuts with their NFT nonsense despite the fact the bubble has clearly burst, I just hope Yoshi P keeps these lunatics away from FF14.
Today Square Enix announced with a press release that it will implement change at the top with the current CEO Yosuke Matsuda stepping down.
Interesting...
Major changes happening at SE in the last few hours. I wonder what would have happened to warrant such drastic and urgent measures.
There's nothing especially drastic in a change of leadership (even more so in a change of leadership with someone who was already part of the executive team) and in a reallocation of developers at a studio. It's not unusual in the corporate world. PlayStation changed 4 CEOs in the time Matsuda-san has been CEO at Square Enix and Sony had pretty smooth sailing during that whole period.
Nor I do see anything urgent. This change won't even be finalized before May.
People always want to read more than there's to read in simple corporate reorganization which happens often. Financial results have been mediocre, so they changed things around. Business as usual.
"PlayStation changed 4 CEOs in the time Matsuda-san has been CEO at Square Enix and Sony had pretty smooth sailing during that whole period."
Most recent leadership changes at Playstation happened due Kaz Hirai´s retirement, he was not replaced by Yoshida. Two distinct scenarios entirely.
I got your point, you see it like normal while I see these changes at SE as kind of worrisome since such changes might affect AAA game development, but that´s just me.
But you´re right. It´s business as usual.
"People always want to read more than there's to read in simple corporate reorganization which happens often."
It's mostly trolls that do that at least on N4G
Unfortunately Square had a series of games that underperformed in the market.
This is the state of triple A gaming nowadays. Where the cost to produce and develop is so high that a projected ROI on paper looks ridiculous. Even with recognizable IPs didn't help the situation.
I can see Square probably focusing solely on FF, FF spin offs and not creating smaller games or other jrpgs for the foreseeable future. They'll probably be making more exclusive deals too considering that's gauranteed mon....I mean help with optimizations
"Unfortunately Square had a series of games that underperformed in the market."
This. They seem to keep setting unrealistically high expectation for sales numbers. Unless some of their stuff is in my blinders, seems like a lot of their stuff has been a bit of a mess the last few years. Underwhelming games or horrible PC ports. Still not sure about their choice to sell off a bunch of their franchises.
I'm still baffled how MS got Octopath Traveler years after it was out for Switch and never made it over to PS with the sequel coming out on PS, but not Xbox.
@dumahim
"I'm still baffled how MS got Octopath Traveler years after it was out for Switch and never made it over to PS with the sequel coming out on PS, but not Xbox."
I'm sure MS paid them, because it was featured on Game Pass when it released to Xbox. I'm sure it was the same for Octo 2 for PS.
Square seems to be in hands out mode at the moment and will pretty much make any exclusive deal with anyone to put some money back thier pockets.
@gangsta_red
Yeah, I'm sure that's part of it, but it's been there for 2 years. Seems like an odd game to tie up for something that's fairly low profile on a game that's been on Switch since 2018.
Well, probably focusing on things many consumers are vocally disliking such as NFTs. That’s my guess, also profits seem to be down, which is a shame. This guy was bringing us a lot of classics back, but of course things sold like sh*t… thanks everyone cuz now I’m sure Front Mission will be in limbo… and in a business you just can’t be making those kinds of decisions.
Forspoken and Babylon's Fall both had good mechanics but bad stories and empty worlds. Maybe they will address that going forward. Maybe not.
LMAO that’s not your tune at all on previous XB studios change of leadership news
“iT’s NoRMaL bRUh”
Excellent news! With that block chain nonsense he made Andrew Wilson look like Shawn Layden. Now, let’s see if SquareEnix can break the trend of hiring an even worse CEO to replace him.
Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda has offered an in-depth analysis of the company's business strategy for the future.
Square you fools. Always grabbing for that block chain even though gamers don't want it
Gets hugely popular in the west from very Japanese games > Starts trying to make "global games" > They tend to suck ass > invests in Blockchain > Chain crashes > Sells off highly skilled studios for pocket change
The heck is going on over in their minds. Luckily FFVII was just short of perfect for me, Reunion looks solid, and FFXVI is in the hands of very very smart people who also have power within the company. It's a miracle they put anything out that's good these days.
Reunion looks fantastic, I wish FF7R had stuck closer to the original game though. I don't know what to think about FF16, not terrible thrilled for it after the last 5 or 6 mainline games, despite having Yoshida at the helm, but we'll see what it's like when it comes out.
How to say: "We are trying to push NFTs to the rising middle class of the Asian market, to rob them from their money" ... without actually saying it.
Alot of Square-Enix output is just kinda "meh" to me, and some of the better stuff either doesn't sell to expectations (Guardians, TWEWY NEO), or they just avoid making it and get surprised when people actually buy it (Bravely Default). At least ARR does well and they seem content with that, I just wish I had the time to devote to an MMO like that, some more ports/remasters of their older games are very much welcome too. The AI would be helpful with those ports/remasters, especially when they're up-scaling low quality textures and such for those games.
Also doesn't help that they want to push NFTs, even though customers are consistently made their dis-interest clear, I'm certainly not buying any. As for block chain, I've seen so many developers talk about it, but no one actually implementing it in games successfully, if at all. This article just makes it sound like Square-Enix is burning cash, but they should have a decent cash flow considering the cash cow ARR is.
What does something like that even mean?
Nevermind that any promise from Square Enix is largely worthless.
Can't wait to play that FF vs. and KH III on the Xbox One. After seeing more and more footage I am actually pumped again for a Final Fantasy game.
Never only on smartphones? so I guess we'll still see a load of mobile shovelware with flagship names then.
That said, Agito looks good, wish it was on the Vita though.
What about Wii u? Oh right it's a last gen hardware so it's getting whats coming to the Ps3/X360 only