The New, And Somewhat Dangerous, Path of Square Enix

Ian Fisher writes: The situation Square Enix has found itself in (some titles underpeforming, the Japanese teams struggling on the production side of things) has resulted in a changing of the guard of sorts. Besides Yoichi Wada stepping down and Yosuke Matsuda assuming the position of President, the company is also refocusing on how it approaches games development. Now this likely won’t be a debacle akin to how THQ seemingly changed their company focus every few months before finally going kaput, but it is interesting nonetheless; not only for what sort of impact it could have on titles such as Sleeping Dogs and possibly Tomb Raider, but the industry wide repercussions it could have as well.

[Godmars290]

Square is circling the bowl as far as I'm concerned. Their creativity has become too compromised and they're only more interested in keeping the money coming in rather than telling a story or entertaining players.

[3-4-5]

They put almost all their money into FF 14 & it's remake, along with FF 15 & DQ 10 MMO.

They put too much money in MMO's and Three FF13 games that nobody really wanted.

Think about that. Look where all their money is invested.

All the money for a new Dragon Quest or an Original IP went right back in FF14....again.

All the money that could be used for a new IP....went to making FF 13 three times over.

They just aren't as intelligent as they think they are and their actions decide that.

[UltimateMaster]

As long as they can release their games in N/A on gaming consoles, we'll be fine.
It's all I ask.

[TheLyonKing]

We expect so much from SE, I know I do and I am usually left underwhelmed.
So much so that I replay the older games to get the taste out my mouth.

However saying that, I like to think they have a few saving graces eg kh series.

Bottom line I haven't given up on SE and I feel this new gen might bring them round again. Far from a downward spiral I think they have just taken two steps downwards but they can come back. All it takes is one good game.

[mohuzas]

SE's decisions these days don't make a shred of sense. KH3 is gauranteed to bomb on the XB1, if you want the game to sell and be multiplatform, why not port it to the console with mostly cartoony games that it's gauranteed to sell well on?

[EXVirtual]

True. Cartoony games and JRPGs in general only do well on Nintendo and Sony platforms. PC and Xbox, not so much (this game and FFXV aren't going to PC, I'm just making a point). It's mainly because the Wii U version would be worse, but I'd make a watered down Wii U version before an XBO version. Plus, the XBO version will run worse anyway.

[CaptainN]

Kingdom Hearts should be on Wii-U !

[susanto1228]

no mention of FFXIV interesting...because right now
FFXIV is a catalyst of this company make or break year

[Roccetarius]

FFXIV will go back to the usual low population, just like FFXI. The game is restrictive in its world design, and the content there isn't going to keep people subbed.

Overall, the world feels very small in that game.

[XishikiX]

FFXI was SE's most profitable game... of all time. Even with it's lowerish population.

http://www.ign.com/articles...

[DragonKnight]

F*cking Microtransactions. You see, people that are apathetic to that kind of thing, what happens when you just let these companies do stupid things here and there? They use stupid business models in all future games. If SE games come out with endings sold as DLC, music sold in microtransactions, and generally content cut up into pieces to be resold to consumers, it's all on the heads of apathetic people who don't care about being gouged and don't understand the value of a dollar.

Gaming gets worse every year.

[DomceM]

Not on steam it doesnt. Steam sales mean 5$ AAA titles.

Ill give you an example of a game i got the other day. Guns of icarus online was $3.74 on steam just now. A big drop from its 25 or $ 15usual price. Cant remeber which. either way i bought a 4 pack for 7.50$ and got my friends involved.

No better deal than free online on pc, with steam sales.

[EXVirtual]

Since Yoichi Wada is out of the count, I have to utmost faith in SE. If you saw Matsuda's recent comment, you'd understand even more. I think that the Western side of SE is going to beast it. They've already confirmed next-gen Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs and Deus Ex. As for SE Japan, I'm very excited. SE will return to glory this gen.

[TheLastVoiceOFsanity]

yoshinori kitase is the man that's going to save square enix(with help from tetsuya normura), once he starts creating games again. I can't believe SQUARE ENIX let the guy who was heavily involved in creating final fantasy VI, chrono trigger, final fantasy VII, & final fantasy VIII take a back seat in game developing in the PS2, and PS3 era. my guess is the only reason he became a producer and manager is to make more money than he made creating games, but his chosen successor(motomu toriyama) is not working out(final fantasy 13, 13-2, 13:lighting's returns).