Square Enix chief foretells fall of retail video games

Yoichi Wada is living a fantasy life. He’s the chief executive of Japanese game publisher Square Enix, and his company has sold more than 96 million units of its Final Fantasy games worldwide since 1987. Back in March, the company started selling Final Fantasy XIII. This title has a lot more action in it and loads of movie-like animations in between the fighting sequences. But it remains true to its role-playing roots as well. Now the company is close to publishing its online game Final Fantasy XIV. We previously spoke with Wada in March and caught up again with him this month at the E3 video game trade show. Here’s a transcript of the interview.

[ClownBelt]

N4G troll foretells Wada being completely crazy, and Square Enix sucking this generation.

[ALFAxD_CENTAURO]

FF Versus XIII will change the expectations from Square Enix.

Wada is not even working in that project, and it will be the true Next Gen FF, why? Because Nomura is the Chief.

[Godmars290]

Really don't get why so many people this console gen accept the word of devs and publishers, wholly swallow whatever hype is thrown their way, when it hasn't been proven. Especially from Square much less directly out of Wada's mouth.

[MadMan00]

But if it did suck and never came to 360...what would the fanboys blame then?

[evrfighter]

@MadMan00

simple. M$ wrote them a check to make it bad.

duh

[rockleex]

Then Square Enix has clearly fallen.

[nickjkl]

stop making games so dam expensive then i cant afford 60 dollars a game thats atrocious people got bills to pay we cant just go around buying every game regardless of quality i used to do that when my mom was buying them but now that im doing it

its like HOLY SHIT NOOOOOOOOOOOO my wallet

[Imperator]

SE has made every possible mistake they could make this gen. It's like the WANT to fail. I mean, who in their right minds would make 360 exclusive JRPGs when only shooters sell. Who would make FFXIII both multiplat (thus gimping it) and westernized? I don't know what they're thinking but I can only guess that Wada really wants SE to fail.

[Omegasyde]

Are you kidding me Final Fantasy 13 was awesome! Especially the part with Morgana and Alistair always making fun of each other. The dragon at the end of the game was epic too. Can't wait till ....O my bad wrong game.

Yea Final Fantasy 13 blew.

[guzman]

Lol! Good one Omegasyde! I especially liked the part where FFXIII uterlly crushed Dragon Age in sales. Pure retail comedy gold right there!

[RememberThe357]

Sales don't equal quality my friend.

[Spenok]

Your right, they don't equal quality. But everyone has there own opinion. Dragon Age was awesome. However i enjoyed FF13 more only because its more to my tastes. JRPG's are what i enjoy most when it comes to the RPG genre.

[squallheart]

read the article he didnt mention anything about retail failing, more like they wanted to expand digital content since pricing is alot easier. oh well still dont trust them.

[pixelsword]

Their own games, perhaps, but as long as you can trade-in a game for enough money to eat in college, retail games aren't going anywhere.

[Dio1080]

I used to love square, but these past years, those bastards just piss me off...

[Lucreto]

I am the same I used to be a SE fanboy but this generation support from them has been poor at best.

I am still a sucker for the games. I tried not to buy FF XIII and Nier but I gave in. The saddest part is I enjoyed them.

[Gue1]

don't feel bad, even the shittiest bands have their fans. I learned that from you tube. Just type whatever shitty game you can think off (Lair or Haze for example) and you're going see a legion of people defending the game or saying how much they enjoyed it.

Yes, people with really bad taste do really exist.

[USEYOURFIST]

please go away wada

[Lavalamp]

When you set the story display on the home page to "above 50" there's a picture of Wada and then a picture of Kotick right under it. It's kind of scary.

[Marceles]

YW: Of course, the cumulative sales for Final Fantasy VII was the largest we’ve had, but that has taken more than 10 years. It will take a while for XIII to beat that.

I hate to break it to you Wada..but even with FF13 being multiplat (FF7 too being on PS1 & PC), but I highly doubt FF13 will beat FF7 sales.

Regarding game sales and talking about the US market selling used games...he's right about titles being hit and miss, but it's always kinda been like that with Square. Either a game will do really well or it'll bomb. More bombs than ever this gen with Square's decisions...but still that has always been the sales trend. I'm sure every FF sold well while no one knew about Saga Frontier and even Vagrant Story and ignored it without knowing how good it was.

I wouldn't blame it on people buying used games, Square just needs to step up and stop letting third party devs do their console work and stamping their name on it while they focus on handheld games. I'm sure it'll pay off if it looked like they put as much work into a game as they did last gen. Hopefully FF Versus 13 will do the trick...until they announce the 3DS is the lead console while it takes another year to port it over to PS3

[jc48573]

the good side to used games is that you get to try em, but I have been buying new games for square enix (wasted so much money doing so). I don't think retail games will fall yet and I don't think digital distribution of bigger titles is going to happen soon. I just don't want to deal with space (320gb is not enough), so I really don't approve of digital content distribution. I think they can make money by charging a small fee through used games.

[Alos88]

Sorry Wada, but if you truly believe everyone wants to no longer have the option to actually own their games then you are living in a fantasy.

[Senden]

Wtf does this guy know? He should shutup and make MORE handheld ports of their current catalogue.. simply because they are now unable to make anymore AAA quality games.

[J-Smith]

& i foretell the fall of Square Enix

[jaosobno]

Pushing out retail? Sure, one day in about 15 years or more.

How does he plan for people to download for example MGS4 which is 50 GB? And average global download speed is 1,5 Mbps...

And what about next gen when sony introduces blu ray successor with capacity of several hundred gigabytes, what then? What about HDD sizes? Where will we fit all that data?

Everyone likes talking how the industry is rough on them, how they are fighting for their survival on game market, and worst of all there are many very very stupid people buying this. This story has been present for years and it's always being told by the likes of Kotick, Wada, and plethora of other morons that wipe away their sad eyes with dollar bills.

[WIIIS1]

And he is right, the digital age is upon us. Poor blu-ray, hardly caught on and now about to be swept aside.

[GigaGaia]

Everything that comes out of Wada's mouth is stupid.

[Xfanboy]

All signs point to this!!

Playstation plus I think had Infamous 1 full download available..

& other games.

[Xfanboy]

I can download games from steam in 30-45 mins!! 6 games on my hdd..

PC games are 85% digital Everything has no choice but to follow & implement PC like
Digital Distribution..

Before DLC their were mods & companies said hmm we can make people pay for something like this & now it's making alot of money..

Now pay to play MMos are coming to consoles.. FF14 online proves console owners are willing to Pay..

[bviperz]

But then there wouldn't be a need for consoles. So that doesn't make sense. If consoles become PC (or at least start doing what PC's are doing now) why would you need to buy a console?

[labwarrior]

And since i never buy online games, i would save myself the crappy Square games like FF13

[phantomexe]

SE needs to go back to its roots when rpgs were about story not about the best looking grafics. Yea ff13 sucked bad the games just aren't the size they use to be in story.