Yoichi Wada, president of Square Enix, says that they are neutral when it comes to the platforms they publish games on. They managed to raise eyebrows at E3 with their announcement that Final Fantasy XIII would come to the Xbox 360, but gone are the days of Square Enix picking a "home console."
"We always consider the territory and hardware for titles, and I just want to make sure that we're neutral about dealing with companies," said Wada to GamesIndustry.biz.
"In North America Microsoft is doing very well with its hardware, and for that reason it's a very important partner for us," he said. "In Japan we know that the Xbox 360 isn't really that strong yet, but for me I feel very calm about dealing with any company, and we're not partnering exclusively with any particular company."
Wada says that they're dealing out the RPG love to everyone, and their console choices have more to do with age and taste. Their goal is to reach the biggest audience possible, which makes total sense for their business.
"We're now in the age of the multi-platform, but depending on age and territory, users have different tastes. Therefore it's very difficult to just deal with one company or one hardware platform - in order to offer our product to the vast majority of gamers we need to deal with multiple companies and platforms."
I think the case is actually that they're less "neutral" and more fans of having money. I guess it's been a few years since they turned it around. Remember when they were really hurting for cash? After that crap movie was released and failed and the Hawaii studio closed down, I think they realized that they couldn't have the snobby one console, no sequel attitude and stay afloat.
Do you think this new multi-console, sequel happy Square Enix is better? Are the games just as good as they used to be?
Contest:
9:52 AM on 07.29.2008 | 
Except when it comes to Tri-Ace and then Square only seems to want to publish for the 360.
Long story short: PS3 STAR OCEAN PLEEEEEASE.
Straight from Square-Enix's mouth, and also the most ignorant thing I think I've ever heard anyone say. Ever.
bingo.
That's pretty cocky of 'em--but I guess when you can release a new game in a franchise like, say, Dragon Quest, and bring all of Japan to a grinding (ha!) halt, you get to talk big. :/
I'm down with that.I fucking hate unisystem fanboys.
same could be said here. Actually Wada basically says it for himself here:
In North America Microsoft is doing very well with its hardware, and for that reason it's a very important partner for us,"
in other words, Make XIII for the americans who chose not to buy a PS3 and versus exclusive to those with PS3s...and still get XIII. More money for them in the long run.
What about 'Final Fantasy Tactics A2,' 'Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates,' 'Chocobo Tales,' 'Sigma Harmonics,' 'Nanashi no Game,' 'Dragon Quest IX,' and 'Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime'? All for the DS, obviously.
Now, you did say SE has failed to release a 'big game' for a Nintendo system in a while, but does 'TWEWY' qualify as being one (regardless of quality)? It sold -terribly- in Japan, albeit it appears to have some legs in the US due to high demand.
We love every console and believe every console should be able to play the new FF game....except for Wii's those things suck.
Most likely timed exclusives, at least for Star Ocean 4. Infinite Undiscovery is being developed by Tri-Ace I think and they made eternal sonata. The PS3 version of Eternal Sonata is going to have alot of goodies and gameplay important content such as new characters which possibly add more story. ES was "exclusive also, but then they announced the PS3 version with all those extra goodies.
Almost makes me want to wait to see what happens before plunking cash down on IU on the 360.
Would you rather the games remained exclusive? I'm all too happy for MS to provide incentive for developers who previously only worked with Sony to go multiplatform. Besides, how do you think Sony got those exclusives to begin with?
It's not MS who is 'getting the games' it's gamers. Should people who can only afford one system not be able to play them?
I seem to recall them talking about switching over to new tech that made multi platform development easier for their current gen stuff anyway?
I'd be more willing to accept the change if they'd be more giving with the content. FFXIII's two years in development, and no one's seen any gameplay, story, or content about the game yet. FFXII was the same way, and it's getting pretty old... they need to learn how to entice an audience, because people forget about Final Fantasy when the games are 4 years apart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level-5
And it doesn't bother me about their games being all over the place; it bothers me that they're claiming that they want to pursue a multi-platform business and yet Tri-Ace games, among others, seem to be limited to the 360.
I think it's not OK if either Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo offers huge amounts of money to tie a game to their console. I think no one should be left out because of money issues.
Obviously not, but that's just the same as having only one console with all the games on it, just more expensive. And they aren't even making all their games multiplatform, just the ones that they were paid for.