The President of Square Enix has released a statement about the company’s future video game releases. He believes Square Enix needs to diversify its content.
Takashi Kiryu, President of Square Enix, has stated that the company needs to begin diversifying its game and focusing on fewer releases to ensure higher quality.
During an investor Q&A in November, Kiryu addressed questions about the company’s medium-term business plan and what he described as “the limited diversity of our title portfolio”.
“Because we possess strong IPs like the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy franchises, I believe that we have tended to be overly reliant on certain gameplay styles or genres,” he said. “Meanwhile, the tastes of customers in the gaming market have diversified, and customers have come to enjoy content from a variety of genres.”
The success of smaller indie games like PowerWash Simulator is proof to Kiryu that Square Enix needs to diversify its content genres and types. “I want to increase our development proficiency by strengthening our internal development capabilities so that we are able to achieve greater diversity in our title portfolio,” he said.
Kiryu also expressed his opinion on the amount of games Square Enix should be releasing each year. “Over the long term, we need to strengthen the internal portion of our development function,” he said. “More specifically, I mean that we want to concentrate our development resources on carefully selected new titles that we will develop to a high level of quality. At the same time, rather than focusing solely on major titles, we want to also take on new challenges, partly because we want to add to the diversity of our portfolio of titles, as I noted earlier, while also enabling our developers to expand their skill sets.”
When asked more about this, Kiryu added: “As our customers’ needs and the types of devices available have diversified, we have tried to produce hits by developing a wide variety of titles rather than by focusing only on certain ones. I believe that this has resulted in the splintering of our resource pool… The market is increasingly polarised between blockbuster and indie titles, but I feel that we have developed many titles that fell somewhere in the middle. I want to make clearer distinctions going forward.”
In the second half of 2022, Square Enix released many mid-budget games in quick succession. Star Ocean: The Divine Force, Harvestella, Valkyrie Elysium, The DioField Chronicle, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion, and more. This schedule proved too much for both Square Enix and its audience.
Square Enix decided to sell its western studios to Embracer Group in 2022, lessening the diversity of its games. It seems that Square is suffering from this decision and seeking to rectify it.
In the Q&A, Kiryu also admitted to the importance of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth as “the greatest variable on which our ability to achieve our full-year operating income target of ¥55.0bn hinges”. Additionally, he marked the mobile game Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis as a potential big earner.
The company’s next game will be the online team shooter Foamstars, which will be released on PlayStation Plus next month (release date: February 6th). Foamstars has already faced some backlash over the use of AI-generated art.
What games would you like to see from Square Enix? Do you agree with the company’s decision to diversify its content? Will you be playing Foamstars on release? Follow us for more gaming news.