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Square Enix Games Will Now Focus on Core Gamers

By - Source: Joystiq | B 26 comments
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Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda explained that the company will now focus on core gamers.

To gamers who remember Square and Enix as separate entities, the Square Enix merger resulted in a company that lost sight of its roots. The Final Fantasy games of recent years haven't lived up to the series' name. Of all things, Square Enix's acquisition of Eidos may have been its best business move in years. 

In an interview, Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda explained that the company would be shifting its focus back towards core gamers, and away from a wider audience. "Not just limited to games for smartphone or console, but we do have some global titles lined up," Matsuda stated. "However, regardless of whether they're for smartphone or console, there's a difficult element to developing global titles, so we'll be making them without focusing too much on the 'global' aspect." 

Matsuda fessed up to the company's mistake in developing for a general audience. "For example, in the past, when we developed console games with a worldwide premise, we lost our focus, and not only did they end up being games that weren't for the Japanese, but they ended up being incomplete titles that weren't even fit for a global audience." The president pointed to Hitman Absolution as an example of the company's loss of focus on the core audience. "The development team for Hitman: Absolution really struggled in this regard. They implemented a vast amount of 'elements for the mass' instead of for the core fans, as a way to try getting as many new players possible. It was a strategy to gain mass appeal. However, what makes the Hitman series good is its appeal to core gamers, and many fans felt the lack of focus in that regard, which ended up making it struggle in sales." For reference, Hitman Absolution sold 3.6 million units (as of March 2013.) Though the figures aren't staggeringly bad, Square Enix clearly expected the game to perform better, due to the popularity of its predecessor Hitman: Blood Money. 

No doubt the president's comments are a result of a combination of factors: Hitman Absolution's missed sales targets and Bravely Default's strong sales (the game moved 200K units in its first three weeks).

What does this mean for Square Enix's future? "So, as for the AAA titles we're currently developing for series, we basically want to go back to their roots and focus on the core audience, while working hard on content that can have fans say things like 'this is the Hitman, we know.' I believe that is the best way for our development studios to display their strengths," stated Matsuda.  



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Top Comments
  • 13 Hide
    bebangs , April 3, 2014 8:11 PM
    most especially Final Fantasy series. This isnt the Final Fantasy we know.
Other Comments
  • 13 Hide
    bebangs , April 3, 2014 8:11 PM
    most especially Final Fantasy series. This isnt the Final Fantasy we know.
  • -8 Hide
    Free2play_noobs , April 3, 2014 8:21 PM
    Who cares about their crappy Kingdom of Hearts & Final Fantasy.Eidos is the real boss & their IPs .& I just want to see them separate from Square.because Square is destroying them by Square's delusional unrealistic goal Thief,Project IGI,Deus Ex what a memory .Those ,Just Cause,Tomb Raider ,Sleeping Dogs are the franchise that i want to see in continuation.
  • Display all 26 comments.
  • 6 Hide
    jossrik , April 3, 2014 8:27 PM
    I'm hoping that this comes through in the next FF title, and I'd like to see the next Kingdom Hearts come out good, from what I'm seeing, it's not looking great.
  • 4 Hide
    10hellfire01 , April 3, 2014 8:27 PM
    It's good they're coming out individually and acknowledging their mistakes; I admire that. It's better than the pure ignorance and arrogance thus far. Nadella has been doing the same with Microsoft, so it's been a good run this week in my opinion.They have been more hit & miss--more of the latter however. Sleeping Dogs was very good and so was Deus Ex: HR. The rest though I couldn't care for at all (I've been meaning to try out Tomb Raider though since a sale ages ago). Hitman: Absolution was sort of the game that had me lose any faith in them at all; I wouldn't have ever bought it but a friend decided to buy it for me.
  • 0 Hide
    mamasan2000 , April 3, 2014 8:53 PM
    I feel the whole 'focusing on an audience' is where gamecompanies make a wrong turn.Either the game is engaging and fun or it isn't. Regardless of audience.Focusing on an audience limits what you can do with a game and hence, limits the fun, the crazy but brilliant ideas etc.
  • 6 Hide
    palladin9479 , April 3, 2014 9:22 PM
    They need to focus on making fun engrossing JRPG's instead of these pseudo sci-fi games that the FF franchise has turned into. The jobs system is the core of FF, it's the whole reason the original Final Fantasy was so popular and saved their company. People still love that style of gaming, Bravely Default is an old school FF game in all but name and it's stupendously popular. Story lines with real character development and an easily identifiable "bad guy" are what made their older games so popular and fun. That and large amounts of stat whoring.
  • 0 Hide
    leeb2013 , April 3, 2014 9:26 PM
    Focus on the core audience, but he didn't mention who that is! Console, mobile or PC?
  • 5 Hide
    ohyouknow , April 3, 2014 9:27 PM
    Quote:
    They need to focus on making fun engrossing JRPG's instead of these pseudo sci-fi games that the FF franchise has turned into. The jobs system is the core of FF, it's the whole reason the original Final Fantasy was so popular and saved their company. People still love that style of gaming, Bravely Default is an old school FF game in all but name and it's stupendously popular. Story lines with real character development and an easily identifiable "bad guy" are what made their older games so popular and fun. That and large amounts of stat whoring.
    Truth.
  • 5 Hide
    palladin9479 , April 3, 2014 10:03 PM
    Quote:
    Focus on the core audience, but he didn't mention who that is! Console, mobile or PC?


    Those are platforms not audiences. I happen to have all three.

    What they are talking about is to stop trying to make generic games with features that appeal to multiple markets and instead focus each franchise on the game-play style it is best suited for. For Final Fantasy it means a return to hard core turn based or ATB JRPG mechanics where you have a central group of characters that embark on a quest to default "the big bad" and save the world. For SoM it means a return to action RPG mechanics mechanics that involve co-op battles. For games like TR it would be a 3D action platform with small elements of puzzles as you advance through some dangerous dungeon or another. Kingdom Hearts would be a JRPG with a lighter tone and gentler theme, more casual and less mechanics focused then the FF series.

    SE has been making the horrible mistake of thinking western gamers have radically different tastes then Japanese gamers and trying to make products for what they think are "western tastes", it's been failing miserably. SE isn't a western game developer, they need to stick to what they do best and just open sales up outside of Japan as gamers across the world will buy their products specifically for that flavor.
  • 0 Hide
    Achoo22 , April 3, 2014 10:07 PM
    If they're holding up the newest Hitman as an example of their biggest failures, then it is very clear that they have no clue how to succeed.
  • 4 Hide
    theje , April 3, 2014 10:26 PM
    So does this mean we're going to get the 3DS-esque remake of FF6 that we're all begging for? :D  :D  :D hint hint
  • 5 Hide
    jossrik , April 3, 2014 10:37 PM
    Quote:
    So does this mean we're going to get the 3DS-esque remake of FF6 that we're all begging for? :D  :D  :D hint hint


    I was hoping for a VII remake. The tech demo was a good start.
  • 0 Hide
    theje , April 3, 2014 10:42 PM
    Naw, Square admitted they won't do a FF7 remake until they make a better Final Fantasy, which leaves FF6 remake still on the table.
  • 0 Hide
    palladin9479 , April 3, 2014 10:53 PM
    They really need to stop doing high SF pseudo-modern day games with goth elements in them, we aren't hormone ridden teenagers anymore. Teenage angst with father figures filled with unreasonable expectations can only power a game series for so long. Spin that off into it's own franchise so we can get back to sword & sorcery, knight and mage style fantasy RPG's.

    And I hope they stop the development on FFXV and return to the drawing board as it looks to just be another FFXIII clone that's nothing more then a mildly interactive motion picture with really poor acting.
  • 1 Hide
    tomfreak , April 3, 2014 11:51 PM
    stop wasting huge advertising bucks on unreleated area and cut the development cost, then u dont have to set unrealistic sales goal. Seriously RPG Games ads on billboard/sport games? this is waste of money. I have seen ubisoft put Assasin creed ads on UFC boxing game lol Thats where I realise I should stop buying Assasin creed.
  • 1 Hide
    falchard , April 4, 2014 1:17 AM
    I think the core issue has more to do with 3 million copies not being enough. There was a time when selling over 1 million copies was a great achievement. The cost of producing the product is too expensive when you expect more than 3 million copies sold.The other issue with square-enix is that they are constantly neutering their sales by refusing to release on different platforms. They lock some games for a moderately sized platform like the PSP which is why they will see issues in sales numbers when you are only selling to less than 5% of the potential market.
  • -1 Hide
    jeremymcdev , April 4, 2014 6:13 AM
    http://cartcollectors.com/articles/final-fantasy-returns-with-a-new-name.php I wrote an article on this exact thing. I guess their CEO reads my work on a website no one goes to.
  • 2 Hide
    soccerplayer88 , April 4, 2014 8:01 AM
    I'm all for a company trying to get back to it's roots. Bring back the old school Squaresoft legacy! As long as they stop making their FF series into movies with a few button inputs I'll be happy.

    As a personal note, I've been waiting since 1997 for a great successor to Final Fantasy Tactics. WotL was a good start but I want more of that old school turn based tactical RPG.
  • 2 Hide
    10hellfire01 , April 4, 2014 8:03 AM
    Quote:
    I feel the whole 'focusing on an audience' is where gamecompanies make a wrong turn.Either the game is engaging and fun or it isn't. Regardless of audience.Focusing on an audience limits what you can do with a game and hence, limits the fun, the crazy but brilliant ideas etc.


    That's Marketing 101, plus works for nearly everything else. Look at the successful series' over the past 20 years, like Metal Gear Solid. It focuses on a very specific audience, and has done very well for each canon game released. Now look at the recent Capcom games. Why was RE5 relatively poor compared to earlier ones in the series? They tried to appeal to everyone and didn't focus in on what was really important; that only got tremendously worse with RE6.

    It's like doing a research paper. "I want to write about the history of North America." It's far too broad and unfocused--just setting yourself up for a big fall.
  • 0 Hide
    Christopher Shaffer , April 4, 2014 10:52 AM
    I'm sorry, but Hitman has always been a B-level series. That said, I'd love to see another Final Fantasy that goes back to the roots of the FFVII days of turn-based classics. Give me that an some Chrono Trigger on a modern platform (especially PC) and I'll be giddy as a school kid.
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