Square Enix Games Will Now Focus on Core Gamers
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.
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.
I was hoping for a VII remake. The tech demo was a good start.
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.
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.
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.