News
Square Enix boss worried company is too insular
Ed Fear May 27 2008, 11:30am
Comments (4)
Developer will start axing jobs unless it becomes more mainstream, say rumours
Square Enix honcho Yoichi Wada has allegedly issued an ultimatum to staff: unless the company stops making non-mainstream games, job cuts will follow.
According to Kotaku's 'company insiders', the order came during a 'fierce meeting over a month ago' regarding the company's recently-released 2007 financial year results, in which it was revealed that Square Enix's profits had dropped 20 per cent and that it had only sold 3.7 million games in the US in FY2007, compared to 6.1 million in FY2006.
Following the financial year results, Wada said that the company "needed to go beyond traditional Square Enix", hinting at a wider portfolio of titles to come in the future. The company already publishes several casual games in Japan developed by external parties, but so far none have been published in the West.
Comments
“Oh Oh”
Posted by: ralahinn1 - May 27, 7:43pm
Sounds like Wada is about ready to put his foot up someone's butts
“Re: Oh Oh”
Posted by: Anon - May 29, 11:14am
At least, if you got fired by him at Square Enix, you could say 'Wada way to go!'
“Re: Re: Oh Oh”
Posted by: juuken - Jun 6, 10:12pm
I now see what he's trying to say. Instead of making these ridiculous remakes and even stupider games for cell phones, they aught to be making completely new games. That means that they better get their asses into gear and work on FFXIII and Versus.
“Wrong move”
Posted by: Darkflame - Jul 19, 12:58pm
1. Make new games.
That new game-in-a-game ring-style horror game for the DS looks *excelent*, more like that please.
2. Stop making over the top expensive cutscene-filled games. Thats NOT the same as making cheap, tacky "casual" games. Good games can still be made for lower budget then square normaly goes. Quality dosnt increase with budget linerly, it falls off steply after a point.
"completely new games. That means that they better get their asses into gear and work on FFXIII and Versus."
You have a strange deffinition of "completely new" :p