State Of The Squenix Address [Getting Back In The Game]

For the few of you out there who don't know, Squenix has come under a bit of a bind. In 2006, Squenix sold a modest 6.1 million units in the U.S., which can be attributed to the release of Final Fantasy XII, and made a very nice profit in doing so. However, in 2007 that number dropped hard to only 3.7 million units sold in the U.S. This caused the company's profits to drop a dismal 20%. In Japan, however, the sales went from 7.2 million to 7.5 million units sold over the two years. So what has been causing so much trouble for the company here in the U.S.? Well the rise of the "Western" RPG of course. The rising popularity of the Western RPG means big competition for our beloved developer.

This could first be seen with the creation of the now popular term "JRPG" or Japanese role-playing game. So you're probably thinking "what's wrong with dividing the genre into categories?" Well, with category comes prejudice. It is now the "majority" view in the U.S. that JRPGs simply recycle the same formulas over and over again with no innovation. This is mostly untrue as many of the JRPGs we have been seeing within the past few years have shown a great deal of uniqueness and innovation. Examples of this would be Eternal Sonata for the 360, or Final Fantasy XII for the Playstation 2. Both of these games showed a great deal of change from the rest of the pack, but they were still branded with same silly looks many Americans give JRPGs these days.

I honestly believe this, as well as the whole "hardcore" versus "casual" gaming debate (which is another story entirely), to be the doing of Microsoft and their Xbox franchise. By using their media "hype machines" to pump up such games as Mass Effect and Fable here in the U.S., they are attempting to defame the traditional RPG by saying what they are offering is "new" and "cool." Now there is nothing wrong with pumping up a product, but defaming the origins of the genre is not the way to go about it. That, of course, is beside the point and just my humble opinion.

So what is Squenix going to do about this you ask? Well, Squeinx headman Yoichi Wada stated late last month that the company needed to break away from their traditional image.

"We face competition not only from Japanese video game companies but from game companies worldwide. We also see some new players from outside the video game industry coming in... Economies of scale and breadth of scope is getting important. It may be a business alliance or it may be us taking a stake in others, but we need to go beyond traditional Square Enix."

Well you heard it, more business alliances and other corporate "how-do's" are in the works. Could their name possibly be any longer? Anyways, the company has started their "changes" by greatly increasing the number of projects they are working on. If you aren't keeping up with them, they have a huge lineup to be released within the next year ranging from cell phone games to classic remakes. This is all in an attempt to increase overseas sales from its current 50% to 80% in the next three years.

The only downside to this, as you may have noticed, is a drop in the quality of games. Don't get me wrong, some of them have been great, i.e. The World Ends With You and Dragon Quest VIII, but others have been terrible. I mean, while I respect their efforts to infiltrate the Action genre, there is just no excuse for the atrocity that was Dirge of Cerberus.

So in closing, although Squenix is making an effort to move away from their "traditional" image, they really need to slow down enough to make sure they are doing what the fans really want. Personally, I'd love to see a remake of Final Fantasy VII or Chrono Trigger. There is nothing wrong with tradition. Tradition is warm and familiar. But slapping Final Fantasy on every new idea isn't going to add to anyone's reputation. Especially the franchise's.


A big thank you to nJoo for the opening artwork: http://njoo.deviantart.com/

And Kotaku.com for the technical information:
http://kotaku.com/