Square Enix President Yosuke Matsuda recently spoke with Nikkei Trendy (thanks to Siliconera) and said that he publisher had “lost [its] focus” in recent years. Matsuda-san said that Square had been trying to hard to create mass-market titles and would be focusing again on what made them so popular: JRPGs.
“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 said. “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.”
Matsuda-san was happy to throw specific titles under the bus.
“The development team for Hitman: Absolution really struggled in this regard,” Matsuda said. “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.”
“Bravely Default… ended up selling well all around the world,” he added. “For the new games we’ll be developing from this point on, while this may sound a bit extreme, we’ve been talking about making them as heavy JRPGs. I believe that way, we can better focus on our target, which will also bring better results.”
Are you happy with a JRPG-centric Square Enix, or do you prefer titles like Hitman: Absolution, Tomb Raider and the upcoming Murdered: Soul Suspect?
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