Square-Enix Clairifies Position After Financial Times Interview
After a recent article in the Financial Timeswhere Square-Enix's senior vice-president, Michihiro Sasaki, declared its desire for a U.S. publisher to help it increase its sales by 50% over the next 3 years, the company felt it should clarify some things. Yoichi Wada, the President and Representative Director of Square Enix Co., Ltd, said the company recognizes their growth opportunities now that their overseas markets are three times as large as their domestic. What is their strategy? Read this:
"Our strategy to seize such opportunities is two-fold; (i) strengthen our own distribution channels developed by our local subsidiaries in these geographic areas, and (ii) diversify our content in accordance with user preferences in each area. Through these strategic initiatives, our initial goal within a time frame of three to five years is to raise our foreign sales ratio for console/handheld games from its current 50% level to approximately 75%. We shall continue our effort to better serve overseas markets.”
Might diversifying their content based on user preferences in each area mean more or less games? I, for one, would like more of what only gets released in Japan, but I don't know if the rest of North America is like that or not. ...or could that mean they might start developing new titles altogether? On that, I am not too clear, but if you would like to speculate, speculate in the comments. Just make sure to clean up after yourself.
Full press release after the jump.
Square Enix Comment on Overseas Business Development
Tokyo, Japan, (September 28, 2007) – Square Enix Co., Ltd. today made a comment to clarify its position on overseas business development.
“It is crucial for us to expand our businesses on a global basis,” said Yoichi Wada, President and Representative Director, Square Enix Co., Ltd. “At this point, our revenue from sales of games for console and handheld devices in overseas markets such as North America, the PAL territories and Asia accounts for about 50% of the total revenue in this segment. Given the fact that the size of overseas markets is now more than three times as large as the domestic market, we recognize numerous growth opportunities. Our strategy to seize such opportunities is two-fold; (i) strengthen our own distribution channels developed by our local subsidiaries in these geographic areas, and (ii) diversify our content in accordance with user preferences in each area. Through these strategic initiatives, our initial goal within a time frame of three to five years is to raise our foreign sales ratio for console/handheld games from its current 50% level to approximately 75%. We shall continue our effort to better serve overseas markets.”
Super Timsy
Posted to Video Games on 29 September 2007
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: Square-Enix, Yoichi Wada
I think releasing Japanese content to the rest of the world would be a huge success;Although we've seen they are slow to do so, if at all. See "Project Altered Beast". A HUGE Sega hit in the 90's with little to follow it up in the States. Although we did get that fun... GBA game "Guardian of the Realm"...
Cases in point, DDR, Cooking Mama, Wario Ware, etc.
ohhhhh SquareEnix For the love of god!!! just give the people what they want-
FINAL FANTASY VII PS3 REMAKE
I will give you MUCH MONEY for this item what part of that do you not comprehend?????
Well if Square Enix really wants to diversify in accordance with the preferences of overseas markets, they'll have to start making more multi-platform games. For example, they should look into bringing Final Fantasy XIII (and Versus, etc.) to the Xbox 360! Platform exclusivity really can't be helping them at this point, especially with the current position of the PS3 in world markets. Sure, they are bringing 360 gamers Infinite Undiscovery and The Last Remnant, and I am of course very excited about those games and looking forward to them immensely, but really I do not want to have to buy a PS3 just to play the Final Fantasy games! Am I a big enough fan that I actually would buy the system just for those games... probably. But I wouldn't be happy about it.
All you dreamers... Personally, I really think that "diversify our content in accordance with user preferences in each area. " means "make games that american gamers buy". Japanese gamers tend to be more on the fantasy/role playing games; hence so many of them are released there, regardless of how bad they may be, that never see light of day here, and games that traditionally do insanely well here (Madden, NBA, FPS, to name a few series/genres) don't really translate to Square Enix's strengths.
Probably what this means is Squeenix will start developing games that appeal more to American gamers. I don't think that Square will be making a Baseball game to rival MLB, but it probably will be developing more action games with less emphasis on the fantasy in those games.
let's face it, what Square is really saying here is "America, why aren't you buying Final Fantasy 1 for the 5th time like Japan? come on, we're poor, help us out!"
sure, Square will make a boat-load of money off a Final Fantasy VII remake. maybe then people will realize how hackneyed the plot was, and then they will need to pick a new number in the series to milk until it bleeds itself to death.