Final Fantasy developer Square Enix have released their Financial Results for the end of the Japanese financial year, and it seems they're going through a big change in their strategy.
While they have numerous titles available on PC, plenty of which work great on Linux and Steam Deck thanks to Valve's Proton, they do have a habit of doing exclusives and they publish quite a lot overall. However, they've announced a new "medium-term business plan" which covers the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025 through the fiscal year ending March 31, 2027 that they're calling "Square Enix Reboots and Awakens" as a plan for long-term growth.
Part of this plan includes the move from "quantity to quality" so they can "strive for a regular launch cadence, focusing its development efforts and investments on titles with substantial potential to be loved by customers for years".
Pictured - FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE INTERGRADE
This plan involves a "Shift to a multiplatform strategy" for HD titles (meaning major consoles and PCs) as they "will aggressively pursue a multiplatform strategy that includes Nintendo platforms, PlayStation, Xbox, and PCs". But they also said they will include the "possibility of PC launches" for their SD titles (those meant for mobile and browsers).
For those of us on desktop PCs and handhelds, it's again good news, as they said clearly in regards to expanding digital sales that "the Group will engage in initiatives which focus on the acquisition of PC users".
So the hope is that we should see far more same-day (or close to it) releases on PC for Square Enix games.
Interesting that we have Square Enix just generally looking to expand across more platforms and slow down a little for quality, while EA just want to put adverts in your games.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
FutureSuture May 13
None of their Japanese games as far as I am aware, however.Releasing their games on GOG would be a pleasant surprise.They do release some games on GOG but not all, unfortunately.
None of their Japanese games as far as I am aware, however.Releasing their games on GOG would be a pleasant surprise.They do release some games on GOG but not all, unfortunately.
Well, they have Front Mission 1 and 2 but yes, no JRPGs or anything else from them.
monster hunter is another big hit...It is, but it belongs to Capcom.I'll throw Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Romancing SaGa, The World Ends With You, and all their sequels into the list, plus once-famous one-offs like The Bouncer and Rad Racer, to replace that one.
You're totally right about Dragon Quest, by the way!
woops! i said i was out of touch when it comes to the gaming industry, monster hunter was from another company lol
johndoe86x May 14
Yeah, I found myself thinking "So, just new iterations of big blockbusters, then."What exactly do these people consider "quality", I wonder.
Yeah every time a AAA company says something like "quality over quantity", what I hear is "we are spending even more on a handful of big franchises in the most popular genres instead of doing anything new or creative or investing in more diverse games".
The thing is, aside from FF, I don't know what blockbusters Square Enix has left... Eidos was behind the Deus Ex and Tomb Raider franchises and it was sold, along with the ips...
Would absolutely love if Soul Reaver got the Rebirth treatment.
CyborgZeta May 14
Probably a controversial opinion, but multiplatform is the way to go these days.Sounds totally reasonable to me!
Exclusives no longer make sense to me. They were fun back in the 6th Gen Console generation and earlier, but just seem old-fashioned today.The only exclusives that ever made sense to me were first-party platform-holder ones, as the entire point of them was to establish and retain a userbase - and perhaps to some degree to set the tone of the company's product-line.
When third-party content became exclusive for any reason other than hardware constraints between wildly varying machines (which stopped being an issue after the 32-bit era), it was just moneyhatting that led directly to some of the problems we have today, in my view. The way that some folks are reacting to Square-Enix ditching exclusivity is really quite shocking and "tribal"!
Probably a controversial opinion, but multiplatform is the way to go these days. Exclusives no longer make sense to me. They were fun back in the 6th Gen Console generation and earlier, but just seem old-fashioned today.
The only problem with that outlook is the first-party exclusives tend to be the AAA show piece system sellers, which also tend to be the strong single-player narrative games, ala Horizon Zero Dawn. Frankly, I have a hard time seeing the justification for companies to continue to make games like that if exclusives (at least of that nature) stop being a thing.
Honestly, the recent Microsoft business is a good example of not needing or wanting strong AAA system sellers.
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