Square Enix plans for the future, Doom and Gloom

[Yggdrasil]

Square Enix's New Plan: Spend way less money, work on smartphones, dev regional games -- NeoGAF

Square Enix to focus on smartphone games as part of future strategy -- Siliconera

[Klyde Chroma]

wow that is some grim news...

i've waited so many years (as many others have) to see ff6 reincarnated. now its damn near certain that if/when that happens its gonna be on a platform that completely ruins the freakin' experience for me.

bummer indeed.

[Dice]

Whatever, can they please focus the remaining staff that isn't the 5 [max] you need for iPhone games and maybe the 10-20 you need for social games to work on Versus and the final-fucking-Kingdom Hearts game?? 

I guess this means more years without remakes of the "better" FF games (honestly think a remake of a good title might be better than the flaming garbage that FF13 turned into).

[Yggdrasil]

By the way, the "Doom and Gloom" part of the title is just a reference to every fan on the Internet crying about a bunch of stuff (for good and bad reasons).

Personally I think that while their plans are pretty much the same as the old one was I'm still salty with SQEX for being so stubborn to not even release Type-0 as a Digital Download on PSN, then again, SQEX would never release such a big title like that anyway.

I guess this means more years without remakes of the "better" FF games (honestly think a remake of a good title might be better than the flaming garbage that FF13 turned into).

The XIII series is alright for what it is, people being all annoyed with those games is just a long story of misunderstandings and nostalgia. And like I've said before many times, no matter what SQEX does people is always gonna be angry at them. *shrug*

[Dice]

^ fair enough.  But that doesn't save all the neurons that stopped activating after playing FF13-2.
The battle system is fun, I'll give it that, but it's almost transparently obvious that Squeenix has no idea where the fuck they're going with it and an obvious recycling of content probably with the loss of a lot of resources poured into it.
FF13 Series plot this far:
Renegades on a distant moon --> Time-travel anime hour with Serah Chan and Noel Kun --> Majora's Mask.


I can't see FFType-0 getting PSN treatment, not only by this point but probably a fear of piracy which has in no way been over-exaggerated.
But I'll stake a million bucks that the first wiff we get of an HD/International version, we'll see *that* come Westward.

[Yggdrasil]

The battle system is fun, I'll give it that, but it's almost transparently obvious that Squeenix has no idea where the fuck they're going with it and an obvious recycling of content probably with the loss of a lot of resources poured into it.

XIII became a trilogy mainly because SQEX had problems developing others HD titles and all that time, money and effort couldn't go to waste just like that. Hell, as far as I know Final Fantasy XIII started being a thing back in 2004 or so.

I can't see FFType-0 getting PSN treatment, not only by this point but probably a fear of piracy which has in no way been over-exaggerated.
But I'll stake a million bucks that the first wiff we get of an HD/International version, we'll see *that* come Westward.

Type-0 is the new Final Fantasy V in a nutshell.

[Annubis]

SE is an out of touch with its audience company who lost most of its talent and never had any plan to train or replace that lost.
They 'go with the flow' of what's selling and take little to no risk.
They are going away from AAA development because they know that it's a dangerous game and they don't have what it takes to play it.

As I see it, if it wasn't for Eidos, their financial situation would be abysmal.

[Akanbe-]

I can't see FFType-0 getting PSN treatment, not only by this point but probably a fear of piracy which has in no way been over-exaggerated.

Yeah, probably =\.  If they went the PSN only route, I would think the brand name would carry enough weight to get people to buy it off PSN.

[Yggdrasil]

@Annubis: Can you specify what kind of audience SQEX has? Because is all over the place for what I've seen over the years.

[Annubis]

Well, they used to have a strong jRPG audience, but as you said, since they follow "what's cool/safe" they've gathered a bit of everything.

An easy jab would be « FPS are so hot nowadays, we totally need to make one of those! » =P

[Tankallex]

Focusing on tablets and smartphones? That's their plan? Its as if they are trying to alienate their fans further by focusing on the worst platform in the history of gaming.

[insertnamehere]

Focusing on tablets and smartphones? That's their plan? Its as if they are trying to alienate their fans further by focusing on the worst platform in the history of gaming.

Is it even worse than Virtual Boy?

[Annubis]

Actually, speaking of losing talent. Some GAF person made a giant post about it:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=57667690&postcount=1

Is it even worse than Virtual Boy?

I rented the VB for a week when I was younger and I think it's why I started wearing glasses ;)

[Dice]

Actually, speaking of losing talent. Some GAF person made a giant post about it:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=57667690&postcount=1

Is it even worse than Virtual Boy?

I rented the VB for a week when I was younger and I think it's why I started wearing glasses ;)

^ Was the point of the post to indicate how even after leaving Squeenix things haven't been that hot??
I definitely agree with earlier sentiments here, without Eidos, I'm pretty sure we'd have lost Squeenix by now. :P

[GuardianBoi]

At the very least, I'm glad this strategy didn't involve the production of Final Fantasy 13-4! Haha!

It is a grim future for Squeenix if they believe the best money they can make if from Apps. Don't get me wrong, I REALLY hope this means they are working on the Chaos Rings series more. Because that really is a fantastic game series. And I do enjoy Final Fantasy Dimensions. As well as I'm sure I'm going to enjoy the remake of FF5. But it just feels like they are going backwards. Instead of taking some risks(like a huge, fabulous remake of FF6 for PS4, for example), it seems like they are just giving up.

Oh well, I guess we'll just see what happens...