Square Enix CEO Resigns; FFX Fans Rejoice

April 2, 2013 by John 84 Comments

Square Enix has been kind of lousy for a while now, but finally the company’s CEO Yoichi Wada is stepping down. He’s been steering the company for over a decade, and in my opinion Square/Square Enix was much better off with Hironobu Sakaguchi back in the day, but things change, and Square Enix is in trouble. So what brought about this sudden resignation and what are Final Fantasy X fans so excited about?

Is there Hope for Square Enix?

wada So the main reason that Yoichi Wada is resigning is because Square Enix has had a really crappy time this generation. Their previous fiscal year was reported as an extraordinary loss. That’s bad.

Final Fantasy XIV was a massive failure, FFXIII sold well but had a generally mixed to poor reception, and the same goes for XIII’s sequel. Even my last hope for the company, Dragon Quest, is starting to crap out with DQX which is a MMO for NO RAISIN. FFXI and FFXIV were lousy! Square Enix! Stop making MMOs! You’re not good at it!

To be fair, it was announced in 2012 that FFXI had become the most profitable title in the Final Fantasy series. While that may be true given that monthly subscriptions really add up fast, it doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t like the game and view it as the depressing turning point for the series.

final_fantasy_xiii_2

Needless to say, the company’s long overdue for a major change. They’ve lost much if not all of their former glory. Instead of releasing great titles and classics like the old Final Fantasy games, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve, etc – they’re dribbling out poorly selling games like Sleeping Dogs, XIII-2, and Hitman: Absolution.

Sure, some games of theirs end up being highly rated and doing well, but I just feel like Square Enix has lost their identity somewhere along the way. Sure, the latest Tomb Raider looks like a cool game and seems to be doing well so far, but that game is only under the Square Enix name because they acquired Eidos, the company that originally published Tomb Raider. Square Enix was even responsible for publishing Call of Duty: Black Ops II in Japan (what?). I know, I was surprised too. This company is all over the place.

Call-of-Duty-Black-Ops-2

Anyway, they need to overhaul the company and refocus and reprioritize and all that other good business stuff. Synergy. Good news is that they are doing just that. Only bad part is that by making all of these restructure changes they’ll be losing about 10 billion yen (over $107 million). That’s a lot of cash.

To make matters worse, Japanese RPG developers in general have been catching some flak for not keeping up with the times and modernizing for a worldwide audience. Stuff like this is part of the reasons that Japanese RPGs don’t make it to America like they used to. Games such as Dark Souls and Monster Hunter are exceptions to the rule here, but on the whole JRPGs are not received as they once were.

You’ve Changed, Final Fantasy… You’ve Changed

ffxiv-is-bad “I never realized… how bad of a game we are…”

The Final Fantasy series in particular has taken a plunge. The games are selling less and less copies and Square Enix has been having trouble getting them out in a timely manner. FF Versus XIII was unveiled over 6 years ago and there’s not even a demo yet. FF Type-0 was released in Japan about a year and a half ago but still has yet to see an international release.

For some unknown reason, Square Enix plans to relaunch FFXIV as Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn. JUST LET THE GAME DIE, SQUARE ENIX. Seriously. I’m tired of it clinging to what little life it has. They’re also coming out with another FFXIII sequel called Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13. Again, I have no idea why. The other FFXIII sequel was pretty mediocre, why continue down that road? Not enough people like these games for them to keep releasing sequels and spinoffs.

New CEO = New Hope?

Hope Needless to say, the new CEO, Yosuke Matsuda has his work cut out for him. I know next to nothing about him other than he was the company’s representative director before, but hopefully he’s up to the task. He’s got a long hard road ahead of him.

In my opinion, Square/Square Enix started to crap out around the time Hironobu Sakaguchi left the company and around the time Wada became CEO. How much blame should go where and all that is anyone’s guess. Is Wada solely responsible for Square Enix’s troubles? Probably not, but he was the figurehead and he’d lost face as the leader.

ffxi

Final Fantasy X was the last FF game that I really, truly enjoyed. It was the last FF game released under the Square name before they became Square Enix, and I choose that game as the last reminder of Hironobu Sakaguchi in an attempt to forget that he was mainly responsible for FFXI being a MMO *shudder*

So why are FFX fans rejoicing as I mentioned in the title? Well, some might be holding out hope that with the CEO stepping down, Square Enix might return to the glory days it enjoyed leading up to FFX – but there is another reason FFX fans are happy. FFX is getting an HD makeover.

Aw Yiss, FFX in HD

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev5HrygFUYM']

Since most of this post has been kind of a depressing rant (sorry), I thought I’d leave you with some much happier news. Final Fantasy X is getting a rework. While not everyone likes FFX, I know I do, and I am definitely looking forward to playing it again with some smoothed up visuals.

FFX was the first Final Fantasy on the PS2, the first with significant amounts of voice acting, and also the first to warrant a direct sequel, even if the sequel wasn’t all that impressive (FFX-2 is getting a rework too btw). The HD remaster will be released on both PS3 and PS Vita, many thinking it will come out around June or so. I for one can’t wait to get my hands on it.

So tell me, are you excited for an HD remaster of FFX/X-2? What do you think about Square Enix’s current situation and Yoichi Wada stepping down? Do you see a bright future ahead for the company? Let us know in the comments!

About John

Economist, Ohioan, feeder of dinosaurs.

E Tracy

I could care less about Final Fantasy, just give us Kingdom Hearts 3 already :P
DAVIDPD

Final Fantasy was a big part of my childhood! Maybe they can actual make a sequel, instead of making more remakes. And if they insist on making more remakes, VII, or GTFO!
Brad Garrett

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of remastering. I have the game–I’m not going to be fooled to buying the exact same game again, but I’m sure that it will sell like hotcakes. Square has been releasing bad and mediocre games recently, and that’s been very bad to see. I hope that changing out the CEO is for the better. Also, I’m looking forward to FFXIV being redone. I’ll be beta testing the new version this weekend–I have high hopes for it.
John

As long as the remaster doesn’t cost too much ($10 or so) I won’t really mind paying for it. Otherwise I might just have to dig up my old PS2 copy and fire that up instead.
Ahmed

I’m definitely excited about FFX HD. By far, the best Final Fantasy released.
http://www.tofugu.com koichi

I’m only here for the Blitzball
Tuna

Amazon says that FFX and X-2 will be out in December. Don’t know how much they can be trusted though.
Drew

You could be a mathematician and could care less about math.
You just said it’s possible for you to care less about Final Fantasy. LOL GRAMMARFAIL
http://www.facebook.com/jaclyn.carnegie Jaclyn Carnegie

I know that Final Fantasy 11 is outdated as an MMO, but it’s interface works well for me because I don’t have to memorize a hundred tiny icons for spells and abilities. I also don’t like newer MMO’s attempts to bring in button mashing game elements because I lack speed and coordination. I will never gain much of either of those by practice because I have muscle and nervous system problems. FFXI also is more challenging than many, I don’t like worlds where it is just too easy to do everything. I will be sad when this game is no longer supported because a good RPGMMO that doesn’t expect me to have the button mashing skill of a healthy caffeinated 13yr old will be hard to find.
http://twitter.com/RMIGaming Christian

I’m stoked for X-2. X was a great game, but I played it already.
http://twitter.com/Cupucuups Hamyo

I’m here just for lightning from FFXIII :D but really nice articles jhon. it’s rarely tofugu post about game review :)
http://okonomikatsu.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/kelsey.lynn.589 Kelsey Lynn

Okay, sorry but I didn’t like much of X. I LOVED the characters though. X2 was annoying and kind of mediocre as well. Personally, I think the fact that they’re redoing X and X2 is reminiscent of, “WHY WON’T YOU LET XIV DIE?!”

I mean…I don’t want them to let X die, it was okay. But why not remaster a game that had more of a fan base, that didn’t already had BADASS graphics (for it’s time, and even now I think they’re still pretty darn good), or awesome voice acting? Why not remaster one of the older FF’s like…one between 4-7. I mean, when the PS3 came out they were there to tease us with a reworking of the opening scene of VII. So…I just don’t understand u.u

Hopefully they will get back to the good ‘ol JRPG days and start making stuff like they used to. And that makes me feel old saying that. But I sure would like them to make things that my nieces can/like to play or my friend’s kids, or even my own friends that haven’t ever really played very many Square games. I hate telling them to look forward to or try a new Square release and then it be total crap. My boyfriend heard all about XIV and XIII/XIII2, and he played X (which he said was okay), and I was the hardest time getting him to play I, II, and III.

Even if they went back to Tactics style stuff I’d be okay with that. (And is it just me, or is all of their stuff that gets good reviews lately is their handheld games and mobile games? Maybe they just need to apply those teams to their console games XD)
John

Aw man! I hope it’s not that long :(
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=5217484 Linsey Edn

I agree mostly with this review. However, I completely disagree with your take on Square-Enix’s Western offerings. Acquiring and publishing games like Batman: Arkham Asylum, Sleeping Dogs, and Hitman: Absolution were a great idea. The company expanded to include a stronger Western audience, which has overtaken Japan in this latest generation of consoles. It’s unfortunate what has happened to Final Fantasy. But Japanese developers have spewed out junk in the last several years. Perhaps there may be an excellent head of Square-Enix in America that is completely the opposite of his Japanese counterpart, i.e. knows what he’s doing.
http://twitter.com/zacharywalz Zach Walz

I consider myself more of a purist (I love FF4 and 6 the most), but I thought FFXIII was good and I actually liked FFXIII-2. But I just WISH they would release traditional RPG style game instead once in a while!

I’m surprised they haven’t tried to rehash Chrono Trigger or Secret of Mana–those were unique styles and I think they’d do well updated and modernized.
Mescale

waka waka waka.
http://www.facebook.com/james.doster.77 James Doster

FFXI was/is awesome, it has more active users than wow. I would love to play XIV, but I don’t have the pc or ps3 to play it.
jdawg

I just wish ffx in hd was coming out for psp too, cos I dont have a ps vita or ps3 sssoobbbb
John

Do you have a link to the FFXI vs WoW numbers? I feel like that’s not possible, lol.
johnydony

Hi koichi, i like how you try to temper your sayings but be assured that most of FF fans feel the same as you do. everything > FFX is not awfull but there’s not even an inch to be compared with FFXs.
FFX is the last real FF for me too even though i’d like to salute the game developers’ work because no matter how we liked (or not) those episodes, programin work is quite impressive
johnydony

And SquareEnix : It was a Kawai morning until you ruined it with > FFXs
:p
kyong

woah woah, sleeping dogs was an awesome game – I loved seeing all the details in hong kong. and just finished tomb raider – pretty awesome also (even if they didn’t have much to do with making it :P ). Although I agree with all the FF’s after FFX, none of them could keep me hooked past a couple hours. snooze.
http://www.facebook.com/lava.princeton Lava Yuki

Super excited about FFX remaster! It was my first FF, and 2nd favorite (X-2 is my fave). XIII was ok, XII was awesome, but its been going downhill since X and X-2.
Acedio

I’m hoping for a 360 release of FFX!
John

I never said Sleeping Dogs was bad – it actually looks pretty cool – it just didn’t sell all that well from what i saw.
John

Koichi didn’t write this, I did :’(
Tom

I didn’t see any mention of Kingdom Hearts (testing the waters here… Love it or leave it kinda game) The main titles were fantastic with the spinoffs being mediocre (Birth by sleep was pretty cool though, albeit the same worlds for the hundredth time) I think those games incorporated the right elements (I’m all for RPG’s but sometimes, its just fun to pull off combos in mid-air whilst completely defying physics.) If Square enix wanted to play the popularity game, they would release 3. Since Square enix is known mostly for being the RPG powerhouse, they are waiting for new technology/inspiration to weave new tales with. I thought DIssidia was a much needed game (gameplay only. I skip the cutscenes since they are drier than dried milk). The economy is a big part as well… but everyone is lagging because of that. All in all, Square enix could step up their game, but I won’t be any more poignant than that on my criticism of them. :)
pinkxstrawerry

Blitzball!!!!!
E Tracy

And people know not of the “figure of speach”….
John

It’s not necessarily a bad idea, it’s just really weird for me since I grew up on Square RPGs so in my mind that is the company’s identity. It’s very strange to see an “RPG company” publishing games like that. Know what I mean?
John

I enjoyed the first two Kingdom Hearts games for what they were, but after that I just couldn’t stay with the series.
HatsuHazama

Please, dear Lord, I hope Square Enix runs out of hope. One whiny 14 year old is enough.

It’s true Squeenix have been going downhill, but it happened ages ago. I’d say it started right about… when Square Enix formed. FF10 probably only survived by having started development with Squaresoft, but who knows.

Now they seem to try and operate as a business just assuming their product will sell, employing various money making strategies (coughallthebravestcough), but they’ve seemed to neglect the products themselves (coughallthebravestcough).

I still enjoy what they produce on handheld consoles (NOT smartphones) though, I think it’s one area they may actually still have some dignity left in. Hopefully, they can get back on track, but till then, I’ll be here playing my copy of Versus 13OHWAIT.
Patrick Henry de Dios

Wait, isn’t FFX under the Square-Enix name already?

I know that FF9 is Hinobu Sakaguchi’s last FF title before leaving the company.
ZXNova

Ride ze shoopuf?
http://twitter.com/_DiamondEdge Vinícius Fabiano

Yeah, he’s it pretty far off. FFXI had 500.000 subs during it’s prime, and nowadays I doubt it has more than 100.000 active subs. It’s still extremely profitable (and easily explains both DQX and FFXIV: Square wants moar monies)

That said, FFXI is actually one of the best games of the series storyline wise (tho the gameplay was way too old school even for it’s time.), and FFXIV under Yoshi-P was vastly improved and I have huge expectations for ARR (the undergoing beta did not disappoint)

You know, I feel a bit sad whenever fans of the series ditch those games without even giving a try.
John

Nah, FFX was still Squaresoft. And while Sakaguchi’s final role as game producer was for FFIX, he was still executive producer on X, XI, and X-2.
Valin

FFXI was my favorite FF in the series, but we could argue what’s good and bad all day haha. Instead, I’ll leave a little something interesting and relevant to this site! :P

FFXI had international servers and when I first started there were mostly Japanese players. This game is actually what sparked my interest in starting to learn Japanese. I learned hiragana/katakana, so I could talk with my Japanese friends using something more coherent than their “auto translate” function. Now, like 5 years after I’ve stopped playing, I still keep in contact with many of my Japanese friends from that game and I’ve actually met a few of them when I went to go visit Japan. So I thought FFXI was great practice for Japanese.
古戸ヱリカ

Jeez, John, it’s not like there was any way of knowing that, aside from the line directly below the title. And the info box at the end.
古戸ヱリカ

Dear New Squeenix Boss Man,

I have been very good this year. Please bring me a new Star Ocean game. And a sequel to Chrono Cross. And you know, a new game in the style of Legend of Mana wouldn’t hurt, either. Seriously.

Love, Furudo Erika
John

I played FFXI for a while back when it first came out. I had fun with it in the beginning but after I got past a certain level and wasn’t so wowed by the novelty of everything, I just wasn’t having fun anymore. And being able to level-down? Man, that sucked. I’ve played every FF game except for XIV, but I’ve watched a friend play for a while. If I liked XI more I probably would have given XIV a shot, but the reviews were just so bad that I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
John

It’s like I don’t exist D:
John

That’s awesome. Yeah, when I was playing FFXI I only knew a few words in Japanese so I didn’t really get to communicate with any Japanese people besides “Hi, how are you?” lol
http://twitter.com/_DiamondEdge Vinícius Fabiano

Yeah, XI was perhaps too hardcore. It got a good niche crowd, but saying it got nowhere near as many subs as WoW is madness.

And release XIV was near unplayable, anyone who says otherwise is fooling himself. But, like said, ever since Yoshi-P became director, it has been on a neverending upward dive. That guy knows what people want in a final fantasy game.
Patrick Henry de Dios

Ah. Thanks for the clarification. ^__^
John

It would be awesome if the final product is worth playing. I’m not holding out any hope on this one, but man – it would be great if XIV gets its act together.
http://www.facebook.com/steven.morris.186 Steven Morris

I’m not getting my hopes up too much. However, I think this is good news.

When the current CEO came about he was pretty straightforward about his game-plan: remakes, sequels, etc. That concept may have paid off in the short-term, but in the long run it has created quite a dent in their reputability as far as I’m concerned.

As far as the FFX remake goes– again, it’s a remake! I’m just hoping after it gets released then they can focus on something more progressive. I didn’t care for X anyways.

The ENIX half of Square-Enix has also apparently been mostly about the remakes. However, that may have been good for America with DQV & DQVI. I would have bought DQX had it not been an MMO. I’m happy to hear that I’m not the only one who is not thrilled in the least about that.

I have most of the old games (that they keep remaking), and from my perspective it’s not worth getting new hardware for one or two new games that I’m interested in.
http://www.facebook.com/james.doster.77 James Doster

Sorry, did that one one my phone. I meant had. When it comes to subscriptions, I think FFXI peaked at over 2 million subscribers, but I wasn’t talking subs, I was talking about active users. People that log in and play, day to day. At one point they had at least 200k-300k users signing in on a daily basis. I’m sure it’s not the case now, but at one point (not tooooo long ago) that was more than what WoW was averaging. What caught my eye was the shudder comment. FFXI was a solid game. It was my first real experience with an mmo, and I started playing in Sept. 2004. Quite a few of my friends and I played it on a regular basis. If you really only played it when if first came out, and are basing your opinion on that alone, I’m sorry. I’m sure only having 8 base jobs to choose from could have been a bit of a drag after a while. I’m not in the this mmo vs this mmo camp. I played ffxi off and on for 6 years and loved every second of it, I played WoW once for an hour, and I still wish I had that hour back, but that’s just my personal experience. Like I said, FFIV, I can’t critique, I haven’t had the chance to play it, I wish it were more available to me, I don’t have a very up to date pc, nor do I have a ps3, But it looks amazing. If they could get the kinks worked out, I would make it happen to play it, just to try it out and see how I like it. But don’t get me wrong man, I appreciate you writing this article. I love what all of you guys and gals do. Keep up the good work.
http://www.facebook.com/james.doster.77 James Doster

I remember playing so late that I had to get really good with the auto translate to compensate for the english speakers going to bed, and the Japanese players logging on. What was cool was that I noticed that the japanese players had a different way of going about the game than most westerners. Like instead of (as a party) going only after Incredibly tough, they would just chain the hell of of Tough and Very Tough creatures, and amass soooo much exp, I loved it. Some of my all time favorite parties were with Japanese players.
Valin

I plan practicing this way with FFXIV too, this time around I’ll actually be able to communicate thoroughly since my Japanese is infinitely better since my FFXI days haha.

As for the other stuff. I mean I guess I can understand from a business standpoint why SE is taking the direction they are, but as a fan I am also disappointed. Ultimately their goal is to make money though, so they’ll be doing whatever it takes to do that, even if it isn’t in the best interest of the long time fans :(
Valin

Give it another shot with the revamp, I’ve played both the original release and the alpha/beta of this new one. It’s not even the same game anymore, I think you’ll be surprised at how much better it is now.