Japanese powerhouse Square Enix recently held its 43rd annual shareholder meeting, and management answered a number of investor questions. One of the things that came out of the Q&A session is that some investors are unhappy that there are longer gaps between major releases compared to other companies of the same size and status. Square Enix’s management responded by saying that they wanted to strengthen their internal development organization in an effort to combat this. They say that in turn they hope this will “promote the development of not only major titles, but also new IPs under a new management team.” The investor also asked the company about the company’s plans for remasters and remakes and emphasized that he would like to see a Xenogears remaster. Management responded by saying that they are currently “considering various ideas within the company” and that investors should look forward to their upcoming announcements.
In the company’s existing business, it has longer gaps between game releases than its peers. Even if the quality of its titles is high, these long gaps seem to affect sales. What do you think about the release schedule of the big future titles?
“I’ll refrain from going into detail, but I will say that we believe that strengthening our internal development organization will be beneficial as the difficulty in developing major titles becomes extremely high, which also has implications for development time. We hope that this strengthening of our organization will promote the development of not only major titles, but also new IPs under the new management team.”
Final Fantasy I-VI Pixel Remaster” was well received. Are there plans to remaster other past titles? Personally, I would like to play “Xenogears.
“We will refrain from sharing information about new titles, but we are considering various ideas within the Company and we hope you will look forward to the upcoming announcements.”
