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Square Enix: exclusivity war is officially over; LA studio to go DLC |
Listed in: Tags: Downloadable Content, Japan, John Yamamoto, Los Angeles, PlayStation Network, Square Enix
So. Square Enix has finally set up shop in Los Angeles. I'm sure some of you are getting ideas now - wanna apply, eh? Well, whether you fancy having Square Enix US president John Yamamoto as your higher up or not, it pays to know what direction the company is charting for the future.
Going 1s and 0s. With the new LA studio in its infancy stage, the bosses want this new branch of theirs to start relatively small: downloadable titles. Speaking to an interview with GamesIndustry, John Yamamoto reveals that DLC games are the way to go (for now):
All formats - Xbox Live, WiiWare, PlayStation Network - are all viable formats for us. We started the in-house development team a couple of months ago and we're starting with downloadable content because the team is still small.
Gradually, I want to expand that team, and also evaluate lots of middleware, because western middleware is much more advanced compared to Japanese middleware. So we will study and feed back information to Square Enix in Japan.
(By the way, if you are interested in sending in your resume to the LA studio, apparently, they're currently working with a skeleton crew of three members - whoa! - and that they hope to expand to as much as thirty staffers within a year.)
Doing a MySpace, only with devs. LA studio besides, it looks like Square Enix is starting to broaden its horizons. After The Last Remnant's use of the Unreal Engine 3 (a first for SE!), the company is now looking at forging stronger alliances with other devs in the west. And just recently, they got rights from Gas Powered Games to pick up Supreme Commander 2.
I think itÂ’s always good to introduce new ideas, techniques, and processes into the company in order to stay on the cutting edge. The Last Remnant was the first time we had built a game using an outside development engine, and it taught our developers to find new and creative solutions in order to achieve their objectives.
We're not only working with Gas Powered Games, we're also contacting multiple studios in England, other European countries, and the US and Canada. We're talking with other studios right now.
We are interested in studios that have their own established IP and we're also interested in creating new IP as well.
Platform-exclusivity. A dead thing. They've started with FF13... Is the time for platform exclusive officially over? According to Yamamoto, platform-exclusivity is really a thing of the past now.
I really believe so. Not so long ago the PS2 dominated the market so if we developed an exclusive game for PS2 then we could enjoy a very good profit. But that time is already over. To maximise and spread our games to as many users as possible I think we have to go to multiformat - the Xbox 360, PS3 and also the PC as well.
The Japanese market is very strong and back when we could concentrate on developing games for just one console, business was very good. But the one-console market is over
Ooh, some pretty bold statements there. I'd be quite interesting to see how Square Enix will be keep to these plans.
Related articles:
- Now hiring: Xbox 360 and Wii dev teams for US Studio -Square Enix
- Square Enix to publish Supreme Commander 2
- Sony on Xbox 360 exclusive DLC: "nothing is ever exclusive"
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Sony Fans - you may hate this because in your warped minds you somehow believe Square only belongs to you.
Ms Fans - You may be happy and think you have won but the truth is we all have won.
Nintendo Fans - You don't whine as much a the other two but it seems you will no longer be neglected by one of the best Game developers/publishers known to the gaming world.
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yet another reason for my arguments against exclusivity, and this time it's coming from square.
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Kind of a pity, I was thinking KH3 would be a ps3 exclusive, but doesn't look as such anymore. I like franchises that stick to their roots.
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I don't think Nintendo's been neglected tho. After all, the DS received all three the 3D remakes of some previous FF games. I'm sure a lot of RPG fans also wished Square Enix brought the remakes to the PSP too, and maybe now, that's possible if they pull through with this new strategy of non-exclusivity.
Imagine. If they continue remaking the previous FF games, we could eventually see FF6 remade for the DS and PSP! How sweet is that?! ^_^
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However, I read some comments here that got this article all wrong. SQUARE is looking to kill exclusivity. Exclusivity IS NOT dead all around.
We will still see plenty of exclusive titles hit the shelves. First party anyone?
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in the past about their claim when ps2 dominate the market, if they have what they said in mind at that time all games made by them would have been multi platform. there's not only the first gen xbox but also gamecube. but they choose to go exclusive. to broaden audience they are saying, you dont choose to do it only now. it could have been done long ago. MegaDrive sells really well last time too, but they choose to only make games on Nintendo platform. so seriously all these are just PR craps. only idiots would believe these bullcrap nonsense from them.
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But in the context of Yamamoto's statement - and where he's coming from - it goes without saying that he's talking about the third party industry.
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other than pricepoint for many parents, gamers who dont look at price look at games that are available to them by buying that cosole. Therefore ur comment is stupid, competition is good.
good thing is this should open sony's eyes on investing on more their own games
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I know multi-platform is smart buisness sence....but exclusive games always end up better. Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses and need to have games developed very differently from the ground up.....if they were to fully utilize both systems, games AND release the games at the same time, games would take almost twice as long to develop....and there would be differences between them.
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