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Square Enix explains former CEO's current role within company
Early this morning Square Enix clarified the role of former Chief Executive Officer Yoichi Wada within the company, after his name popped up as "Chairman" on company forms a couple of days ago – a surprising turn given Square's financial condition. A spokesperson explained The Square Enix Group's entire business and operations are managed and executed by Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd, the parent company. "Yoichi Wada has left the management of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd and no longer has any role in the parent company," the statement to Joystiq reads. "Currently, he is overseeing a portion of the business within Square Enix Co., Ltd (Square Enix Tokyo), one of the subsidiaries of the parent company. These businesses include emerging markets as well as social and mobile businesses." Wada's current job title is Chairman for Square Enix Tokyo. He does not hold the right of representation for the company. The note concludes: "He has no authority in terms of the management of the Group." Wada left the CEO position in March after the company's "extraordinary" loss; he was replaced by former company director and CFO Yosuke Matsuda.
Former Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada listed as Chairman of the Board
Former Square Enix Chief Executive Officer Yoichi Wada, who announced he would be stepping down as CEO in March after the company's "extraordinary" loss, has moved on to become... the company's Chairman of the Board. Square Enix's Japanese site has made note of the change. To give this a little perspective, if the CEO is the captain of the ship, then the Chairman of the Board is the admiral of the fleet. It's the job of the board to work in the best interest of investors. Given recent events, this is the part where you totally have permission to laugh or cry. Your choice. We've reached out to Square Enix for confirmation and comment. [Image: Chirtsova Natalia via Shutterstock]
Square Enix president Wada to step down, $106M 'restructuring' loss [update]
Yoichi Wada is leaving his post as Square Enix president and representative director, Square Enix announced this morning. Wada, who became the company's president and CEO in December 2000, is to be replaced by former company director and CFO Yosuke Matsuda. According to Square Enix's announcement, the change is "subject to a resolution" at the company's annual shareholders meeting in June, and a board of directors meeting held afterwards.The news coincides with Square Enix announcing further major revisions to its fiscal year forecasts, which the company attributes to its decision to implement major restructuring in the wake of "the rapidly changing environment of the game businesses." Square Enix expects the changes, which it noted as affecting development policy, organizational structure, and business models, to incur a total "extraordinary" loss of ¥10 billion, or around $106 million.However, Square Enix says the primary reason for the company's lower-than-expected results is the "sluggish" sales performance of its major games in western territories. When Square Enix announced its nine-month fiscal year net loss of just over ¥5 billion, the company said then it hadn't recovered the losses from earlier in the year because of "the increasingly difficult condition of the worldwide console game market."Today's forecast revisions show a dramatic turnaround for the company's yearly financials. For the fiscal year ending March 31, Square Enix is projecting now a net loss of ¥13 billion, or around $138 million, compared to initial forecasts of a net profit of ¥3.5 billion, around $37 million. The previous fiscal year, Square Enix posted a net profit of just over ¥6 billion.Update: GamesBeat is reporting Square Enix sold a number of its free-to-play games to privately funded start-up Sleepy Giant, with sources "familiar with the matter" saying four unannounced games were included in the deal. Neither party has announced the deal, with a Square Enix representative telling GamesBeat it doesn't "comment on any details for external development deals."
Square reaffirms existence of Versus XIII, continues not to show it
Final Fantasy Versus XIII, it seems, may still be a project in the works at Square Enix. After rumors this week put the game out to pasture, CEO Yoichi Wada tweeted last night, "It seems someone is spreading a false rumor about Versus being canceled." He added that he had just exited "a regularly scheduled meeting for Versus," and that "if you were to see the city etc. presented today, you wouldn't be able to stand from surprise."Wada's talk, of course, doesn't change the fact that the game disappeared over a year ago. Having been announced back in 2007 2006, news about the game has been spotty at best. It wasn't at this year's E3 Expo or at last year's Tokyo Game Show. The last trailer we saw was back in January 2011.The last news we heard was that the game was getting help from Square's gorgeous Luminous Engine – could that mean it's making the jump to next-gen? We don't know, but you should probably watch this Luminous Engine demo and think about that possibility for a bit.
Luxembourg software company suing EA, Square Enix, several others over patent infringement
What do Notch, John Riccitiello, Yoichi Wada, and Phil Larsen all have in common? A likely lacking fondness for Luxembourg-based software company Uniloc, who filed lawsuits against Notch's Mojang, Riccitiello's EA, Wada's Square Enix, and Larsen's Halfbrick recently (among others), contending that all the companies infringe on a networking patent held by Uniloc.The patent, US patent number 6,857,067, says that Uniloc has rights to a "system and method for preventing unauthorized access to electronic data," and Uniloc contends that the aforementioned corporations are infringing on that patent via Android-based games. In the case of EA, it's Bejeweled 2, and in the case of Square Enix, it's Final Fantasy III that's cited – if the game at any time communicates with a centrally owned server to legitimize its license, Uniloc contends that it violates the patent.Uniloc has a history of patent litigation over software. The company sued Microsoft in 2003, eventually winning. It has since filed suit against many, many other software manufacturers for other alleged patent violations.
Final Fantasy XI is the most profitable in the franchise
Behold the power of MMOs to generate a Fort Knox of income. Square-Enix announced that out of all of the Final Fantasy games from 1987 through today, Final Fantasy XI has been the most profitable. This comes from Square-Enix President Yoichi Wada, who was hyping the title over the weekend amid the news of its upcoming expansion. Wada also said that if you tallied the accumulated play time of all current FFXI players, you'd end up with a mind-boggling 200,000 years /played. Final Fantasy XI recently celebrated its 10th anniversary and announced its first new expansion in six years, Seekers of Adouli.
Square Enix CEO feels Final Fantasy 14 'greatly damaged' brand
Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada stated at a recent press conference that the Final Fantasy brand had been "greatly damaged" by the launch of Final Fantasy 14. "We'll continue with our reform work, which basically amounts to fully redoing the game, and hope to revive the FF14 that should have been released," said Wada, according to Andriasang (translating a report on Sponichi). The launch of Final Fantasy 14 for PC last year, even by a conservative measure, was an unmitigated disaster. A PS3 version never saw the light of day, as the publisher restructured the staff to fix, er, almost everything. Wada apologized for the game at that time and the title still hasn't implemented its intended subscription fee to this day -- and given the freemium trend in MMOs, likely never will.
Square Enix says FFXIV greatly damaged Final Fantasy brand
Square Enix has had a rough year since the launch of Final Fantasy XIV, and CEO Yoichi Wada acknowledged it frankly in a press conference today. "The Final Fantasy brand has been greatly damaged," said Wada. "We'll continue with our reform work, which basically amounts to fully redoing the game, and hope to revive the FFXIV that should have been released." The game is still without a subscription fee, and the team is churning out continual fixes and updates as it strives to repair and undo the damage. Patch 1.19 is the next round of fixes and additions planned by Square Enix.
Square Enix head Yoichi Wada sees a gaming future in the clouds
Tokyo Game Show 2011 is officially on, with today's keynote, delivered by Square Enix prez Yoichi Wada, kicking things off. Despite Mr. Wada's position at the JRPG giant, he's here speaking as the chairman of the Computer Entertainment Software Association, which means he had some pretty high level content to get through in his speech. In fact, his keynote is named, "The Nature of the Industry Revolution of Games." First and foremost, he's all about the cloud. No, not that Cloud, but the one that allows for remote gaming. "I think the cloud is a real revolution," Wada explained. In his eyes, he's got a variety of electronics with "huge processing power" -- processing power that could be harnessed for new gameplay experiences. "If you could concentrate such processing power on the cloud, then there's going to be a huge paradigm shift," he added. As for when this "paradigm shift" will happen, Wada is less clear. According to his presentation, he expects a move in that direction anywhere between now and 2015. In the meantime, he believes we're only just now experiencing the first in several new waves of change in the game industry.
Square Enix earnings drop, lack of 'major title releases' to blame
Square Enix reported a quarter that's likely to have executives as irritable and glum as the protagonist of your average Final Fantasy game. In the quarter ended June 11, the company reported net sales of ¥24.5 billion ($312 million), down 25% year over year. Net income was down 62%, at ¥690 million ($8.8 million). "In a quarter without major title releases," said president Yoichi Wada, "our Group's sales and profit were lower compared to the previous fiscal year. At the same time, however, we are making solid progress toward our targets for the full fiscal year ending March 2012." As far as successes, Wada named the browser-based Sengoku Ixa and Nicotto Town (above) -- services exclusive to the Japanese market. The rest of the fiscal year is also surprisingly Japan-focused, with only one game scheduled to be released from the Eidos side of the company between now and March, namely Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Also due in the west: Final Fantasy XIII-2 (January in North America, "Early 2012" in Europe), and Dragon Quest spinoff games Fortune Street and Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2, both published by Nintendo.
Square Enix's Wii U tests don't necessarily involve Dragon Quest X
Yesterday's report that Square Enix is considering a version of Dragon Quest X for Wii U has been clarified by the site that first brought us CEO Yoichi Wada's comments, made to a group of investors. Apparently the company is working with the Wii U tech, but that's a completely separate endeavor from Dragon Quest X for now. So, while it's possible that you may still see Dragon Quest X on Wii U, Square isn't saying one way or the other. Frankly, we'd be happier to see something made from the ground up for the unique console. And are we angry that we were lead astray? No, friends, we're not. Sometimes, things just get lost in translation. In fact, that's the subject of our favorite Bill Murray movie, which is Garfield.
Square Enix considering Wii U-compatible Dragon Quest X [update]
During a shareholder meeting, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada noted that Square Enix is considering a Wii U version of its upcoming Wii RPG Dragon Quest X. According to a transcript of the proceeding, an investor asked Wada if he believed it was time to make the game for Wii U instead of the original Wii. Instead of releasing it only on the successor system, however, Wada said that Square Enix was in the midst of "technical investigations" on how to support Wii U, and stated that the company "must consider" compatibility with both systems. While the Wii might be on its way out, Enix's SOP with the series has always been to wait for an established, high-selling platform to emerge, and then put the game on that. A multiplatform release would be enough of a break from that tradition; we wouldn't expect Square Enix to stray so far as to launch the game only on a new platform. [Update: The blog that provided the transcript has since clarified the statements, reporting that Wada was talking about Wii U experiments separate from Dragon Quest X, and not DQX on Wii U.]
Square Enix working on a new MMO
It's been a tough year for Square Enix, but the studio isn't down and out just yet. On the contrary, during a recent earning briefing CEO Yoichi Wada mentioned that the company is developing another title to be run alongside Final Fantasy XI and XIV. While the details are scarce, Wada said that this goes along with the company's strategy to run two to three MMOs at the same time in order to maintain a strong cash flow. According to the report, Square Enix is focused on developing several new IPs in addition to strengthening its current lineup. Wada said that the new game will be announced by April 2012. This doesn't mean that the studio is abandoning its promise to bring Final Fantasy XIV up to par, a focus that Wada says remains a priority.
Square Enix profits plummet, but loss avoided to close out 2010
The potentially lucrative holiday quarter -- Q3 of Square Enix's fiscal year -- didn't bring a slowdown to the publisher's sinking profits. Instead, the company slid closer to landing in the red as 2010 came to an end. For the nine months ending December 31, 2010, Square Enix today reported a net income of ¥1.821 billion ($22.33 million), a 76.6 percent decrease in profits from the same period the year before. When the iPhone port of Secret of Mana is perhaps your most significant release during the holidays, what more can you expect? Accordingly, net sales in the nine-month period were also down year-over-year (though just by 27.5 percent) for the business, which (aside from games) includes amusement, publication and merchandising products. Speaking of games, the holiday quarter didn't push any additional Square Enix titles into coveted "million-seller" status -- only Kane & Lynch 2 and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 (Japan only) have reached a million in sales during the company's current fiscal year (ending March 31, 2011), and both had done so by the end of last September. "Responding to intensifying competition in the console game market, the company has implemented organizational changes in the third quarter while also working to better select and further strengthen our most competitive titles," Square Enix president Yoichi Wada offered in a short statement accompanying the financial report. "In other platform areas including PCs and smartphones, we have created successful examples of new content such as Nicotto Town and Sengoku Ixa," Wada added. "By pursuing these two independent markets, we are raising our ability to succeed in diverse business models." So diversified has Square Enix become, in fact, that this is the first we've ever heard of these two "successful" projects! [Pictured: Nicotto Town; image source: nifty.co.jp]
Final Fantasy XIV team restructuring, PS3 version delayed
We've got bad news and we've got worse news. First, the bad news: The PS3 version of Final Fantasy XIV, originally due March of next year, has been delayed indefinitely. The worse news is that it's been delayed because the PC game is such a disaster. In an announcement released to the FFXIV community, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada apologized for the fact that the game isn't very enjoyable ... and then said that the FFXIV team is restructuring, with new leadership stepping in. Producer Hiromichi Tanaka is out, with Naoki Yoshida taking over as producer/director, and many other positions are also being restaffed. The new team is now working on "a concrete plan outlining Final Fantasy XIV's new direction." Until that new plan is implemented, the game's free trial period will continue. And so, with the PC version currently a directionless mess, Square Enix wisely decided not to base the PS3 version on that, but instead on whatever the post-restructuring game will be. There's good news, then: Square Enix stopped making what would have been a terrible PS3 game.
Square Enix staff restructuring, seeking "new direction" for Final Fantasy XIV [Updated]
Square Enix dropped a bomb on its fanbase early this morning with an announcement of a staff restructuring, a plan for a completely new direction for Final Fantasy XIV, and a delay of the PlayStation 3 version of the game. Producer Hiromichi Tanaka has stepped down, leaving behind an apology to fans for the "inability to fully satisfy users with the initial release of Final Fantasy XIV." Taking his place as Producer/Director is Naoki Yoshida. While this change received the most attention in the announcement, there are nine other managerial changes taking place to create an entirely new core team for FFXIV. What will this team be working on? President and CEO Yoichi Wada says that there will be a new direction for the game: "we ask our customers to be patient until we are able to confidently present them with a concrete plan outlining Final Fantasy XIV's new direction. The free trial period will be extended until that time." While the extended free trial is nice for fans, those anticipating the PlayStation 3 release are going to have to wait a bit longer: "Regarding the PlayStation 3, it is not our wish to release a simple conversion of the Windows version in its current state, but rather an update that includes all the improvements we have planned. For that reason, we have made the difficult decision to delay the release of the PlayStation 3 version beyond the originally announced date of March 2011." [Update: Seems something similar is happening to the FFXI team as well.]
Square-Enix working hard to "regain trust" with players and investors
It's been a rocky couple months for Final Fantasy XIV. Due to extensive feedback from the playerbase and mixed reviews, Square-Enix extended the free trial period for new players to a full two months -- a rarity in the industry -- as the company worked to shore up FFXIV's weaker points. Due to all this, Square-Enix has been watched closely by investors and players regarding the future course of the game. President Yoichi Wada recently stated during a money report that the company is doing all it can to improve the situation: "We're quickly working on reforms... We'd like to put our full power into regaining trust." Eurogamer reports that FFXIV has sold 630,000 units worldwide as of September 30th, including 230K in Europe and 210K in North America. According to IGN, FFXIV was the third-best selling title from the company in the past six-month period. Square-Enix points to a couple bright spots in the near future -- a partnership with China's Shanda Games and the upcoming spring 2011 release of Final Fantasy XIV on the PS3 -- that should help boost sales.
Final Fantasy XIV, like Nixon, can in fact go to China
The Chinese market for MMOs is immense, but it's also a market that's proven remarkably resistant to foreign intrusion. (We don't need to recount the whole saga of World of Warcraft over there.) But in addition to launching nearly everywhere else, it looks as if Final Fantasy XIV will also be going into the Chinese market in a partnership with Shanda Games Limited. This comes after Square-Enix CEO Yoichi Wada had mentioned a year ago that the company wished to pursue business partnerships with companies inside mainland China. Shanda Games Limited will most likely be operating the servers for the game, which will remain separate from the "normal" servers -- the only region-locked servers that the game is currently set to have, as a point of fact. There's no word on when the game will launch, either, simply that it is in the pipeline for release thanks to the new partnership. The rest of the world, of course, will get to start enjoying Final Fantasy XIV on the 30th (or the 22nd with the collector's edition). [Thanks to FusionX for the tip!]
Square Enix 'looking into' Xbox 360 release of Final Fantasy Versus XIII
During an investor meeting in Tokyo, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada indicated that the company is considering a multiplatform release for Final Fantasy Versus XIII. An attendee asked Wada about the possibility of putting the currently PS3-exclusive Fabula Nova Crystallis game on Xbox 360 like Final Fantasy XIII, in order to boost sales outside of Japan, to which Wada responded (according to Andriasang's translation) "We'll be looking into it internally until right before the formal announcement." Wada did not mention when that "formal announcement" would take place. E3 is coming up, so it's entirely possible Wada is building up to that, having expressed his hope for an E3 unveil previously. But we've given up on expecting this game to become real any time soon. When it stops existing only in secret trailer form and becomes an actual, playable game, we'll be shocked, regardless of the platform (or platforms). Update: Wada responded on Twitter (via Andriasang) to speculation about his comments: "It looks like the 'net is heating up. Versus on Xbox? What I said at the earnings press conference was just that until a formal announcement is made at the announcement time, all points about all titles are not finalized." In other words, he is stressing that Square hasn't made any decisions.
'Chocobo Panic' hits European trademark office
Square Enix has filed for another Chocobo-branded trademark in Europe. Adding to the still mysterious "Chocobo's Crystal Tower" trademark application, the Final Fantasy publisher recently filed to secure "Chocobo Panic." In addition, Siliconera notes that the "chocobopanic.com" domain is registered to none other than Square Enix president Yoichi Wada. Chocobo Panic sounds like a name for a downloadable puzzle game, but until we know for sure, it's more fun to imagine a game in which Final Fantasy characters become terrified to ride the giant birds after a series of Chocobo attacks. Players would choose either a Chocobo-scarred hero, who must figure out how to reach accord with the birds while also saving the world from an ancient evil (or something); or the brave leader of the Chocobo faction, who, in an RTS-like scenario, mobilizes his flightless charges while keeping morale up with yummy Gysahl Greens. [Via Siliconera]
