Zer0-Sum
01-09-2008, 10:07 PM
As one of the biggest Japanese developers around, Square-Enix is always looking for new ways to expand its reach, and now the company has foreign territory in its sights. Company president Yoichi Wada has gone on the record to state that the company is looking to expand and is targeting the European market.
Square-Enix is certainly no stranger to the Western world, as the company has enjoyed huge sales for western localizations of its noteworthy franchises Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, amongst other software. Strangely, Wada's intention to look outside of Japan comes as a result of the shrinking "core" demographic of gamers in Japan. With the Wii tearing up charts in Japan, the "hardcore" demographic that supports Square-Enix's franchise is "weak" right now, whereas in Europe and North America the equivalent demographic is strong.
Citing the strategies of Capcom and Sega, Wada noted that Japanese expansion to the outside world is likely to continue to increase at a more rapid pace, and that many Japanese developers and publishers are beginning to market heavily to the Western World.
Square-Enix is currently in the planning stages of this new Western-bound future after previous discussions on the topic arose in September, but Wada notes that "mergers and acquisitions is not necessarily our main [expansion] method, but obviously it has to be deemed as one of the main strategy options. If we were to look for a place in the top three in the global games industry, obviously we would have to consider it seriously."
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/01/09/square-enix-targeting-europe-for-expansion
Bring it SE, bring. I want then to open a studio here in America so I can try to get a job with SE with out moving to Japan. That would kick ass.
And what games will they try to market towards us in the West? Can anyone here imagine a Japaneses SE made FPS? I would like to see stuff like that happen. I know one thing, it would look BEAUTIFUL. They need to move out of the J-RPG market. SE could make try to make Action/Adventure Platformers a la Ratchet and Clank for example. if they want to really get the attention of more kinds of gamers in the West then they need to make more different types of games.
Square-Enix is certainly no stranger to the Western world, as the company has enjoyed huge sales for western localizations of its noteworthy franchises Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, amongst other software. Strangely, Wada's intention to look outside of Japan comes as a result of the shrinking "core" demographic of gamers in Japan. With the Wii tearing up charts in Japan, the "hardcore" demographic that supports Square-Enix's franchise is "weak" right now, whereas in Europe and North America the equivalent demographic is strong.
Citing the strategies of Capcom and Sega, Wada noted that Japanese expansion to the outside world is likely to continue to increase at a more rapid pace, and that many Japanese developers and publishers are beginning to market heavily to the Western World.
Square-Enix is currently in the planning stages of this new Western-bound future after previous discussions on the topic arose in September, but Wada notes that "mergers and acquisitions is not necessarily our main [expansion] method, but obviously it has to be deemed as one of the main strategy options. If we were to look for a place in the top three in the global games industry, obviously we would have to consider it seriously."
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/01/09/square-enix-targeting-europe-for-expansion
Bring it SE, bring. I want then to open a studio here in America so I can try to get a job with SE with out moving to Japan. That would kick ass.
And what games will they try to market towards us in the West? Can anyone here imagine a Japaneses SE made FPS? I would like to see stuff like that happen. I know one thing, it would look BEAUTIFUL. They need to move out of the J-RPG market. SE could make try to make Action/Adventure Platformers a la Ratchet and Clank for example. if they want to really get the attention of more kinds of gamers in the West then they need to make more different types of games.