Square Enix president wants firm to launch more diverse titles

pcgamesinsider.biz:

The president of Japanese publishing giant Square Enix, Takashi Kiryu, has said he wants his company's output to be more diverse.

In an investor Q&A – as reported by IGN – the exec said that the success of FuturLab's Powerwash Simulator has inspired the company to dream bigger. The lack of diversity in its line-up was one of two areas where Kiryu said Square Enix was falling behind; the other was weak marketing.

"Because we possess strong IPs like the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy franchises, I believe that we have tended to be overly reliant on certain gameplay styles or genres," Kiryu explained.

"Meanwhile, the tastes of customers in the gaming market have diversified, and customers have come to enjoy content from a variety of genres. Moreover, blockbuster titles are not the only ones that enjoy popularity. For example, our title Powerwash Simulator is somewhat of an outlier in our portfolio in that it is a game well suited for casual play, but we have been able to steadily build up our earnings from it."

He continued, replying to a later question: "As our customers’ needs and the types of devices available have diversified, we have tried to produce hits by developing a wide variety of titles rather than by focusing only on certain ones. I believe that this has resulted in the splintering of our resource pool. Meanwhile, there have been clear winners and losers among the major titles released recently in the gaming market, and it has become possible for even indies titles to make their presence felt. The market is increasingly polarized between blockbuster and indies titles, but I feel that we have developed many titles that fell somewhere in the middle. I want to make clearer distinctions going forward."

Powerwash Simulator has shifted over seven million copies to date.