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Let's clear up the reason for Squaresoft's "demise" and why Square and Enix merged
- Thread starter anaron
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SenjutsuSage
Banned
All I know is they were a lot better with Sakaguchi than without.
See You Next Wednesday
Banned
Oh sweet justice.
Shogun1337
Junior Member
I didn't read OP's post, but doesn't Square Enix have some bigshot that's holding 20% of the company hostage?
I know, I know.
the thing is, I just wanted to highlight the fact that *financially* the company had recovered well from TSW instead of the common bankruptcy misbelief that forced the merger stuff.
It certainly was dying otherwise though, for sure.
That is not true though. SE has turned back to profitable quarters and this quarter should be no different with DQX's expansion, FFXIV ARR, LR (and WW sales), and FFXHD. You may not like their current library but they are now way in a 'dire' crisis.
Sir British
Banned
More like the FF movie crippled them, Sony helped Square with their recovery in the hospital, EA comes to drop some cookies off and let them know they are still covering for them (distribution deals of FFIX), Square made a good recovery, got to the hospital entrance and bam, Wada got a chainsaw and sawed off the leg.
Didn't even let Square leave the hospital.
Oh, don't get your panties in a bunch. I'm just hating.
Square back in the days had an overabundance of talent.
If you remember, Tetsuya Takahashi left Square right as the PS1 era was ending. He directed Xenogears, the Xenosaga games, Xenoblade, and now "X" for the Wii U. If you want to talk about Nomura, Itou, and Matsuno as amazing talent from back then, it would be a crime to leave out Takahashi. He's arguably as important as Nomura.
You guys should read this, it's fascinating. It's an Iwata Asks between himself, Sakaguchi, and Takahashi. They talk about Square back in the day, RPG elements, and JRPGs on the world stage.
http://www.nintendo.co.uk/Iwata-Ask...kaguchi/2-Going-Solo/2-Going-Solo-211236.html
If you remember, Tetsuya Takahashi left Square right as the PS1 era was ending. He directed Xenogears, the Xenosaga games, Xenoblade, and now "X" for the Wii U. If you want to talk about Nomura, Itou, and Matsuno as amazing talent from back then, it would be a crime to leave out Takahashi. He's arguably as important as Nomura.
You guys should read this, it's fascinating. It's an Iwata Asks between himself, Sakaguchi, and Takahashi. They talk about Square back in the day, RPG elements, and JRPGs on the world stage.
http://www.nintendo.co.uk/Iwata-Ask...kaguchi/2-Going-Solo/2-Going-Solo-211236.html
Xal-Shoota
Member
I just had to say this made me laugh out loud, because that's exactly what I said after scrolling through all that! It's so in depth that I'm just gonna take your word for it.
Was going to link that in the OP but I filled my word limit! LOL
It's a brilliant interview, people. Check it out.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
This thread has not gotten nearly enough attention. Fantastic work, OP. This is really great stuff.
RoninChaos
Member
Great read.
Memento_Mori15
Member
Perhaps the best OP I read on the gaming side of Neogaf. Thanks for this.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
i dont see how The Spirits Within isn't the catalyst here.
Wada was poison, but was only allowed in because of TSW.
Wada was poison, but was only allowed in because of TSW.
I remembered there being a follow up statement from Hiroshi Yamauchi.
January 28, 2001
Yamauchi later (after Hisashi Suzuki resigned) had to bribe Square to make a GameCube game.
AuthenticM
Member
They announced IX and X at the same time ?! That's crazy. It didn't, but it could have hurt IX's sales quite a lot.
tehrik-e-insaaf
Member
The Q Fund was hardly a bribe, Nintendo invested equity into GDS and this partially paid for the development of the one game for the Gamecube as Sony had an exclusive for mainline FF and had considerable influence over Square's revenue streams, so it was a way to work around the situation. The GBA games were developed outside of the Q Fund or GDS and were generally very profitable with Tactics selling over a million. SE eventually bought out GDS and made Yamauchi whole.
The reason it's never recognized is because the blame he is placing is incorrect. Yoichi Wada was an inevitability after Square's stock price continued to crater despite the investment by Sony and the success of Kingdom Hearts and FFX - they were having tremendous difficulty managing cashflows. The merger basically unlocked tremendous value in Square's stock and helped generate liquidity for shareholders. Had they not merged, the company would have continued to struggle with covering their development costs as their cash position was very poor and their in-house overheads were very high.
I was a shareholder in Square before the merger was announced and it was clear to me that they were going to have to go back to the market to raise more cash - instead the shares spiked up the day the merger was announced - to the point that the exchange stopped allowing people to trade shares of both companies due to speculation. Square received a premium of about 60% to the closing price, and then squeezed more out of it by the end because Enix realized that everyone was a winner - the combined value of the two companies was well above what Enix was giving up by providing more concessions to Square - Yoichi Wada basically ensured that Square's shareholders got the best deal possible at the time.
So the question is - would Square have survived without the merger with Enix? Maybe, maybe not. We don't know what they would have done without access to Enix'es pockets. They may have released more games with their existing cash position, possibly borrowed money from banks, or even gone back to Sony for another round of financing. Speculating about such things is useless because the vast majority of shareholders on both sides consented, and Square's shareholders were able to get out of the doldrums in terms of valuation.
charlequin
Banned
I'm not willing to buy into the model where when an American business fucks up, it's because a specific person was doing something wrong, but when a Japanese company fucks up, it's because of what ethnicity or nationality they are.
I think the fact that the stereotype about Japanese business was about how ruthlessly effective it was before their demographic crunch, and about how incompetent it was after their demographic crunch, points to the real causal factor behind the problems.
Yeah, sadly, Sakaguchi was an incredible manager of a big content-producing company, with a knack for finding and cultivating young talent, and an interest in building a diverse portfolio of games with a strong standard behind them.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
A lot of people who started with VII may not, considering VII-IX were fairly similar.
To add to that, there was more pictures and whatnot coming from game magazines for FFIX than FFX, the general thought was that FFX would end up taking a bit longer to come out, so might as well get FFIX.
DiamondDogs
Neo Member
I remember reading in 2003 (on ansemreport.com who else visited that site daily?) how Kingdom Hearts was suppose to be the backbone for Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
Square's biggest mistakes in my opinion have been from an outsider perspective:
1. Biggest crime is letting Tetsuya Takahashi walk. His vision for RPG's differed from the company in a good way. Now he's thriving with titles like Xenoblade and etc. This is the guy who could have diversified Square Enix instead of having them become dependent on mobile/FF sequels. If you give Xenoblade to the Square Enix marketing machine and called it Final Fantasy, the company's reputation would be seen as the forefront of Japan rather than a relic.
2. Reducing Yoshinori Kitase role. He directed amazing games and used technology to it's fullest. There's no reason his role has been reduced to a producer. Maybe he was burnt out but you're looking at one of the greatest minds in the company.
3. Letting Hiroyuki Ito walk. FF9 and FF12 were unique games and changed the formula. Wanna fix Final Fantasy's stagnated gameplay? Call his number. There's no reason he's sitting at home. I think his role best suited an experimental RPG game biyearly or so if I ran the company. He was ahead of his time.
4. Tetsuya Takahashi should have been brought back to steer Final Fantasy's staff. Look at all the time wasted with Final Fantasy Versus 13 and compare it to the Squaresoft PS1 era where they made FF7-FF8-FF9 at a quick pace. They have a joke of a commission dedicated to the quality of FF - in other words the job this man did for years. It's all politics why he doesn't have a job I assume.
The only thing keeping me loyal to Square Enix is Tetsuya Nomura. I love his style in gaming and I think he's taking FF15 in the right direction (more real time). He wasted a lot of his capital on Final Fantasy Versus and exhausting the Kingdom Hearts fanbase - in which case I think Takahashi would have stepped in.
If anything I said was wrong or my knowledge of where the companies main powerplayers is incorrect feel free to correct me.
Square's biggest mistakes in my opinion have been from an outsider perspective:
1. Biggest crime is letting Tetsuya Takahashi walk. His vision for RPG's differed from the company in a good way. Now he's thriving with titles like Xenoblade and etc. This is the guy who could have diversified Square Enix instead of having them become dependent on mobile/FF sequels. If you give Xenoblade to the Square Enix marketing machine and called it Final Fantasy, the company's reputation would be seen as the forefront of Japan rather than a relic.
2. Reducing Yoshinori Kitase role. He directed amazing games and used technology to it's fullest. There's no reason his role has been reduced to a producer. Maybe he was burnt out but you're looking at one of the greatest minds in the company.
3. Letting Hiroyuki Ito walk. FF9 and FF12 were unique games and changed the formula. Wanna fix Final Fantasy's stagnated gameplay? Call his number. There's no reason he's sitting at home. I think his role best suited an experimental RPG game biyearly or so if I ran the company. He was ahead of his time.
4. Tetsuya Takahashi should have been brought back to steer Final Fantasy's staff. Look at all the time wasted with Final Fantasy Versus 13 and compare it to the Squaresoft PS1 era where they made FF7-FF8-FF9 at a quick pace. They have a joke of a commission dedicated to the quality of FF - in other words the job this man did for years. It's all politics why he doesn't have a job I assume.
The only thing keeping me loyal to Square Enix is Tetsuya Nomura. I love his style in gaming and I think he's taking FF15 in the right direction (more real time). He wasted a lot of his capital on Final Fantasy Versus and exhausting the Kingdom Hearts fanbase - in which case I think Takahashi would have stepped in.
If anything I said was wrong or my knowledge of where the companies main powerplayers is incorrect feel free to correct me.
awesome thread & should be sticked.
amazing to think how different square would be today if suzuki & sakaguchi stayed on.
they were the heart of the company.
the loss of talent from this company has been incredible: sakaguchi, honne, takahashi, uematsu, iishi, ito, kato.
bloody hell.
amazing to think how different square would be today if suzuki & sakaguchi stayed on.
they were the heart of the company.
the loss of talent from this company has been incredible: sakaguchi, honne, takahashi, uematsu, iishi, ito, kato.
bloody hell.
Not just them. Hiroyuki Ito, Tetsuya Takahashi, Uematsu, and many more talented devs that all left over the years. I fear the next one will be Yoshi P. (XIV ARR).
Huh? VII-IX are pretty different with a few similarities.
In terms of how the games generally flow (mini character on 3D world map, battles are ATB-based, menu structure, etc) they are similar.
Yeah but there's still as many differences such as artstyle, OST, setting, world, characters, story, battle system, lore, etc.
I feel like the similarities you listed are still a lot smaller compared to the overall differences presented in each game.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
that's not a convincing argument. ATB was what made Final Fantasy a standout RPG compared to other turn-based games.
the very basic expectation of those three games was exactly that there was a world map, ATB, and the same menu structure.
The story/changed-up RPG-elements are what people played those games for. You may as well say that if you played FFVII you don't have to play FFVIII or FFIX cause they've both got world maps. That's ridiculous.
FFIX was the "throwback" game to the "Chibi" art style/traditional ATB games. And FFX was the "continuance" of the "non-chibi" art style.
I understand your point of view, but I'll have to disagree. How a game progresses mechanically shares about equal importance in its presentation aside from art direction, plot, etc. to me, so I can immediately see how VII-IX are similar in that regard. Not to say I dislike them - they are all great entries to the series that bring new ideas to the table. I'm also a massive Square fan though, so I'm not nearly as critical of the series as many others on GAF.
EDIT:
As I said above, I can see the point your making, but my own point was that, mechanically, they progress similarly, and for many people who started with VII (such as myself), the way VIII and IX progressed was immediately identifiable and comfortably similar. For many of these people, the shift to X and later XII may have been an unwelcome change.
But you can only say that mechanically each game was very similar. Labelling them as all similar isn't fair unless it's specified.
Even then, the change in X wasn't very big and only XII is where it changed drastically.
I did say above that I consider the mechanical presentation as well as the story/etc, so to me it has a big effect on the game, not in plot but in presentation. I'm not calling them clones of each other, just similar. I think that's a perfectly fair assessment to make. I consider X a large leap not only because of the graphical advancement but the addition of voice acting, no traversable world map, true turn-based combat instead of ATB, and swappable party members mid-combat as well as insane variety in combat areas (such as
the boat battle with Sin and later the battle on the airship against Sin.
EDIT: well, I went off on a tangent reminiscing on X's combat, but presentation-wise, many fans of VII-IX may have felt X's presentation to be, for lack of better word, drama-like (as in TV drama) in it's presentation. The shift in how the player traverses the world may also have had a negative impact on people. Not all or even the majority, but some.
Aside from the fact that I really wasn't planning to spend so much time reading about this particular subject, thanks very much for the thread! Very informative, and it's always great to see such a long list of different sources.
I'm sorry to focus on a relatively trivial point, but one tidbit that stood out to me:
What a joke. As of 2009, when he gave this response, nearly a million people had bought Chrono Trigger DS - a somewhat enhanced port that was likely badly overpriced. It had to be significantly profitable, right? But apparently it's laughable and weird that people are always asking about doing something with the Chrono Trigger brand because clearly it's not actually particularly beloved? What an amazing mentality to have.
I'm sorry to focus on a relatively trivial point, but one tidbit that stood out to me:
What a joke. As of 2009, when he gave this response, nearly a million people had bought Chrono Trigger DS - a somewhat enhanced port that was likely badly overpriced. It had to be significantly profitable, right? But apparently it's laughable and weird that people are always asking about doing something with the Chrono Trigger brand because clearly it's not actually particularly beloved? What an amazing mentality to have.
I was exaggerating about the "bribe" part, since it was an interest-free loan, but are you seriously saying that Sony's non-controlling share of Square required them to make an obvious shell company in order to make one GameCube game, while it was okay for them to unapologetically make GBA games?
The shell company was more likely required for an industry giant like Square to cheat the rules and participate in a so-called "indie" program.
You have to consider the narrative which I (among others) was responding to, which was that the bombing of The Spirits Within literally bankrupt Square, causing Enix to come in and scrape their remains off the pavement.
TSW apparently lost $52 million (after they willingly invested $137 million into it) and it put Square into the red for their first quarter in history. It didn't bankrupt a $1.8 billion corporation.
The Enix merger was on the table before TSW bombed, and the bombing actually had the opposite effect, scaring Enix away.
Hisashi Suzuki returned Square to it's normal, pre-TSW profitability, but Square was left with an image problem they couldn't control (which was reflected in the stock price), which cost Suzuki his job and allowed Wada to take over.
Some other little Sakaguchi & development details that might be of interest:
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy VII
Designed the original scenario and concept for the Lifestream
Wanted the game to be centered around Life and Death
Final Fantasy IX:
A: The upcoming Final Fantasy IX. This title (currently under development) is based on a reflection of all the previous works in the series. The coming installment is my "favorite," it's closest to my ideal view of what Final Fantasy should be. But, I've set my standards too high, so I think there's room for more Final Fantasy titles to come.
Destructoid: Sakaguchi posts his early FF IX script notes. These memos focus on the opening sequence of FF9 -- remember how great that was? Found during a hard disk backup, this memo is dated July 17, 1998. (http://www.mistwalkercorp.com/en/column/pg187.html)
Final Fantasy VI
http://www.edge-online.com/features/the-making-of-final-fantasy-vi/
Final Fantasy VII
Designed the original scenario and concept for the Lifestream
Wanted the game to be centered around Life and Death
http://thelifestream.net/weekly-famitsu-issue-no-1224-yoshinori-kitase-interview/
Final Fantasy IX:
A: The upcoming Final Fantasy IX. This title (currently under development) is based on a reflection of all the previous works in the series. The coming installment is my "favorite," it's closest to my ideal view of what Final Fantasy should be. But, I've set my standards too high, so I think there's room for more Final Fantasy titles to come.
Destructoid: Sakaguchi posts his early FF IX script notes. These memos focus on the opening sequence of FF9 -- remember how great that was? Found during a hard disk backup, this memo is dated July 17, 1998. (http://www.mistwalkercorp.com/en/column/pg187.html)
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2009/01/13/interview-with-a-legend?page=2
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
XI was announced at the same time too (though maybe you excised that because it's an MMO)
I remember the Square Millennium Conference.... 3 FF games on one day was huge news. Such a bright future back then.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
Then how does ffx's impending release dissuade people from wanting to buy ffix as the original theory was stated? We know that it didnt affect sales of either game.
KillerDark
Member
Great info OP, thanks for all the work you put in! Very interesting info
I wasn't talking about how X being announced at the same time as IX could have hurt its sales really, was just commenting on the 'anyone who plays Final Fantasy games knows they're all different' part. Sorry if I confused you!
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
They might be two of the more different FF entries of all time. FFIX was an intentional throwback to the early games, while FFX was intended to be the first entry of the future of FF, which intentionally ditched world maps, added voice acting, and dispensed with a lot of the series' tropes except in vague reference.
Back then, no one was worried about the sales of each cannibalizing the other. Fans were going to buy both, and we all did.
Yep we did. Good times they were.
Eric the Red
Member
What a horrifying quote. It's not just what he said but how he said it. The surprise, the cluelessness, the almost disdain for a title he doesn't see as exploitable. Square management is so out of touch. Things like this make their modern trajectory so understandable.
Having just read Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann's Last of Us post-mortem with Empire today, it's so much more refreshing having these kinds of creative, passionate people leading projects and representing their games rather than "Please be excited!" guy and whoever else SE has do interviews.
Great job OP!
Perhaps it is a blessing, lord knows how a "more sellable" Chrono Trigger game would need to be crafted. More sexual more violence is currently the trend for mass appeal.
Perhaps it is a blessing, lord knows how a "more sellable" Chrono Trigger game would need to be crafted. More sexual more violence is currently the trend for mass appeal.
And it's possible FFX-3 is trying to go there
ekka4shiki
Member
Awesome work OP. Very interesting. Looks like Wada is more of a catalyst to the merger than the TSW failure then.
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