Square Enix To "Aggressively Pursue" Multiplatform Strategy, Includes "Nintendo Platforms"

Square Enix incurred a ¥8 billion loss in the last fiscal year despite the release of both FFXVI and FFVII Rebirth, this is completely unsustainable and the shift to a full multiplatform release strategy (that include Nintendo platforms) was inevitable.

This tells me that there might be an actual good sale on the FF Pixel games at some point in the future xD

Give us Mario RPG 2 and Mario Sports Mix please!

Also good they're choosing quality over quantity! Quality has been going downhill in the gaming industry, so I hope they stay true to what they said.

@AlanaHagues "build an environment where more customers can enjoy our titles" seems to have been quoted twice!

Should be interesting. Nintendo has been a fair amount of work on publishing many of the Dragon Quest titles overseas (IV-VI and IX on DS, VII-VIII on 3DS, the original release of XI S and numerous spin-offs) as well as a number of SE titles (the 3DS Bravely series, the initial Live-A-Live remake Switch release) so I'm curious as to whether SE will commit to this

Edit: although I understand the DQ series is a unique situation where it gets licensed out to SE

They lose money cause their NFTs and mobile micro transaction plan doesn't work and now they blame it on consoles. Dude just make good games and the money will come. Stop making garbage like Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier, Balan Wonderworld, Foamstars, Ever Crisis, Forspoken, Babylon's Fall, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Avengers. You're an RPG and console focus company, make RPGs only for consoles, not mobiles. Your fanbase come to you for the RPGs, they're not there for a Splatoon ripoff, a NiGHTS ripoff, a Fortnite ripoff, an Elder Scrolls ripoff, or a license action game. Give your fanbase what they want and you will succeed.

I'm still waiting for Dragon Quest Builders 3 on PS5.
Also, ported of Chocobo GP on PS5 with all contents inside the disc, no micro transactions, smooth 60 fps is very welcome.

@Serpenterror Whoa, Guardians of the Galaxy wasn't garbage! GotG catching strays out here.
As for the rest of the list, carry on lol
Though I think SE got rid of Eidos Montreal, so it's kind of a moot point.

I seriously don't understand why SquareEnix has been so persistent with releasing timed exclusives on single platforms in the past.

@Zaruboggan It was garbage on Switch. Why else would I mention it here?

"Quality over Quantity"

Have we learned nothing from the Atari and LJN days?

Will this mean that either Sony or SE refused the acquisition? Maybe Sony stopped giving them money on things like FFVII R and Splato… Foamstars

Hopefully this means that the Final Fantasy VII R games stop being exclusive to PlayStation for a year or more, they actually port Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece Collection to Nintendo's next system, and break the Epic Games Store chains on the PC versions of the KH games!

Square’s job at this juncture is not a difficult one: focalize fan favorites and release them when they’ve met a high quality threshold. That’s it.

@Serpenterror Oh god, I forgot cloud games even existed lol.

As for your question... Were Babylon's Fall, Forspoken, Ever Crisis, Foamstars, The First Soldier, and Avengers all cloud games on Switch, too?
No. So maybe you can see why I understood GotG's inclusion to suggest it was inherently "garbage."

I think they just refer to them as Nintendo platforms because of Nintendo's naming conventions. Every Sony and Microsoft console is a PlayStation and Xbox, so they don't need to future proof that terminology.

That’s good. I really wanna play kingdom hearts on a Nintendo console. Also am I the only one that wants to play ever crisis?

It's way too late as they ruined the FF market in the past.

FF have become almost irrelevant even on Sony consoles at this point.

I read this as "We have become aware of the juggernaut Nintendo has become so we will put our main games on their platforms again now".

Honestly though regardless of reason, I think it's good to see them going this route. I just wonder how this will affect their game quality going forward.

@HammerGalladeBro Square wasn't around for either

Probably for the best. Making a multi million dollar game for only one console probably isn’t a good business plan for a third-party company in this day and age. It’s not like Square Enix is like Fire emblem or Xenoblade that are owned by Nintendo and likely don’t have giant budgets. You’d think they’d want to reach as big of an audience as they can.

Maybe now games like Harvestella, Bravely Default, Dragon Quest Monsters and Treasures, Paranormasight and Octopath Traveler 1 can go to Playstation as well.

Will be interesting to see who Playstation and Nintendo go to next for exclusives as both have relied on Square Enix a lot over the last 10 years.

Probably a good thing. SE's problem is they act like its still the 90s and their audience follows them. FF7 sold the Playstation 1 But it didn't sell the Playstation 5.

You can see in it how SE claimed FF16 would reach new audiences, then released it only on the system that Final Fantasy had been on for over 25 years.

Maybe they'll reach a new audience if the games appear day 1 on other platforms while there's still a big marketing push, rather than late when it's cooled down and running on fumes. And series don't unceremoniously disappear from a platform.

The ball is in SE's court to convince new and younger players who know nothing about their their IPs are worth playing. Instead of presuming their brand name will carry them alone.

They can start with updates for Dragon Quest X and XII. As far as digital games, Square Enix can also put those Final Fantasy Remasters on sale.

Pursuing a digital, multiplatform approach.

Ahh, the Microsoft model then.

Here's hoping that Visions of Mana will find a Nintendo release. It'll probably be on the new system, but I do hope that it happens.

@Serpenterror Uhh, GotG was good.

Please don't change or mess up DQ12

@Serpenterror Well, you mentioned other games that weren't on Switch, so it's fair to point out that GotG was great on other platforms.

Also, Final Fantasy has been garbage for over 20 years. There hasn't been a good one since 9.

@Serpenterror

you aren't wrong at large, but in general i think it's worth pointing out that squaresoft at its heart began as a ripoff company, caught a lucky streak with final fantasy (a DQ ripoff) that lasted them roughly through the 90s, and theyve been lost again ever since, coasting on that reputation.

@RupeeClock I did not know that. That is good to here. I remember Epic did the same for the 360 by asking microsoft to increase the RAM from 256mb to 512mb for gears of war as 256mb wouldn't cut it.

They're a bloated mess. There's more misses than hits especially considering the massive catalog of fantastic properties in their fold. I don't think there's any righting that ship and we're in for the very slow death of two legendary companies until it's just a zombie shambler like Activision Blizzard.

the final fantasy 7 trilogy is sony console exclusive it will never appear on any other console unless sony wants it..

now that switch 2 is capable of playing higher end games without massive compromises you can expect probable future final fantasy games to come to the switch 2.. though square has always released a ton of games to the switch..

Hopefully this means they can bring out some Nintendo exclusives to other platforms. I hated square enix for its exclusivity.

@johnedwin it was a timed exclusive. After the deal is over, it's up to square enix to publish it wherever they want.

@Servbot_EJ That is what I want to know too. Torn between playing wait and see for a year or more for Switch 2, or buying on Steam upon release, which I really really really don't want to do. I don't enjoy playing games on PC at all.

I'd like Final Fantasy Tactics to come to Switch before the successor comes out. Switch already has the majority of Final Fantasy games and that's easily one of the best spin offs.

Excellent news, hopefully this means the new Final Fantasy titles will release on Switch 2. And to think people wanted Sony to buy SE, ugh.

I found this article quite depressing. They’re going to shift from quantity to quality? I think they’ve completely lost the plot. I don’t know, I’m struggling to put my feelings into words here. I’ve been replaying a lot of PS1 era games and they are so good (not only Square, lots of companies… but especially Square). I believe Square will never be able to get to that level of quality again, for structural reasons having nothing to do with quantity or quality or pillars or plans or intentions. This statement implies that they still have not identified the core problem and will therefore just repeat themselves. Maybe there is no solution, I don’t know…

Bring DQX online to the west you cowards

@CutchuSlow remake came out in 2020 it is not on the xbox or the switch. timed exclusivity ended years ago..

less games will be made by square-enix going forward which is a shame..

@MSaturn I wouldn’t lose hope on Square yet. They’re having an important turning point in their business philosophy which isn’t far off from what capcom went through years ago. I’d even say they’re having a kind of “capcom moment” where they had to gather their resources and decide how to avert their focus in better ways with what they had? This was around the time of Resi 6, so look how far they’ve come since! Not perfect of course, but we’ve benefitted so much from their ability to center their talents on the valuable IP they possess. As for SqEnix, there’s loads of life left there, and I think we should be glad that they’re deciding not only to focus on their current properties as Capcom has, but to do away with timed exclusive nonsense so as many can enjoy their games as possible

Note: I get this move is based on profit drops and that they’re not doing this from a philanthropic wind, but let’s take what we can get and hope they can continue making better decisions than they have up to this point.

Hopefully this means the new Mana game will come to Switch 2, as well as KH4.

If a native port of KH3 is a launch title for Switch 2, then that's a day one buy. FFXV bundled with all DLC would also be an instant purchase.

Also, please make a FFXIIOnline MMO someday, SquareEnix!!! I'm still dreaming of a FF12 MMO rebuilt for today's graphics, but instead of being a special chosen one like FFXIV, you start out as a complete nobody and have to slowly rise in the ranks over the course of the story.

Playstation gamers have missed out on Square Enix games also with games like Bravely Default, Harvestella, Dragon Quest Monsters and Treasures, Octopath Traveler 1 and Paranormasight. But people seem to not mention those as it doesn't suit their narrative, but hopefully playstation now gets those titles or future sequels going forward.

Makes sense with their business model. I'm glad Nintendo will see some benefit.

In other words they're running out of money and it's time to pivot to profit.

This reminds me of the time I had to "aggressively pursue" the toilet after eating that spoiled chicken.

Ditch AI and NFTs and I’ll think about it.

When will Square Enix and Capcom begin porting their current-gen games to Apple platforms? The new iPad Pro is more than powerful enough to play their latest games at near max settings.

I would honestly much rather play Monster Hunter Wilds on iPad Pro with a wireless controller than Xbox Series X. Apple's latest platforms are just sitting right there for traditional game devs to begin including them in their Multiplatform strategies.

Companies can say quantity to quality all they want but end of the day its for the fans to say what their games' quality is, I don't believe them.

@johnedwin I know that. But it's still not up to Sony. It is up to square enix and they chose not to release on xbox.

Quality over quantity should be good news to everyone. There are way more games out there than anyone has time to play. Better experiences is better for us than more experiences.

Just bring back Fortune Street again dammit. T.T
Even if it's an HD port of the Wii game, I don't care...I'll take it.

@Serpenterror woah woah woah … Guardians of the Galaxy was awesome. What are you talking about?

Xenoblade took the crown from FF in my opinion a long time ago. Liked FF upto and including X.

Just hope they don't mess with DQ12. It's probably my most anticipated game.

@Serpenterror eh they released RPG games that didn’t sell great or get the attention they deserve

The last 2 years (* means exclusive to one console)

• Dragon Quest Monsters Dark Prince*
• Final Fantasy VII Rebirth*
• Star Ocean the Second Story R
• Final Fantasy XVI*
• Octopath Traveler 2
• Crisis Cord FFVII Reunion
• Dragon Quest Treasures*
• Tactics Ogre Reborn
• Harvestella*
• Star Ocean Divine Force
• Vakyrie Elysium*
• Diofield Chronicle
• Various Daylife
• Live A Live
• Chrono Cross Radical Dreamers
• Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin
• Triangle Strategy*

Maybe they need more NFTs or whatever it is generative AI would get them.

I'm concerned they're conflating "quality" with "cost," which isn't quite the lesson to take from it. There's a lot to be said for a successful AA game (your Octopath Travelers and Secrets of Mana). This strategy would not have prevented Forspoken from tanking them the year prior. I think both they and Sony overestimated how much someone is willing to drop $500 to pay another ~$200 for a three-part remake of a 27 year old game (for example) if they weren't otherwise inclined to get a Playstation.

@CutchuSlow because xbox would want it on gamepass and that would defeat contradict square-enix about wanting to sell games...

@johnedwin it's not up to xbox tho. If square enix want to put ff7r on xbox, they can and they can put it on xbox without putting it on gamepass. No one is forced to put games on gamepass.

Xbox can approach you with lots of money to put a game on gamepass, but you have the right to refuse.

final fantasy peaked in japan during the ps2 era when 21 million consoles were sold in japan since then the ps3 sold 10.4 million ps4 sold 9.6 million and so far ps5 has sold 5.5 million..

Huh, no mention of NFTs in the report, wow have they realised that EVERYONE knows they are a massive scam.
But them saying more digital does not sound good to me as I want physicals please.