Tag Archives: yoichi wada

Holy shit, Batman! Square Enix boss Yoichi Wada has come out and said that an Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy Versus XIII is being looked into.

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Square Enix president Yoichi Wada has told Nikkei’s Trendynet that The 3rd Birthday will see a release in Japan this year.

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Hold the phone. Have a press? Shut it down. Got a front page? Hold the shit out of it. Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada has said, has actually said in real words, that the company is to “explore” the possibility of remaking Final Fantasy VII.

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Yoichi Wada wants you to buy Final Fantasy XIII because, apparently, shipping 96 million copies of the Final Fantasy series since 1987 isn’t enough.

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Square Enix president Yoichi Wada has revealed that Final Fantasy XIII went to Xbox 360 because Microsoft “asked us” to develop a title in the series for the console.

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Square bossman Yoichi Wada has told Edge that western games don’t do well in Japan, and it has less to do with the consumer and more to do with retail outlets that are prejudiced towards “overseas titles”.

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Speaking in an interview with Edge, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada has that Keiji Inafune’s comments on the state of the Japanese market at Tokyo Game Show last September were “discouraging”.

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The Final Fantasy XIII team may move onto “‘next generation’ forms of play” now the game’s complete, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada’s told Edge, and that “this type of game” may cease to be made at the firm.

The comments are likely to cause shock in the FF fanboy fraternity.

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Square Enix president Yoichi Wada has said in a public statement that 2010 will see the company “taking root,” adding, “We want to start moving towards competing with movie studios.”

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Square Enix boss Yoichi Wada has admitted that Final Fantasy XIII is staying true to the series tried and tested formula, going as far as to tell FinalFantasyUnion in Montreal last week that it lacks much “newness”.

“It’s not there are new elements that are included into the Final Fantasy XIII, there are elements that are included that is expected out of the Final Fantasy title itself, for example a beautiful story, it being emotional and moving and you’ll be able to relax and enjoy,” Wada said, answering a question on whether or not the RPG will be the bestselling FF game yet.

“Those are included, but there is not a lot of newness to it. But when we take a look at a lot of Western game titles recently it is based on the real-world most of them, and with regards to some of the artworks in a sense it might look new because it is based on a fantasy story.”

FF-haters beware. The game’s out on next month in Japan and in March for both the US and Europe.

Square Enix president Yoichi Wada has admitted in a speech that over-use of an IP is “not good.”

He made his remarks during a keynote at the Montreal Games Summit.

“Too much IP use is not good,” said Wada.

“Having memorable characters and back story is crucial to having a powerful IP.”

Wada also stressed though how the Final Fantasy IP hasn’t become tired yet.

“As long as there is a world with enough content and story, players will feel comfortable being in the same world for extended periods of time.”

Find more at FF Union. Wada said in the same speech that Square Enix are working on a brand new game with their newly accquired Eidos Monreal studio.

Speaking at the Montreal Games Summit, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada has confirmed that they have in development their “first global game” in development at Eidos Montreal, alongside Deus Ex 3 and Thief 4.

It’s the company’s first title since the acquisition of Eidos earlier this year in April.

“[It] would be the first collaboration between Square Enix and Montreal,” said Wada.

“We would like to be able to create an new title that is made by the group as one.”

It’s unknown if it is a new IP, or if it is an established property.

Thanks, Develop.

Square Enix bossman Yoichi Wada has said that the company plans to double its recurring profit to 50 billion yen ($561 million) within three to five years.

This will occur by expanding its range of games and by growing overseas operations in China, where Wada says its negotiating deals with Chinese online game operators.

Additionally, Square hopes to ship over six million copies of Final Fantasy XIII worldwide, and that its currently discussing with Microsoft the possibility of bringing Final Fantasy XIV to Xbox 360.

More over on Edge.

Square Enix boss Yoichi Wada has said the company wants to expand on its three-IP super-base of Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, and Final Fantasy and it currently working on two to three titles designed to hit a similar stature, Yahoo! Japan reports.

These potential flagship games are expected to come out around the end of next year or early 2011.

There’s no detail on what the games are, but you can read more about it on Siliconera.

Square Enix boss Yoichi Wada’s told Reuters that Final Fantasy XIII will sell more than 6 million units worldwide, beating global Dragon Quest IX shipments.

FFXIII releases exclusive for PS3 in Japan this December, to be followed by a PS3 and 360 launch in the US and Europe early next year.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Square president Yoichi Wada has called upon the Japanese gaming industry to create adult oriented games in order to compete in the global market.

“There are not many publishers that create games for adults,” he said. “In the West, they tend to believe it’s cool to play games, even adults.”

In order to do this, change is necessary for the ratings industry which Wada feels is outdated, forcing publishers to either censor games or avoid a Japanese release.

While Wada believes ratings are important in order to “protect children”, the system needs to be revised and should that happen, he feels Japan could “possibly lead the global market”.

Wada was speaking during a panel titled “Strategies and Visions of Top Makers in the Global Era” featuring the heads of Japanese gaming companies at TGS, which included Capcom’s Haruhiro Tsujimoto, Konami’s Kazumi Kitaue, Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida, and Namco’s Shin Unozawa.

Thanks, Joystiq.

Motion tech isn’t going to be the PS3 and 360 revolution some may have us believe, Square Enix head Yoichi Wada’s told the FT.

“Present game machines already have a lot of functions: they are a network terminal, a Blu-ray or DVD player, and a gaming machine. Compared to these three pillars, the [new motion] controllers are quite limited, so the impact may be small. They are an extension of the gaming function,” he said.

In the next breath, however, Wada had this to say about Natal: “As a user interface it’s fantastic and I think it will become standard.”

The low-impact, completely ubiquitous gaming UI is expected to ship late next year.

The exec wasn’t finished there, however. He reckons a new Wii’s coming in 2011, with “functionality more like that of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 or Sony’s PlayStation 3, and possibly a different controller,” according to that report.

You go, Yoichi. Thanks, Joystiq.

No, seriously.

Speaking in a weekly column for Nikkei, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada has admitted he is seriously obsessed with Dragon Quest IX.

How obsessed? He culmated 30 hours in the first four days after the game was released in Japan in July.

You’re proper hardcore now, Wada-san, innit.

But he doesn’t just play for the enjoyment. He also plays to see what makes a good game at Square Enix, what makes a hit over there and what to do next with a game in development.

Thanks, RPGSite.

At GamesCom, Yoshi Kitase and Motomu Toriyama from Square Enix told VG247 that Final Fantasy games shouldn’t take as long to develop in the future.

During the conversation, we mentioned CEO of Square Enix Yoichi Wada’s comment regarding the firm “taking too long to produce games”, to see if they were in agreement.

Us at GamesCom: Yoichi Wada has said that he wants the development rate to go a bit faster. Is this possible and what is the development team doing to help speed things along for the future?

FFXIII’s Yoshi Kitase and Motomu Toriyama, speaking through a translator: For FFXIII there are a lot of firsts, and because it’s a new console that the teams are working on, it took a little time for the team to get used to everything. Now that they have the engine built for it the basics are covered, so the development time for future projects should be shortened.

Still, it may not be as simple as Wada thinks (laughing).

Hopefully, what this means, is that it won’t take what feels like ten years in between titles.

The Tokyo Games Show starts on September 24, and the CESA has released a partial list of games that will be present for the event.

Seems like there is a games conference every month, doesn’t it?

Some of the speakers lined up include Sony’s Kaz Hirai delivering a keynote, Haruhiro Tsujimoto the president and COO of Capcom, Konami VP Kazumi Kitaue, Square’s Yoichi Wada, Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida and Shin Unozawa the president and CEO of Namco Bandai.

Epic president Michael Capps will also be there, delivering a speech on “Adapting the ‘Gears of War’ Franchise for Global Consumption”

Cool stuff.

As far as games go, the list is past the break. While it is only a partial list, you may notice that Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and Square Enix are missing from the list. Don’t worry, all will be there will bells on.

Surely more will be announced soon as well, so until then, just keep watch for more updates.

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