Square Enix Wants 8 Flagship IP's

[Bolivar]

Square Enix looking to develop more best-selling IPs (http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/29/square-enix-looking-to-develop-more-best-selling-ips/)

I know some of us here have been proclaiming this for years, but this is getting out of hand. Certainly Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest were the flagship titles of Square and Enix, and it made sense for both of them to retain that title when the companies were united, but

doesn't 8 flagships kinda defeat the concept of the word to begin with?

I know its generic to say "making games for the sake of sales is wrong", but too many people in gaming forums nowadays will defend the most unethical and redundant decisions because "they're a business". However, making games for the sake of appealing to a large consumer base requires "safe" game design and reliance on established tendencies. This leads to stagnation which ultimately prevents a firm as well as its industry from growth.

In the PSX days, when Square was constantly churning out new IP's (and ideas) to support long established franchises like FF, Front Mission, and the Mana games, do you know what happened? They received considerable injections to their stock by Sony, they released a feature film and eventually signed a deal to make games with Disney. Okay, the film was a disaster, but they tried new things and this undoubtedly lead to them surviving to the point where they could merge with (or get respectfully bought out by) Enix and become the major publishers they are today.

Wada needs to step down. Hiroyuki Ito needs his own development team and efforts should be made to reconciliate and facilitate the Quest team (I heard Hiroshi Minagawa was involved in some weird game on the wii/DS...WTF!?).

Sorry for the long rant, and to most of us on EoFF this is redundant, but I defended them a year or two ago b/c they were still making fun games.

In any case, I hope one of these IP's is Legacy of Kane :p

[Dreddz]

Another Legacy of Kain game would be sweet. Imagine what Soul Reaver III would look like on this generations hardware. I would be all over that game.

And yeah, your spot on Bolivar. Square know what good business is, its just that they don't have the creative talent to actually achieve it. The best selling games are always good games, so what Square need to do it is simply hire new talent. While Square mix up the gameplay with games like Last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery, they still follow the same formula in terms of setting and story. I seriously have no interest in games like that anymore, while games like Persona 4 and Demons Souls still draw me in.

Maybe once they are done with FFXIII they can use the engine for the FFVII remake and another Chrono sequel. Thats where the big money is, Square just need some ideas to make them work.

[Wolf Kanno]

Wow... this is kinda of a turn around. Usually I'm the one making this statement. :p

Obviously, I agree and I've been saying this for awhile now. I feel SE doesn't have a huge pool of talent anymore and what they do have is either overworked or never gets their own shot. Its funny to hear SE wanting more flagship titles when they seem to not bother promoting anything that doesn't have FF/DQ/KH in the title. They may have had a shot with doing this with the Mana franchise had they promoted it better.

With the Eidos acquisition I can see SE using a few of their new IPs from their as new Flagship products (LoK, Tomb Raider) I can also see Se transforming their compilations into their own series since they worked so hard to transform them into franchises so I can see FFVII and the Ivalice Alliance being permanent series for SE to use. Counting those with what they got, we already have 7 major franchises. Perhaps SE will cave and build a new Chrono team to be the 8th title.

To be honest, I felt SE once did have a few more flagship franchises in the SNES/PSX generation cause Mana and Front Mission were both very strong series in Japan and were actually making headway in the global market. I still partly blame SE focusing all their PR to FF related spin-offs and the new KH series to be what led to the downfall of Mana and FM in the States as they released a few titles and did nothing to promote any of them. I think most of the Mana Collection was released by the time I even heard about the Collection...

The Chrono series would have also been great had the execs not pissed off the development team. Even then it may have fallen prey to the FF series fate, which is slowly becoming a series created more to collect money from fans by indulging them with products that cater to their interest but lack the creative input or bold dynamics that made the main line series stand out. Its slowly becoming more about quantity than quality.

[Gilghamut]

I would love to see a series made out of the Ivalice world. They could have something like Konami has with the Suikoden series. I would be all over that series.

[Bolivar]

Another Legacy of Kain game would be sweet. Imagine what Soul Reaver III would look like on this generations hardware. I would be all over that game.


I'd like to see Legacy of Kain: Defiance II. Having two stories and play styles obviously helps on the variety front, but the way the stories intertwined as each character was going through his own trials and tribulations really made it one of my favorite games from the PS2.

The only problem is Amy Hennig works at Naughty Dog now and she was apparently why the LoK series was so good, at least with the later ones. It's good she's bringing her own flair to the Uncharted series, though; I got to meet her at Playstation Blog meetup in Seattle (for MAG) and she's awesome.

[Bastian]

They took what could have been an AMAZING IP (Mana) and seemed to intentionally DESTROY it. Each game after SDIII got progressively worse and worse until they seemed mere parodies of source.

It's strange that Mana started out as "Final Fantasy Gaiden ["Adventure" in the US]" and strayed so far from that original concept it became unrecognizable. Which is what caused them, I think, to create the Crystal Chronicles sub-series.

Which, based on what I've seen for the newest CC game, seems to be following the same fate as Mana . . .

Why can't that leave well enough alone?

[Wolf Kanno]

Now now, I liked Legend of Mana :colbert:

I haven't really played the new entries into the series and with the exception of Seiken Denetsu 4 the others actually looked promising.

[IXVI]

Another Legacy of Kain game would be sweet. Imagine what Soul Reaver III would look like on this generations hardware. I would be all over that game.


It seems unlikely since Raziel is now merged with the soul reaver But, if they found some sort of twist to make it so Raziel could escape, i wouldn't mind seein another soul reaver. I still have 1 2 and 3...Sorry to trail off subject. :cool: anyways, I wasn't to happy with infinite undiscovery..and the other one they released i didn't hear to many good things about either. Even drunk with my best friend, Infinite undiscovery just pissed me off. I sold it. I was stuck on the 2nd disc in that GOD DAMN MAZE OF A SMURFING FOREST...I wish FF was how it used to be. games in general, alot of them are either to short, or i just play them to much. Exhibit A:Batman Arkham asylum-2 Days- B. Marvel Ultimate Alliance-3 days- C. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Echoes of time-5 days-. Don't get me wrong, they're great games. Sorry...i'll just be quiet now..

[Jiro]

Unlike (apparently) a lot of people, I really enjoyed Infinite Undiscovery. I just think that if SE actually bothers to try and make something new, then they're not going to do too badly. Too much focus on quantity, rather than quality, as Wolf Kanno said.

Although,

I would love to see a series made out of the Ivalice world. They could have something like Konami has with the Suikoden series. I would be all over that series.
Assuming it's anywhere near as good as Suikoden.

[Slothy]

I just think that if SE actually bothers to try and make something new, then they're not going to do too badly.

I don't know. Personally, I'm with Wolf Kanno in thinking that they just don't even have the creative talent they need to pull off anything of exceptional quality these days, and even if they did, I'm concerned that their too stuck in their ways of milking the franchises they do have to death to let creativity among the development teams flourish.

Personally, I'd like to see a few things happen with SE to help them get out of their creative rut. The first thing I'd probably do is scale back the in house development teams. They have a lot of them but haven't really proven that they all have a lot of worth creatively. Cut out some of the team members that aren't really contributing a whole lot, merge a few teams together and try to take advantage of consolidating some more of the talent they do have. On the publishing side of things, if they did cut back on in house development teams I'd like to see them pick up some more independent stuff and help get it out. Even EA is recognizing the value of backing some quirky ideas both in house and with outside developers and with games like Dead Space and Brutal Legend it seems to be working for them. There's no reason Square couldn't do the same and find some worthwhile new franchises in the process.

And finally, I think they really need to get some guys in charge of the development teams they have who have some fresh and creative ideas, or at the very least can take old ideas and make them interesting. Guys like Kitase and Nomura haven't been on top of their game in a long time if you ask me, but unfortunately they're the ones still doing some of the more worth while stuff coming from SE. No one else has really been able to step up to the plate and deliver since Matsuno left.

Maybe I'm way off base, but they already have a large number of great IP's in house, so before they worry too much about finding some more I think they need to figure out how to improve their current product line up and then maybe they can focus on developing some new stuff. But until they manage to foster some new creative talent I can't see any new IP's being tremendously successful.

[IXVI]

agreed.

[Mikeneko Rocker -- Tim]

Even though Square Enix is on the red because of this concept, I can see them working around this.

They should rotate their 8 designated flagships to 2 a year, as already being done.

Example:

Square Enix: DQ, FF, KH, Rapture(?)
Taito: Lufia, Space Invaders
Eidos: Deus Ex, Tomb Raider

In a span of four years, S-E might release Lufia and Tomb Raider on one year, while the remaining three could consist of any pair of the remaining six. To round it up, they should mix in other revival titles like a new Chrono, Front Mission, Saga, Valkyrie Profile, or new IP's in America.

[ljkkjlcm9]

hey, they did create The World Ends With You. That pretty much tells me they still have talent somewhere among them, because that may be my favorite game ever.

THE JACKEL

[Bolivar]

Ehrgeiz 2.

[Ouch!]

Square Enix: DQ, FF, KH, Rapture(?)
Rapture was the code name for FFXIV.

[champagne supernova]

Well SE already has 4 with FF, KH, SO and DQ, and Eidos has Deus Ex, Batman, Hitman, Tomb Raider, Legacy of Kain and Championship Manager. So, without really requiring any expansion, that is more than 8 IPs (although I don't know how CM is selling these days). And the core members of Square-Enix seem to be doing alright if XIII got 39/40 from Famitsu. So, I think it sounds like a lot, but with the Eidos merger, it really isn't that unlikely or going to increase the strain on the company.