If Square-Enix had competition?

I'm not sure if there's much of a point to this topic, but it came to mind just now so I'll share it anyway. I was thinking about how much better Square-Enix's or even just Squaresoft's (pre merger) RPG's could've been by now if the company had a serious pressure to innovate. I'm not saying Square Enix makes bad games - far from it - the company didn't rise to the top through shabby workmanship, but rather that being at the top, they have little incentive to truly stretch the boundaries of RPG's. Competition always leads to innovation, and always for the better. It might be fruitless to speculate, but it seems pretty interesting, how much better or different the current releases might have been had there been a viable competitor in the RPG market. I wonder if Namco with the up and coming Xenosaga series - touted as perhaps the only competition to the Final Fantasy franchise - will cause Square-Enix to raise the bar in order to maintain their dominance?

You raise some good and valid points. I would have to agree. Back in the days, Square would battle it out with companies like Namco, Capcom, and whoever else. Now it seems they dominate but maybe we will see some growing competition with Namco and Xenosaga. Lets hope so at least.

Well Square has been pretty innovative lately... X-2, for example... love it or hate it, it was straying from the formula, and a nice change. Square has always done wonderfully, and has always challenged the norma and been innovative and all that, and I think joining with the guys at Enix just broadens their think tank.

Square has a firm hold on the RPG market, moreso now that they've merged, and I think this makes it better... when they were competing more fiercely, they had to be both innovative and hesitant. They had to make a game that would be different than what the other guys were putting out, but they also had to be careful not to make it too different, because that would risk alienating their audience. I think not having any strong competition will allow them to experiment more, dunno if that will end up being good or bad, though.

I dunno about the competition, but I say that the main problem is that Square can do any crap, put some beautiful graphics and the name "Final Fantasy" in it and it will sell.

Back when they had competition, and when FF name wasn't so huge (Until FF6 that is the game that made Final Fantasy famous) they had to make good games... And all the old-school FFs were at least good for their time, and all of them had new stuff.

Now even the innovations are always the same... They change the learning system, put some different minigames, change a little the battle system... They are not really creating new stuff, they are only reusing some old ideas and concepts.

But I'll tell you this: At least the graphics are beautiful.

Square doesn't really have much to compete with anymore. It's up there in the good game making industry...thing. I don't think anythings gonna be catching Squenix in a long time.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Outsider
I dunno about the competition, but I say that the main problem is that Square can do any crap, put some beautiful graphics and the name "Final Fantasy" in it and it will sell.

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Yeah...pretty much.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Outsider
Back when they had competition, and when FF name wasn't so huge (Until FF7 that is the game that made Final Fantasy famous) they had to make good games... And all the old-school FFs were at least good for their time, and all of them had new stuff.

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Fixed that little error ;)

Now I would like to say that Namco is starting to come up quite nicely and they have a good shot soon of just diong great things with RPGs...at least over seas. Not only do they have Xenosaga but they also have their 'Tales' series of games. The Xenosaga team is working on another game right now also. Baiten Kaos or something. If that last game does respectable numbers over there then I would say Namco will be competition sooner rather than later.

Just speaking of Namco...DAMN! They were always kind of there and were doing pretty well but nothing truely spectacular until this generation. They have so many games out and a few really good ones...in all categories. I expect great things from them in the future.

Yeah, Namco is pretty much rolling in cash I'd imagine. Lightgun, fighting, driving, RPG...I didn't realise how many Namco games I actually play. I must've wasted at least $500 on Time Crisis 1, 2, 3, Tekken 1, 2, 3, Tag, 4, Soul Calibur 1, 2....