Quote Originally Posted by Jiro View Post
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.