Yoichi Wada stepping down!

[Spooniest]

The SaGa franchise has always been known for being really experimental but Unlimited SaGa took it to a whole new level.

If anything I'm glad this guy isn't a developer anymore. Perhaps he's more talented at management than at game design?

[Wolf Kanno]

From what little information I could dig up on him, he sounds like he is a bit like Wada, more of the accountant/business side than the creative type. He's been an accountant and Finance Officer more than an actual game developer, producing Unlimited SaGa is one of his few projects he worked an, and that's assuming there isn't another guy at the company with the same name.

[Old Manus]

I think it's going to take a titanic effort to bring SE up from the farce of continual mediocre games it has become back to anything it once was. I mean, I hope it does, but I lost faith a while ago.

[Bolivar]

I do think the company could use a change in direction and I hope it will be in a positive direction as someone else takes the reigns. No one can deny that Square just isn't making the same caliber of releases as they used to.

But I'm not going to act like this is them pulling down the statue of Saddam Hussein. A LOT of really awesome games came out under Wada's watch, even in the last few years.

edit: and I have no idea how they were thinking they were going to get more sales out of those three games, but makin 3.4 mil on Tomb Raider in such a competitive game market is something they should feel blessed for.

[XxSephirothxX]

The use of "extraordinary" in their press release referring to money lost last quarter is pretty funny to me. I don't know why, exactly--maybe because that doesn't seem like a word that should be used in press materials at all. It's like trout was so bad they couldn't even spin it.

Square Enix's management has clearly made a lot of mistakes over the past decade or so. Hard to know exactly how much blame Wada deserves, specifically, but some top-level shakeups can only be a good thing. An infusion of new blood will do the place good.

This actually reminds me of Keiji Inafune leaving Capcom and explaining how the industry turning developers into salarymen discourages creativity. I feel like that's definitely happened with a lot of the higher-ups at Square.

[tidlelover]

The use of "extraordinary" in their press release referring to money lost last quarter is pretty funny to me. I don't know why, exactly--maybe because that doesn't seem like a word that should be used in press materials at all. It's like trout was so bad they couldn't even spin it.

Square Enix's management has clearly made a lot of mistakes over the past decade or so. Hard to know exactly how much blame Wada deserves, specifically, but some top-level shakeups can only be a good thing. An infusion of new blood will do the place good.

This actually reminds me of Keiji Inafune leaving Capcom and explaining how the industry turning developers into salarymen discourages creativity. I feel like that's definitely happened with a lot of the higher-ups at Square.

Extraordinary was meant for their investors, it was actually supposed to be reassuring, letting investors know they don't expect this to repeat next quarter!