Square Enix’s big US marketing push for Final Fantasy XIII appears to have paid off, with the Japanese publisher announcing on Friday that the title is the fastest selling in the franchise’s history.
Square Enix said it sold 1m units in the US in its first five days, following its big launch event for FFXIII in San Francisco on the eve of the Game Developers Conference last week, with Yoichi Wada, chief executive, in attendance. We spoke to Mr Wada at the launch – his thoughts on FFXIII and the parlous state of the industry after the jump.
How happy were you with how Final Fantasy XIII has been received – it launches in the US on March 9 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but it has been reviewed and has been available in Japan since December 17 on the PS3?
We are very satisfied, the customers are accepting it very well. In terms of the PS3, the installed base, out of 3-4m units , we have sold 2m units approximately, so that is a very high percentage of the PS3 units in the market.
The game critics have said the game is perhaps too linear and narrowly focused – are you trying to be more cinematic with it?
The Final Fantasy game characteristic is the storylines, a deep experience of the story, it has to be cinematic and have story-telling – that is Final Fantasy. I believe there should be a variety of types of games, recently there has been a trend to the sandbox type being more popular, but I believe in variety.
What is your international strategy?
By acquiring a company like Eidos, it has given us a strong base in the UK and bases in the US. We have less priority in those regions right now to acquire. Right now, we are looking in Asian countries including China, so this is my focus this year, and in a business alliance rather than buying a company. We are looking at online gaming in Asia.
What is your view of the health of the video game industry?
The business model of the game console devices has been shifting. If you look back 15 – 20 years, it is in a transition stage. For companies like EA, Activision or ourselves, it is very very difficult for us to adapt. The difference for us is we have more diversifed lines, we also do manga, animation, arcade games and toy figures,so by diversifying our business lines we hedge our risk.
Are you developing games for the new innovations coming later this year?
We are researching continuously, such as Microsoft and Sony’s new motion controllers, as well as 3D visuals. However, the characteristic of the consumer entertainment industry is such that the customer would not really follow us if we pursue too much of a cutting-edge technology, so the right mix is if the game can be a little bit behind the cutting-edge tech.
How are things like cloud gaming and new platforms like the iPad going to change things?
I think the game industry is going to become very interesting, starting around this time period. There is going to be a large level of consolidation taking place and the main players might be replaced by others.
In the game console business in the past, there was an ecosystem created surrounding the manufacturer of the device, so that it could be one time Nintendo or the other time Sony that was leading.
However, now things are changing, there are multiple device manufacturers, with the cellphone makers and iPods and other devices coming, and games becoming networked and linked with other types of media. So the components of the ecosystem are growing and they are going to be reorganised and it’s going to be a much larger level of consolidation because of that.
