first reported by VGC (opens in new tab)square Enix announced (opens in new tab) The plan is to dismiss President Yosuke Matsuda. With the approval of shareholders, Mr. Matsuda will be replaced by Mr. Takashi Kiryu, who joined the company from a managerial position. Dentsu Innovation Initiative (opens in new tab) 2020.
Matsuda’s run since taking over from Yoichi Wada in 2013 has been a mixed bag.The number of PC ports increased during his tenure, some launching alongside their console counterparts, but the timeliness of that is almost nonexistent—more than a year before Final Fantasy 7 Remake hits PC It took, but Final Fantasy 16 will probably take more than 6 months (opens in new tab).
It’s also worth noting that publishers have become synonymous with poor PC ports. (opens in new tab) Strangers of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins, Forcepoken, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake all boasted varying degrees of stuttering, low FPS caps, and limited options menus.Matsuda’s tenure also saw the dropout of Western developers at Square Enix (opens in new tab)Eidos Montreal, Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix Montreal to Embracer Group.
And of course the elephant in the room: Matsuda really like Blockchain stuff; even after a staggering contraction of cryptocurrencies in late 2022 and ongoing investigations and/or prosecutions of several major exchanges, it still is. We are most focused on investing in blockchain, which we have been doing,” writes Matsuda. (opens in new tab) at the beginning of the year.
Now, you might think that this tone-deaf commitment might be what caused Matsuda’s expulsion, even if the crypto boosters were left holding the bag after the market crash, but it’s It seems pretty dubious. The incoming president, Mr. Kiryu’s previous job at Dentsu was not about letting JRPGs run at arbitrary frame rates above 60 fps, but more about “researching new and disruptive technologies.” was The company is heavily leveraged in NFTs, the Metaverse, and Web 3.0. All of these buzzwords just seem strangely outdated now that kids are all about AI.
Whatever happens from shuffling Square Enix’s top dog, I still wouldn’t worry—so far nothing has come out of the company’s blockchain bull run. , I can cast the Cait Sith NFT line to my heart’s content as long as I let my man Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii cook in peace. When you are