There’s been talk among the industry that Japan is no longer the powerhouse it once was, and that the West is becoming the new driving force in gaming. Square Enix executive Koji Taguchi lent more credence to that theory, saying that Eidos’ E3 games allowed Square Enix to save face from an “almost humiliating” lack of Japanese Square Enix games.
“Because we merged with Eidos and had games likeTomb Raider,Deus[Ex], andHitman, as a company we were able to keep face. But the decline in Japanese titles was almost humiliating. This has been a week where I worried daily about how we can fix this.”
There’s no denying the Japanese division of Square Enix has been struggling, particularly with the disastrous launch ofFinal Fantasy XIV. Let’s hope thatFinal Fantasy XIII-2can help restore some confidence, and thatFinal Fantasy Versus XIIIactually releases sometime in the next few years.
