Square Enix - The Next Generation?

Thanks to GameSpot for its feature regarding a Square Enix analyst's attempts to grow the company into the online and mobile arenas. This new strategy "...has two main themes - one that recognizes the limitations of the current-console platforms and one that acknowledges the fascination consumers have with online gameplay." The analyst, Ichiro Otobe, discusses the importance of community above all: "You need to have something like a Final Fantasy XI that can attract a certain community of people. In a way, our content is more a kind of bait to attract strong community, and the actual content is offered through the communication with these communities [of players]", and also has interesting theories on the perceived decline of the Japanese games market, suggesting it's "...actually a shift of users' interests. Most of the people spend time and money for mobile content, but most of the money is actually going to packet fees, which, in turn, go to network carriers."

Re:OMGWTF

[Lord Graga]

Actually not. Imagine taking this to a higher level, like, Neverwinter Nights, where one of the great things is that you can DM your game.
Now imagine that in a larger scale, maybe, or just simply in a way where players can set up lesser side quests (find my goat, kill that group of bandits, etc). Wouldn't that be great? The more experience you got, the more complex could your quests be. Maybe it would even be possible to create a map on your PC, and then link it to the server.
Now that would be fun.

Re:FInal Fantasy movie: Take 2

[sketch7]

I also liked the movie a lot, but I agree that the content was a little different than what normal movie-goers expect. They obviously used the Final Fantasy name because it was recognizable by many people but ended up cursing it as a so called video-game movie. Another thing that stood out about this movie is that it was a joint-collaboration between US animators and Japanese producers at Square, unlike Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children which I believe is an all Japanese venture (and it looks very good). Overall Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is an example of what people should be doing with CG, American animators need to wake up and stop pumping out animations that are always kiddie-oriented and start making some more mature content like that which is represented in Anime. Well, that's what I think.

Wait, everyone wants online?

[GaimeGuy]

The only people who want online are the HARDCORE community: the guys who we all are: the guys who actually follow the news in the industry, and the guys who talk about video games on message boards all over the internet. The percentage of gamers who actually use online is less than 10%. Yeah, overall sales of online games are up, but really, you can't tell me that Madden's millions of sales this year (again) are due to online play in the Ps2, right? People are buying games which HAPPEN to include online features, that doesn't mean that they're buying to play online, or that they're playing online.

I find it really stupid how many people and companies think that online gaming is something that's being embraced and desired by everyone, despite the fact that games which heavily use online features, such as MMORPGs, usually peak at about 500,000 units in sales.

Of course, the sole exception to this is FFXI, which people buy just because of the FF name. The sad thing is, I actually know about five guys who bought the game, and now can't play it because they didn't know it's an MMORPG.

I'd like to see developers pay more attention to the online ACTIVITY of their games, monitoring that ratherthan the sales of their games which have online features. I'm sure they'll get a better idea of the popularity of online, then.

Re:Wait, everyone wants online?

[KeeperS]

Agreed. I often see the opinion on Slashdot that online play is the be-all-end-all of games, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because PC games are more popular here. FPSes and RTSes are more suited to online play than, say, Japanese style RPGs or platform games.

Online play often seems more like a marketing gimmick than a neccessary gameplay ingredient. Yes, it has its place, but not every game needs to be online.