Square Enix should fire Wada

[rocketpig]

MontanaHatchet said:

rocketpig said:
Wow, I managed to disagree with over half the things he said about JRPGs.

- Square makes DS games because they're cheap to make and PROFITABLE. To see why they don't make many console JRPGs anymore just take a look at Last Remnant, The. JRPGs are not a huge genre so take your portable games and enjoy them or shut the hell up.

- He blamed Sony for the lack of JRPG games this generation and even went so far as to say the 360 "is not a JRPG console". Just stupid. Consoles do not dictate what games are made for them, developers do. And devs are pretty split this generation on EVERYTHING. There is no PS2-style dominance this generation and there will never will be.

- He made an incredibly asinine comment about "fake decisions that do not affect the end game". He even mentions BioWare in the next sentence. If you're going to blast a company, at least PLAY THEIR LATEST GAME before doing so, especially when that game is being touted as a revolutionary RPG experience.

In short, the guy is a moron... mostly. I did agree with his sentiment about retaining towns in FF and that JRPGs don't have to create an open world environment to be "next gen".

I love ya, and I agree with you on your second and third points, but I disagree with your first one. Square-Enix never took a half-decent attempt at home console RPGs. No mainline Dragon Quests, and not even a mainline Final Fantasy until now. They've hardly tried on home consoles at all this generation. They have no excuse. But I do see their reasons for developing on handhelds.

I agree that SE has shifted their focus away from consoles a bit but it's understandable why they did so. Blindly swinging for the fences with a new $20m IP would be a mistake. JRPGs traditionally don't sell well enough to support that kind of business strategy. Look at what has happened with other new IPs this generation... Eternal Sonata, Folklore, The Last Remnant, Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey... Even games like Star Ocean have been disappointments.

Square is in a tough position but not for the reasons he listed. They're in a tough position because they've allowed games like FF XIII to stay in development WAY TOO LONG and because they've been so short-sighted and backed themselves into a JRPG-only corner. Square used to be a somewhat rounded developer and they've lost that, instead sticking with JRPGs almost entirely when development costs are skyrocketing and returns are staying the same. It's a losing situation and the guy should be happy that the DS is so profitable for them or we might not see FF XIII at all.