lol, no.  Hori is without a shadow of a doubt the best thing they have going for them.  And the sales really drive that point home.

I wouldn't mind if Wada and Nomura hit the road.  It's too bad the Enix side (specifically Keiji Honda) didn't retain leadership after the merger, I think they're portfolio would be a lot more diverse and higher quality if he had.

I have to agree with this the Enix side of things has been on high form and retained consistency with their side of things, I wish Enix were given more freedom to roam as before the merger they were quite an adventurous rpg dev with games like Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma, Actraiser and so on. When they merged I was hoping for more efforts like the Chronotrigger collaboration they had during the SNES days to become more frequent but it's gone in the opposite direction and the two seem more distant together then they were apart.

This is completely illogical: they just had one of their best years on record and you think he should now be shown the door because you think that he might, in the future, screw things up?! You're a big fan of the film Minority Report, aren't you?

Also (for everyone else): it's one thing to dislike the games that have been produced under his tenure, but it's something else entirely (on a site dedicated to the financial side of gaming, no less) to be asking for the ouster of a man that has shepherded the company to astounding heights.

The Enix side was pretty much gutted, outside Hori's Armor Project.  Now all they do is oversee tri-Ace games, anime licenses and some Final Fantasy spinoffs.  The 16bit glory days are long gone sadly. :(

I would pretty much extend this to just about every game company presently in existence that also was around in the 16-bit era, and certainly is not limited to S-E.

I'd say Nintendo, Falcom and Capcom are doing alright.  I have to admit, I'd agree for the vast majority of others though (Konami, Sega, Hudson, SNK, Taito, IREM, etc, etc).

Talent going to waste, the main reason Hori retains control is funnily enough the patent for Dragon Quest is under his name not Enix apparently so if they upset him and he left it goes with in, Enix apparently only have a contract deal for it's exclusive development with Hori, it's no wonder they don't oppose him as the series is a national icon in Japan and gaining popularity in Europe.

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".

Yeah, Hori's ownership was how Chunsoft was able to selfpublish the first Torneko game on SFC.  It's the only DQ related game Enix didn't publish themselves (in Japan).

I think a lot of the Enix side staff is either gone now or mixed with Square's teams though (including their small R&D support team), as are most of the outside developers they used to work with (Quintet, Produce!, Almanic/Givlo, Daft, etc).  All that's left intact is pretty much Hori/Armor Project, and tri-Ace is the only notable outside developer left.

Nook2