They are probably in dire straits if such a drastic change is needed, so, we are to blame. We send the wrong answer somehow and they lost their way, sad to see such a cool company go under, and taking eidos and Enix along...

*No one plays Tomb Raider online*
Square-Enix: WE NEED MORE TITLES TO BE ONLINE

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!....

No, seriously, stahp it Square! I don't give a crap if you want to be successful in the mobile market, but stop killing your console side!

A lot of Japanese developers are in trouble today, rising development costs and unfavorable exchange rates plus a wracked economy paired with very few having a footing in the mobile industry which is mostly dominated by Europe and the US is causing major problems.

Another issue is the decline of Western interest in traditional Japanese games, the concepts are simply too far out or the mechanics are too complex to appeal to the new, more casual Western gamer, dumbing down existing franchises doesn't work either. In addition, the interest for home consoles, where big profits are to be made, is dwindling in Japan and the PC market was never huge there compared to Europe or Korea and China.

To top if off, dedicated handhelds might be going away fairly shortly, leaving a massive vaccuum in the Japanese gaming tradition and making them almost wholly dependent on imported efforts, or, at the very least, dependent on outside talents, different developer paradigms and near-monopolized hardware manufacturer networks with great Western influence. Nintendo's downturn and Sony's money-bleed does nothing to alleviate the problems either.

Japan is a country in a crisis, in more ways than one and since the consumer electronics and gaming industry is so comparatively big over there, the ramifications are very visible and noticeable for everyone.

DOOOOOMED…


For not localizing their mobile games for the West.

Sony/NC Soft are likely candidates for the FF franchise rights, they would do it justice and still have some fingers extended into several markets.

Do you see SquareEnix really vanishing into obscurity (or close to it) by the time this new generation ends?

Why do people say Sony? they haven't handle a big franchise like this.. heck they can't handle the Last Guardian.. even MS could do a better job, look at how they handle Halo.. the marketing, the game.. all screams epic..

From a marketing perpective Sony doesn't handle their franchises well.. Final Fantasy should be like a Star Wars, LoTR.. it has the potential to be like that. to go beyond the initial medium.. Sony have never showed to handle something like that.. Halo is bigger then its videogames, GT and Uncharted are sadly not..

Square is just a shadow of its former self, and these future plans just tell me that they arent going to recapture their magic anytime soon...