Square Enix, formed from a merger of RPG giants Square and Enix in 2003, is still a mighty force in the Japanese games industry, all the more so since its 2005 acquisition of arcade specialist Taito.

It looks like Square Enix is going global now. In the interview from gamesindustry, Square Enix's global president Yoichi Wada said:"The European market is of course very big as it is, but it has great potential for growth as well. So I would like Square Enix to be stronger in this particular market."

The details are as below:

Final Fantasy XI has been quite successful, but it hasn't kept pace with the very fast growth in the MMO market. Do you have plans to pursue this sector further, and challenge the markets of companies like Blizzard and NCSoft?

MMORPG is a big genre, but it can be diversified by different means, one is the game design, the other is the payment system. With FFXI, we intentionally haven't changed the game design or payment since we launched it five years ago. But when it comes to our MMORPG games for the domestic and Asian markets, as an experiment we have tried different formulae on a quite minor scale with smaller titles, such as a per-item payment system. Following that, we have already prepared a few MMORPGs that have been experimentally played internally.

With FFXI, your company was one of the first to try MMO gaming on consoles: PS2 and Xbox 360. Did you feel that was a success? Will consoles become a viable platform for MMOs on the same level as the PC?

In general we regard it as a success. Nowadays, all consoles are network-compatible. When we started the FFXI project, everybody thought it was a big challenge, but now we cannot imagine a console that's not networked. Obviously the PC market is still going strong, but on the console market is even stronger, so in order to seize good market share, I think we have to be on both console and PC.

We've seen a lot of industry consolidation recently, the creation of Activision Blizzard, big acquisitions like EA buying Bioware and Pandemic. How can Square Enix compete with these monsters? Will you have to consider mergers and acquisitions?

M&A is not necessarily our main method, but obviously it has to be deemed as one of the main strategy options. If we were to look for a place in the top three in the global games industry, obviously we would have to consider it seriously.

More Full Interview: INTERVIEW: Square Enix global president Yoichi Wada

News Original From: gamesindustry

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