We’re currently on the cusp of a new console generation and gaming era. New hardware often helps with evolution, allowing developers to do new and exciting things. During our recent interview with Square Enix CEO and president Yosuke Matsuda, we wanted to see with all these innovations on the horizon how Square Enix envisions its place going forward.
Matsuda seemed to be considering all the different hardware and service options for the future, but also made one thing clear about what’s most important to the company: making fun games. “There’s the [new] game consoles. There’s also the different services, for example, such as Stadia and other cloud-based services, so there are a variety of different platforms coming out,” he noted. “And what we make are video games to put onto those platforms. What we are doing is trying to put something on those platforms that the players are going to find to be fun, that they’re going to enjoy. And for us, it all comes down to that. Those new pieces of hardware and platforms might offer us new ways of articulating what we want to do in terms of game design capabilities, but at the end of the day, the players have to find it fun. So that’s what we’re always trying to do. And I don’t think that’s going to change.”
With the increasing options for platforms and services, Matsuda sees this as something to embrace as it will give Square Enix access to more customers than ever before. “Those additional opportunities are good for us, and we want to take advantage of that so that we can have more customers than before play games that they find to be fun. So regardless of what the next generation consoles look like or what new services might come out, I don’t think that that’s going to change.”
We’ve shared a lot from our interview with Matsuda in the past few days, including his philosophy on remakes and Final Fantasy XV’s impact on raising the series’ profile.