Earlier this week, Sq. Enix started present process a reorganization that has seen numerous workers shuffled round. The restructuring is a bid from Sq. Enix’s new president, Takashi Kiryu, to handle “flagging gross sales” of the corporate’s total portfolio, from AAA video games to cell titles. As a part of the transfer, workers comparable to Naoki Hamaguchi, the director of Last Fantasy VII Rebirth, have been promoted to govt officers shifting ahead. Nonetheless, issues aren’t trying as rosy for certainly one of Sq. Enix’s different key RPG franchises: Dragon Quest.
Bloomberg reviews {that a} high producer on the sequence, Yu Miyake, is stepping down from the sequence as a part of Sq.’s reorganization, and can now be main growth on the firm’s cell video games division. Miyake, who has been with the Dragon Quest franchise since 1992, has reportedly been moved there following a lot of delays to the upcoming Dragon Quest XII. Introduced again in 2021, little else has been heard about Dragon Quest 12 till now, which doesn’t encourage a lot hope this recreation will see the sunshine of day anytime quickly.
In accordance with Bloomberg, sources near the matter say that Yosuke Saito, a producer at Sq. recognized for his work on the Nier sequence, is believed to be a “robust candidate” to take the lead on the Dragon Quest sequence.
Kiryu, as president of Sq. Enix, has made no try to cover his want to make the corporate leaner and blend issues up. He opened the 12 months by declaring that the corporate could be “aggressive” in its use of AI, and informed buyers that he needed Sq. to make fewer video games, as a substitute specializing in marquee titles and advertising them extra successfully to advertise gross sales. The corporate’s gross sales have struggled of late, even with heavy hitters like final 12 months’s Last Fantasy XVI, whose gross sales have been topic to scrutiny from Sq. and followers alike.
Per Bloomberg’s report, Kiryu’s newest restructuring of the enterprise isn’t the one method he has tried to achieve this objective. In accordance with their sources, he has additionally shut down a lot of unannounced initiatives during the last 12 months. Kiryu has additionally seemingly positioned “checks” on producers as a way to rein in and streamline the manufacturing course of. The hope, it appears, is to focus extra on internally developed AAA video games reasonably than flip to “exterior sources.”