Square To Merge With Enix

SquareAMP writes "The makers of the 'Final Fantasy' video game series will be merging with the makers of the 'Dragon Quest' series to produce an RPG powerhouse to be re-named Enix Square Co. Reuters has all the details of the planned merger, that includes the dismantling of Square's assets and absorption into Enix. For Square fanboys fearing that this may ruin their favorite RPG company, Square's current CEO Yoichi Wada will be running the combined entity."

Comments

Did you read the article ?

[sweede]

Here's the story from Yahoo

"Under the accord, 0.81 Enix share will be exchanged for one Square share, with Enix emerging as the surviving entity. "

and

"The postmerger entity, to be called Square Enix, "

while you where correct in that Enix is going to absorb square assets,

"Square, in its current company structure, will be disbanded, and (on paper, anyway) Enix will absorb Square's assets and liabilities. However, Yoichi Wada, current president of Square, will head up the new company, suggesting that Square will have more power than Enix in the merger's final structure. "

all of this was also repeated here

Re:Could be called the "shaft Sony" merger

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? The Square and Nintendo fallout came years before The Spirits Within. It actually goes back to the N64 and Nintendo's decision to use cartridges instead of the CD format. Square, who was already planning to make a FF game for the 64 (there were already screenshots), dumped Nintendo and went over to Sony. The feud was only beginning though. Ads for Final Fantasy 7 made the point that a cartridge-based system had no chance of making such a beautiful game. Worse though, and this only became widely known this year, they convinced Enix to dump Nintendo as well. The bad blood lasted until early this year, when Nintendo struck a deal to bring Square games back to Nintendo consoles. Of course, the millions lost on the movie probably had something to do with that, but not everything.

PGC Coverage

[Omkar]

Planet Gamecube's coverage of the story

Check out their forums for some intelligent discussion. I saw the news there around 11PM Central. Bloomberg's Coverage

Sony's share has been diluted to 10%, so this looks like a win for Nintendo. Remember, Yamauchi's Fund Q let Square develop for Gamecube and GBA when Sony owned a fifth of the company. I couldn't care less, though. DQ might be good, but all Final Fantasy games after FF3 (6 in Japan) sucked. Note to Square: focus more on gameplay, like Miyamoto (IMO, the Mozart of videogames).

Re:Square fanboys worried?

[13Echo]

Square didn't really "make" Einhander. It was done by Dream Factory, a smaller studio that had some ties with Square. They also did The Bouncer, Tobal, and "Ehrgeiz". Among other titles, they did the UFC: Tapout games for XBox.

Same with things like Bushido Blade, a Lightweight game. Another example: Quest Software members were also contracted for other things, like the FF Tactics games.

Square hasn't really made a whole lot of games in-house, aside from the Final Fantasy Franchise. They mostly do publication or contract other developers to make games for them.

Re:What next?

[Grahf666]

Given that whoever wrote that website has no idea what he's talking about, I'm a bit skeptical.

I quote:
Chrono and Marle are from Secret of Mana

Moreover he claims that Yasunori Mitsuda did the music for FF7 and FF8, which is entirely false.

In my eyes, Chrono Trigger was made by Square with help from some good talent from Enix (and elsewhere perhaps? I dunno), but not exactly an even collaboration.

Errr...that's a load of crap.

[Jayde Stargunner]

Enix had little to nothing to do with Chrono Trigger. Square hired a character designer that was currently under contract with Enix (who, by and large is msotly known for his Dragon Ball work), therefore Yuji Horii was involved in the approval process.

Kazuhiko Aoki is an employee of Squaresoft, and has been involved in many Final Fantasy games--the most recent being Final Fantasy IX, I believe.

Many people in the "Dream Team" room are nothing more than a marketing ploy, and had little to nothing to do with the actual content of the game.

Horii and Sakaguchi played little more than "rubber stamp" roles in the production of the game. Nobuo Uematsu, while a talented composer, had almost nothing to do with the soundtrack--only composing 2 songs, if I remember correctly.

The main roles in the production of an RPG are:
Director
Producer
Scenario Writer

Executive Producer or Supervisor titles are usually reserved for company executives which played little role in the development of the game itself.

One of the more integral members of the Chrono Trigger team that was not mention was Masatou Kato, at well... And any site which is doing an analysis of the CT staff and does not mention him at all is questionable at best. ;-)

-Jayde