Square Enix Supports Sony, But Not Too Much

Next-Gen reports that Square Enix is throwing just the right amount of support behind Sony. In some fairly non-humble statements, Square Enix senior VP Michihiro Sasaki talked about their positioning in the next generation market. "'We don't want the PlayStation 3 to be the overwhelming loser, so we want to support them,' he said. 'But we don't want them to be the overwhelming winner either, so we can't support them too much.' Sasaki's comments (which were pulled out of context and dropped into the WSJ article) don't exactly take the humble approach regarding Square Enix's heavy influence on the popularity of the PlayStation brand. The PS2-exclusive FFXII sold over 1.7 million units for a premium $80 equivalent price tag in the first four days after its Japan launch."

Comments

Re:They don't have to take the humble approach...

[justchris]

Yes, they sold a lot of copies, but were it not for FF7, all of those games except Gran Turismo would exist differently than they are today. It was Square dropping support for the n64 which A) Drove a lot of sales to the PS1 away from the n64, singlehandedly giving Sony a lead in marketshare for the first time that generation (before that, the n64 was still beating the PS1 in sales) and B) Encouraging other developers to move away from the Nintendo platform. Some of the smaller developers had already switched for money issues, but the large publishers and big names followed Square's lead, and that is what boosted Sony over Nintendo. Had Square backed Nintendo, many other developers would have followed suit, and a lot of the great PS2 games you enjoy today very likely would have been GC games instead.

You don't have to sale the most games to have the most influence. Don't forget that the first 2 installments of GTA sold almost nothing, and it wasn't until GTA3 that Rockstar even became relevant as a developer. Just because their game sold more copies doesn't mean anyone gave two shits about them for most of their existence.

Re:They don't have to take the humble approach...

[Leviance]

You forget how many PS2 owners have had to buy second and/or third consoles...