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News Top ‘Dragon Quest’ Producer Steps Down in Square Enix Overhaul

"Since becoming president last year, Kiryu has streamlined game production by shutting down many unannounced projects and placing checks on producers’ influence, the people said."

I really really really really really do not like the sound of that at all.
 
"Since becoming president last year, Kiryu has streamlined game production by shutting down many unannounced projects and placing checks on producers’ influence, the people said."
Bad from a creativity focused standpoint, no doubt. It will potentially help S-E become less of a clusterfuck wrt commercial performance, though. I'm torn on this with the little info we have thus far.
 
Bad from a creativity focused standpoint, no doubt. It will potentially help S-E become less of a clusterfuck wrt commercial performance, though. I'm torn on this with the little info we have thus far.
Yeah I'm sure from a business standpoint it makes sense, but as someone still longing for a return to the Sakaguchi era it sucks to see them do the "corporate is in charge now, not the developers" shit that Sega pulled in the 00s (which fucked their pipeline and drove a lot of their talent away).

But meh, video games are a massive business now so 🤷
 
Seems like he was just moved to the mobile division and that Yosuke Saito (Nier producer) may be replacing him?

Asano and Hamaguchi were recently promoted to Executive Officers, so it’s not all bad news at least.
 
honestly, something needs to be done with DQ, it's hugely mismanaged IP for SE.

not having a brand new title the whole of switch's lifespan is ridiculous. this would be the first time that the biggest platform in japan didn't get a new numbered DQ game since famicom. it would have easily been a 3 to 4 million seller game for them just in japan. on top of that they missed the boat on remasters/remakes too.
 
I'm not afraid of some shit happening to DQ as long as Horii is there and keeps reign over it. After Horii though ... tough luck.

Kinda related, i'm happy for Asano! Dude, his team and dev partners dish out so many quality games, it's not funny.

"Since becoming president last year, Kiryu has streamlined game production by shutting down many unannounced projects and placing checks on producers’ influence, the people said."

I really really really really really do not like the sound of that at all.

The last part about producer influece could really be bad for many of SQEX IPs ... but honestly, for everyone involved in modern FF and Nomura, this sounds like a VERY good thing.
 
honestly, something needs to be done with DQ, it's hugely mismanaged IP for SE.

not having a brand new title the whole of switch's lifespan is ridiculous. this would be the first time that the biggest platform in japan didn't get a new numbered DQ game since famicom. it would have easily been a 3 to 4 million seller game for them just in japan. on top of that they missed the boat on remasters/remakes too.
It's been mismanaged since the Enix and Squaresoft merger imo. All resources and attention is mostly put onto Final Fantasy, while Dragon Quest is being treated as second rate.

Only recently they've opted for worldwide simultaneous releases for (some of) the games. And many spin-offs are on a smaller budget than other SE AA projects (at least that's the impression I get).
 
Mochizuki burying the lede here



rip Creative Business Units, long live Creative Studios

In all seriousness, I'm not sure what to make of this. Projects being cancelled never sounds good but several of their smaller games have struggled in various ways and it might not be a bad idea to refocus their efforts. The Dragon Quest side in particular has been a mess. Spinoffs having long delays or troubled development only to come out to middling reception have been the norm while DQIII and DQXII are MIA. The fact that there has been no new mainline DQ for close to 7 years, not even remakes, is wild to me.

As for their AAA side, I don't know how or if this will affect it. XVI and Rebirth seemingly didn't run into issues during development, critical reception was good to great, it's just sales that are lagging somewhat. I don't think it's a quality or development problem in the strictest sense.
 
As for their AAA side, I don't know how or if this will affect it. XVI and Rebirth seemingly didn't run into issues during development, critical reception was good to great, it's just sales that are lagging somewhat. I don't think it's a quality or development problem in the strictest sense.

Well i wouldn't say XVI is having a "flawless" reception, feels like one of the most divisive games of the series so far. But that's another story.

About development issues ... i think there are development /budgeting issues. Not directly within the dev teams for the 7 Remake games and XVI, but from others that ultimately affect other devs at SQEX.
Nowadays, big 3rds are usually able to stem dev of such large scale projects without having to completely sell exclusivity to one console maker. Sure it still happens, but usually it's just marketing rights or stuff like localization / publishing help.

SQEX, at least for major parts of FF, ... aren't. So there must be some issues where enough goes wrong that they either have to, or happily take whatever money Sony offers, thus limiting the potential userbase and ultimately IP growth. And those late (sometimes *really late) PC ports do too little, too late.

Here's hoping the new pres understood the issues, and the changes and streamlining are for these issues. Of course, this could be fools hope and just another case of a suit doing the wrong things. ^^
 
The Dragon Quest side in particular has been a mess. Spinoffs having long delays or troubled development only to come out to middling reception have been the norm while DQIII and DQXII are MIA. The fact that there has been no new mainline DQ for close to 7 years, not even remakes, is wild to me.

During the Switch's lifespan, they release two new expansions for DQX, and DQX offline base game + DLC. The problem is the west is not getting those, but it's not like the DQ team is not productive.

The Builders series were a huge success and DQ Treasures and Monsters 3 were also very well received, they're just not gonna set the world on fire, they're smaller games by definition.

Infinity Strash bombed commercially and critically but afaik it was mostly an externally developed game as Dai is more its own thing.

New numbered titles have always taken long to develop, personally I believe that has more to do with Horii preferring to have a smaller team to have more control over things rather than than mismanagement. There's no denying something went wrong with DQ3 though, but I don't think that's become the norm.

They're surely having some trouble right now, though, with 2/3 of the main creator trio gone, so maybe that Nier guy is being put there to help on that front.
 
Has Dragon Quest really been mismanaged this gen? It’s not seen consistent releases I suppose but it’s also Dragon Quest, a fairly niche franchise in the west. DQ11’s development timeline meant it wouldn’t launch on Switch as well as guarantees 12 would either miss Switch or squeak in right at the end. That said 11S got a lot of love by the developers and is closer to an Atlus style release. It was a fairly improved version released exclusively on Switch.

Then you’ve had a few Builders, Monsters, Heroes, Dai. A few mobile ports of 1, 2, and 3. A forthcoming HD2D remake. I’d say DQ has done pretty good on Switch considering it used to not even come over consistently.

There are a few nitpicks to make I suppose. Heroes never came west, the releases are mobile ports, the 8 rerelease was a 3DS title. But they’re just minor missed opportunities - not really mismanagement in my opinion.
 
They're surely having some trouble right now, though, with 2/3 of the main creator trio gone, so maybe that Nier guy is being put there to help on that front.
Saito has been a producer for mainline DQ for quite some time now, but it seems like he'll be taking a bigger role in Miyake's place. He's probably going to decide which spin-offs are produced with Yuji Horii now.
 
The last part about producer influece could really be bad for many of SQEX IPs ... but honestly, for everyone involved in modern FF and Nomura, this sounds like a VERY good thing.
But this is clearly referring to AA productions? Not the main FF games. (Not that they can't also change course on FF-related things). I'd also echo the folks who are saying that DQ has been poorly managed, in certain ways way more than FF if anything.

I've expressed myself on this topic time and time again and with this update I once again remain cautiously optimistic. I'd really like to get some clarity on this new internal structure though, maybe a transcript of whatever Q&A they have lined up for the next investors' meeting or something else of the sort.

Also people worried about SE's AA output being flat-out killed should be able to chill now that (the GOAT) Asano has been promoted right? Right?
 
"Since becoming president last year, Kiryu has streamlined game production by shutting down many unannounced projects and placing checks on producers’ influence, the people said."

I really really really really really do not like the sound of that at all.

dude should go back to singing Karaoke and beating up street thugs and leave the Chrono Trigger canceling to someone else
 
During the Switch's lifespan, they release two new expansions for DQX, and DQX offline base game + DLC. The problem is the west is not getting those, but it's not like the DQ team is not productive.

The Builders series were a huge success and DQ Treasures and Monsters 3 were also very well received, they're just not gonna set the world on fire, they're smaller games by definition.

Infinity Strash bombed commercially and critically but afaik it was mostly an externally developed game as Dai is more its own thing.

New numbered titles have always taken long to develop, personally I believe that has more to do with Horii preferring to have a smaller team to have more control over things rather than than mismanagement. There's no denying something went wrong with DQ3 though, but I don't think that's become the norm.

They're surely having some trouble right now, though, with 2/3 of the main creator trio gone, so maybe that Nier guy is being put there to help on that front.
I mean, yeah, I'm not saying they're not doing anything. It's a multitude of things like the aforementioned lack of a Western release for DQX Offline (which looks pretty bad but that's neither here nor there) or games being stuck in development for ages. It's not just DQIII and Dai either. Treasures' development issues which led to them pivoting from a Monsters game to what it is today are well documented. DQM3 apparently didn't run into any trouble but it also looks bad and runs at an unstable framerate. DQB2 came out over 5 years ago, was really good, and since then the quality of their releases has taken a nosedive.

Horii can obviously take all the time he needs for XII but when you take 7+ years between mainline titles you can't do what they've been doing. Hopefully Saito will help manage it better.
 
The company has promoted a new group of creators, including Naoki Hamaguchi, Tomoya Asano and Takeshi Nozue, appointing them to executive officers on Monday. The company plans to announce its midterm strategy plan in May.
Great for Asano. I’m not surprised this happened with DQ.
 
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Wasn't it established in another thread that, apparently, producers in Square Enix were more of Directors, rather than Producers themselves? It would make sense why Naoki Yoshida had a lot of control over how FINAL FANTASY XVI was developed.

Which is weird because Tetsuya Nomura has always been Director to KINGDOM HEARTS.

But these news also reaffirm Takashi Kiryu position that Square should focus on AAA. And like others have mentioned, it seems these decisions were due.

I wonder if one of those canned projects was the "leaked" FFIX remake

Well i wouldn't say XVI is having a "flawless" reception, feels like one of the most divisive games of the series so far. But that's another story.
Every current/next mainline FF is gonna have a divisive reception. I wouldn't pay much attention to this part of the fandom. Granted, I think the only objectively divisive FF game is FFXIII, but there are very specific reason for that.
 
Has Dragon Quest really been mismanaged this gen? It’s not seen consistent releases I suppose but it’s also Dragon Quest, a fairly niche franchise in the west. DQ11’s development timeline meant it wouldn’t launch on Switch as well as guarantees 12 would either miss Switch or squeak in right at the end. That said 11S got a lot of love by the developers and is closer to an Atlus style release. It was a fairly improved version released exclusively on Switch.

Then you’ve had a few Builders, Monsters, Heroes, Dai. A few mobile ports of 1, 2, and 3. A forthcoming HD2D remake. I’d say DQ has done pretty good on Switch considering it used to not even come over consistently.

There are a few nitpicks to make I suppose. Heroes never came west, the releases are mobile ports, the 8 rerelease was a 3DS title. But they’re just minor missed opportunities - not really mismanagement in my opinion.
It's a "niche franchise" directly because of the mismanagement. 11S "getting a lot of love by the developers" was a necessity after targeting PS4 instead of 3DS, and then desperately having to create both 3DS and Switch backports of a HD release. They then followed this by delisting the original PC version and replacing it with the S version, which literally has worse quality graphical assets than the original - on the platform where enhanced graphics are part of the appeal. The situation with the development of 11 alone is damning, never mind the usual Square Enix problems of:
-inconsistent platform presence
-inconsistent quality/scheduling
-inconsistent western availability
-marketing budget that is essentially wasted telling large proportions of their audience "you can only buy this on console X, sorry", until another platform holder pays them to dump it onto their platform with <10% of the fanfare, after much of that audience has moved on

As for the spinoffs - customers have no need for A/AA quality anime RPGs when the likes of Mihoyo are offering AAA presentation for free on your phone. If the DQM subseries wants to do anything besides limp along to dwindling sales they need to treat it with the same care their competitors do, or change the pricing model.

Square do not have the market impact or relevance to dictate where customers go anymore, not domestically and definitely not internationally. Replacing producers won't help unless they are willing to adapt to that reality.
 
Wasn't it established in another thread that, apparently, producers in Square Enix were more of Directors, rather than Producers themselves? It would make sense why Naoki Yoshida had a lot of control over how FINAL FANTASY XVI was developed.
Titles are just titles and what they mean can vary between companies. And producers in Japan have always been more like western directors. Like how Aonuma dictated direction for Zelda despite being producer since after Twilight Princess



DQ has kinda been a mess since 11's release. Treasures was a flop and it's dev struggles as Monsters is what caused its existence in the first place. DQM3 was better recieced but that looked to have been rushed out. DQ3R is nowhere to be seen. There aren't even any ports of DQ4-8 for modern, non-mobile systems. I can't say this shake up is surprising
 
But this is clearly referring to AA productions? Not the main FF games. (Not that they can't also change course on FF-related things). I'd also echo the folks who are saying that DQ has been poorly managed, in certain ways way more than FF if anything.

I've expressed myself on this topic time and time again and with this update I once again remain cautiously optimistic. I'd really like to get some clarity on this new internal structure though, maybe a transcript of whatever Q&A they have lined up for the next investors' meeting or something else of the sort.

Also people worried about SE's AA output being flat-out killed should be able to chill now that (the GOAT) Asano has been promoted right? Right?

Dunno, i don't think the problems with their AA output is producer/director related. Bad release timing(s), amount, non-existant marketing and so on are the problems. Sure these things are prolly decisions where the producer/director is involved too, but other suits too.

How their big IPs are treated is more of a prodicer/director issue, and it does seem many of them have free reign and just do what they want.

They can say they're taking away producer influence but Kawazu seems to be doing whatever he wants for SaGa.

It is (not) established that Kawazu has dirt on the SQEX higher-ups, even those who will be higher-up in the future, so no one dares to confront him.

;]
 
Dunno, i don't think the problems with their AA output is producer/director related. Bad release timing(s), amount, non-existant marketing and so on are the problems. Sure these things are prolly decisions where the producer/director is involved too, but other suits too.

How their big IPs are treated is more of a prodicer/director issue, and it does seem many of them have free reign and just do what they want.
Keep in mind that we've had reports on this thing though. Remember this? No amount of marketing is going to save a poorly priced, unappealing product. If they shower the market with a deluge of games that they greenlit to please said producers and no one buys them then all they're achieving is devaluing their brand and eroding consumer trust. I'm sorry but I really don't believe we can reconcile this to be about mainline FF!

(And again, feel free to think they should be doing differently there. I partially believe that to be the case as well.)
 
honestly, something needs to be done with DQ, it's hugely mismanaged IP for SE.

not having a brand new title the whole of switch's lifespan is ridiculous. this would be the first time that the biggest platform in japan didn't get a new numbered DQ game since famicom. it would have easily been a 3 to 4 million seller game for them just in japan. on top of that they missed the boat on remasters/remakes too.
Agreed. We have no idea what is going on with DQ XII, and even outside of that...why aren't they porting over the older games? Seems like easy money, right? But you can only get I, II, III, and XI on Switch. Weird.
 
I do think that DQ has been mismanaged, but on the contrary, the FF brand is in the best place its been at in decades. The fact that FF7 Rebirth came out 4 years after Remake and 3 years after intermission, especially when you factor in COVID and the gigantic scope of the game, is nothing short of impressive and it honestly puts a lot of other devs in shame
 
dude should go back to singing Karaoke and beating up street thugs and leave the Chrono Trigger canceling to someone else
Yeah especially since I'm gonna sock anyone who cancels a Chrono project and I dunno if I'd survive socking a yakuza member 🤣
 
will potentially help S-E become less of a clusterfuck wrt commercial performance, though
will it?

will it really?

seems like a lot of stuff in tech and service right now is doing the mini-bubble pop, mass layoff, then reshuffle to look like there’s a plan in complete denial of external factors, context, and mismanagement / misappropriation from the top.

the positioning is familiar to me

again I have no idea if the dude in question sucked or not

but I’m a little mystified at the notion that DQ has been mismanaged
 
What is it that's made the gaps between mainline Dragon Quest games so long, anyway? They were coming out every year or two, then VII was suddenly a five year gap, with every subsequent entry taking about as long (and XII is already the record holder). It's not like Final Fantasy where they need crazy production values and there's a question of who's even making the next one, but it's slowed down even more.

The best I can gather is that it seems like it's just been ambition in scope or concept causing them to take longer than expected, dealing with online and underpowered hardware (IX, X) or simply a very huge game (VII, XI)? Not an entirely satisfying answer, with how consistently they've apparently run into such issues, but it's all I could find.
 
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I find it weird to say that Dragon Quest is mismanaged because they didn't have a new mainline title on the Switch, when the newest mainline title launched just before the Switch and also had a heavily marketed remake on the Switch. Dragon Quest XI already sold 3.9 million units physically in Japan alone, making it the second best selling Dragon Quest game in the region, and with digitally it's obviously the first. Would the game being pushed back another two years really change much? Most likely all that would have happened is you exchange 3DS sales for Switch sales and some more PS4 sales go to Switch. Maybe the maximum would have been a little higher, but also digital would have obscured things more later on. I get the actual sales pitch here is just to make another Dragon Quest game after XI and earlier than XII's arrival date but Dragon Quest has always been like this since VII, the realities of modern game development were always just going to make it worse.

The much, much bigger problems is spin-offs. While Dragon Quest got some decent spin-offs right in the beginning of Switch (mostly ports) and one right at the end, most of it's best spin-offs in recent memory were ones from the beginning of the Switch or even earlier than that, despite the fact that they pump out spin-offs consistently. We're getting to a point where stuff like Monsters 3 is super successful but it took a long ways to get there, and honestly, I feel like Square should dedicate more budget to these because some of these would probably crack the West pretty well. The fact that these games used to be consistent million sellers and you had long gaps without them or really bad ones (Treasures, Strash) is a big problem.

The real issue with Square in general is that they should have multiple IPs as their pillars for success and it basically just feels like one. For how much people criticize Capcom for just making RE and MH, they at least have consistent pillars with SF being a distant third (yes these take forever to come out, but they are live service games). With Square it just feels like Final Fantasy, despite the fact that DQ, KH and Nier are nearly as popular and have actually been bigger game releases in some cases.

The problem is ... what are you going to say to the creators? "Oh yeah Nomura hurry the fuck up on Kingdom Hearts IV", "Where is Nier Btomata Taro?". Most of these franchises are creative led, and while this is also true for Final Fantasy as well, that has two teams working on mainline content at any one time (and really more like two units but multiple teams). The fact is it makes sense that a Kingdom Hearts or a Nier game takes so long to make, but it certainly doesn't help. KH feels like the more mismanaged one here. DQ is fine, it mostly being popular in Japan and having merchandise and spin-offs out the ass means it's always relevant.
 
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Honestly as a Dragon Quest fan, the only thing I was pissed off was Square prioritizing PS4 version ober Switch and delaying it a year. Switch has gotten interesting spin-offs (still gotta play Monsters Dark Prince), and the only sure thing left for them to do is to somehow port at least DQ 4-8. Absolute day one is they do it.

My perception is that the franchise is in a good place and if they do not really do dumb stuff (change the combat system or the style too much) and a multiplatform worldwide release (including Switch 2) they are sure to have a hit with 12.
 
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Dragon Quest XI is one of my favorite games of all-time. I'll have to take a wait and see approach with this stuff. Don't really have an opinion beyond that at the moment. Just going to have to wait until they show off Dragon Quest XII and see how I feel about that game once it starts getting some major footage.
 
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Really feels like SE is in for a big shakeup, this doesn’t surprise me. With XVI and Rebirth being such massive AAA games yet not lighting the world on fire, I’m not really sure what to expect from the future of FF and SE.

My one hope is that they still get FF7R3 out uncompromised.
 
Really feels like SE is in for a big shakeup, this doesn’t surprise me. With XVI and Rebirth being such massive AAA games yet not lighting the world on fire, I’m not really sure what to expect from the future of FF and SE.

My one hope is that they still get FF7R3 out uncompromised.
Naoki Hamaguchi was among the newly appointed executives so FF7R should continue as planned.
 
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It's been mismanaged since the Enix and Squaresoft merger imo. All resources and attention is mostly put onto Final Fantasy, while Dragon Quest is being treated as second rate.
Depends on how you see it, I guess. The best Dragon Quest games have released under the Squenix umbrella imo. Even if you ignore VIII, IX and XI are amazing.
 
Dragon Quest XI is incredible and one of my favorite games in the series. But the last several years after if came out have been really disappointing as a fan of the franchise. It is hard not to feel like the franchise is imploding between the low quality of some recent releases, how DQ3R and DQ12 are basically vaporware now, alongside several heads of the franchise no longer being with it between Toriyama's death and now Miyake's departure.
 
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I find it weird to say that Dragon Quest is mismanaged because they didn't have a new mainline title on the Switch, when the newest mainline title launched just before the Switch and also had a heavily marketed remake on the Switch. Dragon Quest XI already sold 3.9 million units physically in Japan alone, making it the second best selling Dragon Quest game in the region, and with digitally it's obviously the first. Would the game being pushed back another two years really change much? Most likely all that would have happened is you exchange 3DS sales for Switch sales and some more PS4 sales go to Switch. Maybe the maximum would have been a little higher, but also digital would have obscured things more later on. I get the actual sales pitch here is just to make another Dragon Quest game after XI and earlier than XII's arrival date but Dragon Quest has always been like this since VII, the realities of modern game development were always just going to make it worse.
I mean, DQXI was released almost 7 years ago, and XII is unlikely to be released this year. In that timespan, the FF teams will have released three blockbuster mainline FFs (VII Remake, XVI and VII Rebirth) and three MMO expansions (Shadowbringers, Endwalker and Dawntrail). There have been numerous spinoffs as well.

At some point it becomes an issue with managing priorities and resources more than the general state of current game development, which everyone else is dealing with as well.
 
People who are upset about the time between mainline DQ releases aughta talk with a Chrono fan every once in a while
 
I mean, DQXI was released almost 7 years ago, and XII is unlikely to be released this year. In that timespan, the FF teams will have released three blockbuster mainline FFs (VII Remake, XVI and VII Rebirth) and three MMO expansions (Shadowbringers, Endwalker and Dawntrail). There have been numerous spinoffs as well.

At some point it becomes an issue with managing priorities and resources more than the general state of current game development, which everyone else is dealing with as well.
I'm not sure what the point of this reply is. I literally said in my comment "Dragon Quest has always been like this since VII" meaning it's not just a modern game development issue, that just made it worse. If you're saying Final Fantasy is better managed, than I agree. If you're saying that Square needs another productive franchise, than I agree! If you're saying it should be DQ, then I agree it could be better, I'm just saying it's already got a better model than other big Square IP besides FF, with a decently successful MMO and multiple profitable spin offs, and that Square's biggest blunder was probably how they treated spin offs through a lot of the Switch's life.
 
I don't think the time in between releases is an indicative of a franchise being mismanaged. Maybe it's just how the studio likes to work.
 
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I'm not sure what the point of this reply is. I literally said in my comment "Dragon Quest has always been like this since VII" meaning it's not just a modern game development issue, that just made it worse. If you're saying Final Fantasy is better managed, than I agree. If you're saying that Square needs another productive franchise, than I agree! If you're saying it should be DQ, then I agree it could be better, I'm just saying it's already got a better model than other big Square IP besides FF, with a decently successful MMO and multiple profitable spin offs, and that Square's biggest blunder was probably how they treated spin offs through a lot of the Switch's life.
I think their handling of the series has gotten substantially worse in recent years (relative to its status and how other franchises are faring).
 
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