Sakaguchi, Square-Enix, and Mist Walker

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Okay, I'm aware that Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi has started up his own development studio called Mist Walker.

Also, according to EGM, Sakaguchi is working on a next-gen RPG due to see release on Xenon, Revolution, or both.

My question is: Has Sakaguchi actually left Square-Enix or is Mist Walker just another studio within the company? Is this why there was no mention of Mist Walker games for PS3?
 
He left Square Enix totally.
Oh, and there's no mention of PS3 because PS3 doesn't have much of an existence at the moment.
 
I think Myst Walker is also working on the PS3.

I'm not so sure if Sakaguchi so much "left" Squaresoft as much as he was "forced" out a bit like how Gunpei Yokoi "left" Nintendo after the Virtual Boy debacle.

From what I understand, its pretty common in the Japanese business structure to leave a company (basically be forced out, although this is kind of like an unspoken rule) for "shaming" the company with a flop.
 
If they are not developing for PS3 that'd be really curious indeed.

Maybe there was some falling out between not only Sakaguchi and Square but Sony as well?

Perhaps Sakaguchi did not approve of Sony buying stock in Squaresoft?

Or maybe they'd rather work on Revolution or Xenon software to make their franchises stand out against Final Fantasy?

Who knows. I would think they'll still end up with games on PS3 though.
 
EGM says he's been in talks with both Nintendo and Microsoft. If I had to speculate, I'd say they said that because, uh, Sakaguchi's been in talks with both Nintendo and Microsoft.
 
Das Scotter said:
What was Sakaguchi's failure, though? I don't understand.
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Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was a monstrous box office failure and Squresoft was forced to sell stock to Sony as a result. The Hawaii CGI studio which Square opened for the movie was also closed (sadly).
 
Das Scotter said:
What was Sakaguchi's failure, though? I don't understand.
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But what good is Final Fantasy without its Creator/Director? It's like Mario and Zelda without Miyamoto's input. It should be noted that Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy Artist) and Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy Composer), who already left Square-Enix are working with Sakaguchi on his Mist Walker projects.

It would seem all that was good about Final Fantasy is gone. The direction, art, and music were what made it so amazing.

I look foward to Mist Walker and its games.
 
Lemurnator said:
Why doesn't he commit seppukku like what would have been done 100 years ago?
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Its funny, that's basically what happens in Japan, except of course as a buisnessman you resign rather than y'know ... kill yourself.

I always picture the Japanese businessman walking with his head down in shame will all his fellow employees watch on though as he exits the building.
 
soundwave05 said:
I always picture the Japanese businessman walking with his head down in shame will all his fellow employees watch on though as he exits the building.
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Sorry to take this image out of your head, but in fact what happens in Japan is that they don't resign -- they're merely demoted to out-of-the-way positions. Like Sakaguchi. And that's worse for everyone involved, because if he'd been fired he'd have gotten another job and we'd be playing his games still.

Of course, you can see the changes taking place in Japanese culture. People are actually finally quitting. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that these guys are artists -- if they've got creative urges and your company's not liking it, they're realizing that it is in fact okay to split.
 
Kobun Heat said:
Sorry to take this image out of your head, but in fact what happens in Japan is that they don't resign -- they're merely demoted to out-of-the-way positions. Like Sakaguchi.

Of course, you can see the changes taking place in Japanese culture. People are actually finally quitting. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that these guys are artists -- if they've got creative urges and your company's not liking it, they're realizing that it is in fact okay to split.
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I think the demotion is basically the company's way of saying "get out of here", they know full well what a disgrace it would be for someone like Sakaguchi to be working in some low level position but it takes the blame off the company.

Just like Nintendo always says that they never fired Gunpei Yokoi, and that might be true to a certain extent, but realistically I think these guys were given the boot, just in a more diplomatic sense.
 
Das Scotter said:
But what good is Final Fantasy without its Creator/Director? It's like Mario and Zelda without Miyamoto's input. It should be noted that Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy Artist) and Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy Composer), who already left Square-Enix are working with Sakaguchi on his Mist Walker projects.

It would seem all that was good about Final Fantasy is gone. The direction, art, and music were what made it so amazing.

I look foward to Mist Walker and its games.
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The only FF game that Sakaguchi has been strongly involved with since FF VII was FF IX. It's not like there's going to be a huge change.

If anything, FF XII looks like a big change for the better so far.
 
Well I liked FFVII and FFIX, and didn't like FFVIII or FFX.

So I'd say for me personally, not having Sakaguchi around has hurt Square.

Interested to see what Matsuno does with FFXII, but man the art style sucks ass.
 
I dunno, I get the feeling that all this FFX-2 and FFVII spin-off crap wouldn't be happening if Sakaguchi was around.

He was very insistent that there not be direct sequels to existing FF games.

I do think the FF games have lost some of their "epicness" lately too.
 
Das Scotter said:
But what good is Final Fantasy without its Creator/Director? It's like Mario and Zelda without Miyamoto's input. It should be noted that Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy Artist) and Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy Composer), who already left Square-Enix are working with Sakaguchi on his Mist Walker projects.
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Yoshitaka Amano has never been a Square employee, and is not yet (officially) working with Sakaguchi in Mist Walker. Sakaguchi named Amano as one of possible collaboraters. Amano continues the work of image illustrations for Final Fantasy as you see in FF XII logo as Uematsu does FF music fleelance.

Sakaguchi was nominally credited as the 'executive producer' or something like that in FFX but actually he did nothing for the game IIRC. He finally quitted Square in April 2004.
 
john tv said:
WTF? Ebert and his little buddy gave the Final Fantasy movie two thumbs up? ???
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That stunned me too! I can't believe that POS got his recommendation. He usually has such good taste... I guess the tech seduced him into ignoring the "plot".
 
john tv said:
WTF? Ebert and his little buddy gave the Final Fantasy movie two thumbs up? ???
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I think his little buddy liked "you got served" also... :lol
 
FFX was a solid RPG.

FFX-2 was a great battle system, a neat power-up system, and a crap story that shat over everything that FFX tried to accomplish.
 
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