The Mayor of Toronto, everyone. It's weird seeing
the Sun rip him apart since they used to defend him to bits. The
Sun.
Well since we're gonna talk about it anyways...
RiP Japanese gaming industry 1985-2006ish
20 Years was a good long time.
I just woke up from my... fuck I don't know what kind of sleep I had but it wasn't really a good sleep in any case... saw people getting mad and hyperbolic (like this quoted example, here) and then decided to go on the shareholder site to read the pdf file. Granted, I just woke up and I'm tired, but...
Uhm.
I don't really understand why some companies are going for this "throw all eggs into one basket, let's cut and run for money" approach. Because it does look like, going by some of the charts and stats they provided on the rest of the pdf, that they made some money. The language used is "focus on" and "accelerate" though I don't think they ever said "exclusively".
However, the hyperbole from some people who just don't...
read, I guess? It doesn't seem to be
exclusively the case. Going by the language that they're using in the pdf document, they aren't saying that they're going to stop HD/handheld development, but they're going for a focus on smartphone stuff and Eidos to work on online stuff. Unless they start entirely laying off people and cancelling a ton of projects, I don't see them completely scaling back on HD/handheld development unless shit doesn't work out for them on that front, but there's no denying that games development is expensive and will be expensive in this coming generation. Relying on more things then their three great pillars (DQ/FF/KH) would probably be superfluous expenditures for them given the cost of development (especially since SE really really really loves to put on extra bells and whistles onto their games in terms of making it look pretty). The biggest casualty, most likely, will be the mid-tier titles like Drakengard
if/provided that they don't sell well.
I mean, I was warned by some people that, yes, this industry is going to get more and more mobile-focused, especially with the advent of iOS7's controller support, but I don't see people throwing all eggs into one basket. That's just a bubble waiting to burst if people did that.
The online bit where Eidos said that they're going more online-focused is basically referring to making their console games more online-focused (presumably adding more focus to MP (ex:
Crystal Dynamics to Tomb Raider), putting microtransactions in their SP titles, going F2P with some original games, or making some online stuff...and uh, they did say that earlier this year in a blog post before, so this isn't new news).
What certainly makes me nervous is the DQ slide (which I could also interpret to being, "DQ can be developed for consoles/handhelds, sure, but we'll port it to smartphones inevitably" or even vice-versa), but people going out and saying "last FF on consoles!" are probably shouting that the sky is falling. FFXII was the "last FF as we knew it" seven years ago, and look where we are?
Just read the document linked in the OP of that thread. Or heck, let me link it here:
http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/14q2slides.pdf. Don't swear off on just the things you read in the OP. Go back and read the source and form your reading of the the form. It's like academic research, you see. It's certainly an "end of an era", but the hyperbole surrounding that document makes me scratch my head, given that what they seem to be doing is covering their bases more? I almost wonder if their aim is to make their games that are domestically-developed multiplatform (ie: smartphones being the other platform or the lead platform, and the game would maybe get ported inevitably... which is what already happens?).
That sort of behaviour shouldn't shock me anymore. As an aside, I guess I've just grown tired of the amount of hyperbole about everything. Or reading of things for a negative or positive spin (yes, this can certainly be just as bad as negative spin; we've all seen Fox News, we know how that works) on 'em. It just makes me feel
tired.
I'm going back to bed.
