Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada: 360, PS3 are 'over-engineered' and 'mismatched' to gamers' needs

[Liam]

Saying what we're all thinking IMO...

 

Square Enix CEO: 360, PS3 too complex

Talking up the DS and Wii, Yoichi Wada believes that the two next-gen consoles are 'over-engineered' and 'mismatched' to gamers' needs.

 

By Emma Boyes, GameSpot UK

Posted Jun 12, 2007 4:35 pm GMT

 

Square Enix dropped the bombshell in December that the latest in its Dragon Quest role-playing game series, Dragon Quest IX: Guard of the Starry Night (working title), would be coming exclusively to the DS. As the last installments of the game--which is very, very big in Japan--were on Sony's PlayStation 2 and original PlayStation, the news was a head-scratcher for many.

 

Square Enix's president and CEO, Yoichi Wada, has now explained the decision, which he says was made so that the "widest array of people" could play the latest installment in the RPG series, reports the Financial Times. He believes bringing the series to the DS means the game could find fans outside of its current audience.

 

Wada appears not to be a fan of complex next-gen consoles like the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, which he calls "over-engineered." He told the newspaper, "There are too many specs--and you also need a high-definition TV, a broadband connection, and a deep knowledge of gaming--these consoles are mismatched to today's environment. In a year or two years, they will fare better."

 

The Square Enix executive believes that the ground has shifted in the gaming industry. "[Whereas] in the old days,we could just focus on the PlayStation or the Game Boy," he said, "the environment has changed completely." A new breed of gamer has also emerged on the back of the release of Nintendo's marketing push to embrace nontraditional gamers--including women and older people--and this means, Wada says, "we have to make games for all kinds of people."

 

I really couldn't agree more. I do not believe that new technology adds anything to gaming, only new ideas. It's true to say that the hardware needs to be developed to realise this potential, but I really don't see what positive additions have been made to 3D gaming in recent years. Iterations of the same concept with a little more lustre have been almost all we have seen since the PSX dominated. And whilst I applaud Nintendo for innovating with the Wii, it's hard to see where the concept will go in serious terms, outside of the 'novelty gaming' value. I dearly hope that it makes gaming much more intuitive and engaging across the entire scope, but only time will tell...

[decisive]

yeah i agree too, although to an extent the added power of the new technology allows old ideas to be fully realised- for instance i imagine the developers of gta4 will have to compromise far less on their creative vision with the horsepower of the new gen, and i'm guessing the 'bar' for ai and immersion has been raised with gears of war but developers have wanted it since doom.

 

i don't really keep up with gaming nowadays but it seems a bit like the huge backlash against the first batch of xbox360 games which were just moderately better looking xbox games gave developers a bit of a slap in the face and forced them to start thinking about ways to actually use the extra power available to deliver gameplay the previous gen isn't capable of.

 

genres still have most of their superlatives rooted in the last decade, with quake3, counterstrike, streetfighter/kof, tekken, soul calibur and so on. i think that's the reason the wii's been so successful, it didn't have any competition (plus the marketing was very shrewd). at the end of the day it's boring as fuck though innit. or is that just me.

[Liam]

for instance i imagine the developers of gta4 will have to compromise far less on their creative vision with the horsepower of the new gen, and i'm guessing the 'bar' for ai and immersion has been raised with gears of war but developers have wanted it since doom

 

Meh

 

First of all, I don't understand the fuss over the GTA series. GTA3 was a nice, novel translation of GTA into a 3D realm... but was it any more? It was a clever mash of existing ideas. Did the subsiquent games really add anything other than 'more of the same'? The funny thing is that World of Warcraft is in many respects the same game as GTA, only executed with whole volumes more depth. But because the setting and context are changed considerably, people don't pick up on that fact.

 

As for Gears... don't get me wrong, I enjoy and have played a LOT of FPS in my time. But is there a genre more stagnant? If there is one type of game that desperately needs a kick up the arse, it's FPS. The last truly mold breaking FPS games were probably Half Life and Goldeneye. And both of those games had appeal to those who might not normally play computer games.

 

I love what the DS has done. It's a pick-up-and-play format that everyone from my friends and brother right the way up to my aunt and grandmother can enjoy. There's the hardcore Castlevania titles for the old schoolers, and the Brain Training and Zendoku for those who'd never normally touch a control pad. Give your DSlite to any non-gamer to have a bash at and watch them get absorbed, resent having to hand it back then go and buy their own... part of that is the intuitive format, part of that is the 'impulse buy' pricing. You gotta love it.

 

This is what Square are getting at... universal appeal. Time for gamers to come out of the darkened room and get social with it, up until now gaming has been very insular.

[Chee]

It's just prettier graphics, which I personally don't see a big problem with. I think coming out with new consoles every 5-7 years isn't a bad thing, it would be silly not to capitalise on the increase in CPU and GPU power. But it's not up to the hardware manufacturers to be the main source of innovation, that's up to the software developers.

[decisive]

First of all, I don't understand the fuss over the GTA series. GTA3 was a nice, novel translation of GTA into a 3D realm... but was it any more? It was a clever mash of existing ideas. Did the subsiquent games really add anything other than 'more of the same'? The funny thing is that World of Warcraft is in many respects the same game as GTA, only executed with whole volumes more depth. But because the setting and context are changed considerably, people don't pick up on that fact.

 

hm... there's a definite evolution from gta3 to san andreas, though. a lot of it is incorporating ideas and elements which were previously a whole game into the sandpit environment, like you say, but i don't think there's any doubt that the game is one of the most accomplished on any format (whether it's one of the best is a personal opinion of course). world of warcraft is quite a bit more focussed on 'exp' than gta, the stats you build in gta don't have nearly as much bearing on the game as in warcraft... i don't play wow though, i have some mates who go on for a couple of hours in a group once a week, and i saw the southpark episode (lol) but i can't extend too much wisdom on it...

 

As for Gears... don't get me wrong, I enjoy and have played a LOT of FPS in my time. But is there a genre more stagnant? If there is one type of game that desperately needs a kick up the arse, it's FPS. The last truly mold breaking FPS games were probably Half Life and Goldeneye. And both of those games had appeal to those who might not normally play computer games.

 

definitely, definitely true. i'd perhaps put half life 2 in there as well due to its physics puzzles and stuff, but 99% of stuff is interchangeable. to be fair gears isn't actually first person, and having it in that nearfield 3rd person view allows you to do the little running and taking cover thing that imo makes it so much more interesting than if they'd just made it a fps.

 

I love what the DS has done.

 

ugh, i fucking want one. i'm gonna need some kind of windfall because my shopping list is getting huge. although that brain training winds the fuck out of me. "black. no, black. black. BLACK"

[Liam]

I know I'm going to open myself up for attack here... but go get WOW. There's a 10 day trial online, and the game itself is only like £9 now with 30 days. I tend not to admit that I've actually played it because people think you're some kind of recluse with a pixie fetish, but in all honesty there is a very good reason why people smoke it up like crack -it's not just the most well-rounded MMO ever, it's also one of the most polished and complete games ever made. Plus provided you have a fair chunk of RAM it'll run on almost anything. Don't worry, I've not sunk months of my life into it -but I easily could. The South Park episode was absolutely hilarious, I loved it -but it's wrong, you can only get killed like that if you choose a PVP realm where you are always open to combat.

 

Ahem.... moving swiftly on from the uber geekness

 

Yeah about Gears not being FPS. I think I could at a pinch add Max Payne to that list. Nothing before it had really managed to translate FPS gameplay into third person perspective, and it did make for a new style of play. I guess the bottom line is that in retrospect you can pick out lots of these games, but in real terms they are few and far between. I didn't list Quake on the list because I was talking mold-breaking, whereas Quake forged the mold itself. Speaking of which, have you played the QuakeDS homebrew yet? Sickness

[Steve]

This is what Square are getting at... universal appeal. Time for gamers to come out of the darkened room and get social with it, up until now gaming has been very insular.

In the last few days Microsoft have said that they need to make games that appeal to a wider audience. Bill Gates is even talking about "a controller that you can swing like a baseball bat" for a future machine.

 

I think Nintendo were testing the water with the Wii. The PS3 and 360 are loss leaders and have cost both companies an absolute fortune, while Nintendo have never posted a loss. Sony and MS make money in other areas, so they can afford to take risks. Had Nintendo beefed up the graphics and made the Wii HD, the price would have gone up and that would affect sales, which is risky considering Sony panned them in the last generation. The life span of the Wii won't be as long as the potential life spans of the other two, but if it builds up a large fan base, a Wii2 with 1080P support and what not is sure to go down well in a few year's time when lots more people will have HD TVs in their homes.

[iexist]

This is what Square are getting at... universal appeal. Time for gamers to come out of the darkened room and get social with it, up until now gaming has been very insular.

In the last few days Microsoft have said that they need to make games that appeal to a wider audience. Bill Gates is even talking about "a controller that you can swing like a baseball bat" for a future machine.

 

I think Nintendo were testing the water with the Wii. The PS3 and 360 are loss leaders and have cost both companies an absolute fortune, while Nintendo have never posted a loss. Sony and MS make money in other areas, so they can afford to take risks. Had Nintendo beefed up the graphics and made the Wii HD, the price would have gone up and that would affect sales, which is risky considering Sony panned them in the last generation. The life span of the Wii won't be as long as the potential life spans of the other two, but if it builds up a large fan base, a Wii2 with 1080P support and what not is sure to go down well in a few year's time when lots more people will have HD TVs in their homes.

i dont see the wii lasting...

[d00ban]

This is what Square are getting at... universal appeal. Time for gamers to come out of the darkened room and get social with it, up until now gaming has been very insular.

In the last few days Microsoft have said that they need to make games that appeal to a wider audience. Bill Gates is even talking about "a controller that you can swing like a baseball bat" for a future machine.

 

I think Nintendo were testing the water with the Wii. The PS3 and 360 are loss leaders and have cost both companies an absolute fortune, while Nintendo have never posted a loss. Sony and MS make money in other areas, so they can afford to take risks. Had Nintendo beefed up the graphics and made the Wii HD, the price would have gone up and that would affect sales, which is risky considering Sony panned them in the last generation. The life span of the Wii won't be as long as the potential life spans of the other two, but if it builds up a large fan base, a Wii2 with 1080P support and what not is sure to go down well in a few year's time when lots more people will have HD TVs in their homes.

i dont see the wii lasting...

 

 

i got a wii, bored with it already ive barely played it.

 

the multiplayer games are a bit simple so get boring fast and i can never be arsed to play single player games coz the graphics aint great and they too much hassle when ur battered