As customary every January 1st, the new president of Square Enix posted a public New Year’s letter on the Japanese game publisher’s website.
Takashi Kiryu, who replaced Yosuke Matsuda in June 2023, clearly showed a change in direction from his predecessor. Whereas Matsuda spoke for two years in a row about the importance blockchain would have for the future of gaming, Kiryu-san focused more on the impact of AI, specifically generative AI. Square Enix will apply it aggressively to both marketing efforts and game development to create new forms of content.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential implications had for some time largely been subjects of academic debate. However, the introduction of ChatGPT, which allows anyone to easily produce writing or translations or to engage in text-based dialogue, sparked the rapid spread of generative AIs. Its release made it apparent that the applicability of generative AI was by no means limited to text, and the subsequent months saw a quick succession of launches of new services and content that expanded generative AI into a variety of domains with close ties to digital entertainment, including images, video, and music. I believe that generative AI has the potential not only to reshape what we create but also to fundamentally change the processes by which we create, including programming.
[…] We also intend to be aggressive in applying AI and other cutting-edge technologies to both our content development and our publishing functions. In the short term, our goal will be to enhance our development productivity and achieve greater sophistication in our marketing efforts. In the longer term, we hope to leverage those technologies to create new forms of content for consumers, as we believe that technological innovation represents business opportunities.
That’s not to say blockchain wasn’t briefly mentioned as one of the three fields of investment previously identified (cloud, AI, and blockchain). Kiryu said Square Enix would modify its internal organizational structure and optimize resource allocations for these efforts, so it sounds like blockchain projects are still coming, even if AI might have overtaken blockchain when it comes to priorities.
The President and Representative Director of Square Enix also revealed that the development teams are working to standardize processes to to improve efficiency. The goal is to make products and services capable of meeting the customers’ expectations ‘more than ever before’.
2023 wasn’t that great for the Japanese developer and publisher. Forspoken largely failed to gain any traction, and even Final Fantasy XVI sold less than hoped. However, 2024 could be far better for the publisher between the February 29 launch of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on PlayStation 5, the PC port of Final Fantasy XVI, and the new Final Fantasy XIV expansion, Dawntrail.
