All eyes are on Japan this generation- after a generation and nearly ten years spent sliding into irrelevance on the global gaming stage, thanks to a shift first to handhelds, and then to smartphones, over home consoles, Japanese developers and publishers are leading the charge to make high end gaming in Japan viable again by making several console games.
No other publisher exemplifies this shift better than Square Enix, who have been announcing major titles in all of their franchises, and then some, for home consoles over the last few years- Final Fantasy 15, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Kingdom Heats 3, Dragon Quest 11, NieR Automata, and I Am Setsuna are just some of the major high end console games Square is pushing. And they don’t plan to stop either, if their newest financial report is anything to go by.
In spite of its smartphone business being stronger than ever, Square Enix has pledged to strengthen its business for HD games by launching more large scale console games- which means that we should see more Square Enix efforts on viable Japanese consoles, such as the PS4, the PC in the west, and possibly the NX, if it takes off.
I think all of us want a thriving Japanese industry- so this can only be good news for everybody.
