A LIGHTNING FAST RECAP FROM THE SEMINAR
Youtube Gamers’ Day seminar event was arranged at Youtube Space Tokyo this weekend. During the seminar, the director of Kadokawa Group Holdings and president of Enterbrain, Hirokazu Kamamura, held a presentation on new generation consoles and discussed about their sales and game development. He was amazed by the momentum PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have managed to create in the West compared to Japan. He also talked about the rising development costs of AAA titles, but mentioned how much profit the big and successful titles, such as Grad Theft Auto V, have managed to generate. In addition, he thought that the success of the new generation consoles couldn’t be explained just with great AAA titles, but increasing popularity of indie games and the support they are receiving from Sony and Microsoft.
THE INTERESTING PART
Japan is an exception from Europe and North America, because PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (not out yet) haven’t managed to success there. This could be explained with the growing popularity of mobile games, which has led big publishers, such as Square Enix, to develop and publish more titles for smartphones. However, Hirokazu Kamamura believes we are soon seeing a change in the new generation console sales/hype because he has heard a major Japanese publisher will be making a big announcement at Tokyo Games Show 2014, which will be arranged next month.
Could Hirokazu Kamamura be teasing about Square Enix’s upcoming announcement? Let’s have a look at the facts: Earlier this year, Shinji Hashimoto stated Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III won’t make an appearance at E3 2014 but new information will come out at later events this year. Tokyo Games Show is the biggest Japanese game event and Square Enix makes their biggest announcements there alongside the E3 expo. Sony is also in need of creating more hype around the PlayStation 4 in Japan, and there’s no doubt that Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III are the biggest titles to do it.
Will Noctis return to the spotlight? Does Tetsuya Nomura answer to Final Fantasy fans’ prayers? Will Final Fantasy fans get overly excited and disappoint again? (Yes) The truth will be revealed at Tokyo Games Show just in a month. “To be continued…”
Categories: FINAL FANTASY XV
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I really can’t wait for the announcement!
If I had to choose I would pick FF XV over Kingdom hearts 3 but I wish we all get what we want and that is a release date! Because that would be awesome!
I wait patiently to see FF XV’s official release date before buying a next gen console as this might be the biggest reason I will get the console!
Noctis is just pure awesomeness in my book!
I love Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3!
I hope that Final Fantasy XV have a good announcement at TGS and hope departure date.
I need it.
When will come a my hands I will mourn, my grandmother died in July, she has seen all the trailer these eight years with me, she will not see the game never… I am very sad T_T
More than anything, I want to see something released about KH3.
I remember someone at SE – Nomura? (cant remember) – saying that FFXV (and KH3) would show up at TGS this year – they didnt show up at E3 because of a lack of ‘new’ info – but by TGS they will have a plethora of stuff (doubt much fr KH3 though)
A release date for XV would be fantastic news and would definitely help boost the sales for the PS4 in Japan ;p
But i have seen quite a few people mention a new Dragon Quest – either way im looking forward to TGS and finding out the goods :)
I’m not holding out massive hopes, but given the game’s relative lack of presence in Japan compared to the west (I’m not joking, it’s been a more western events than in its native Japan), . They might also be announcing Type-0 HD for Japan as well as the west. I always was expecting that to happen at some point: why would they pass up the opportunity of reintroducing a game that has become one of the most popular and highly reviewed PSP JRPGs in Japan on HD consoles? And thinking about it, next year around April or May probably (certainly short before E3), XV will have been in development for ten years. Mind you, it will only have been in full development for five and a half years since full production started in early 2011.
I extremly hope that at least TGS will tell us something new…i stopped count how many years a I am waiting for XV (XIII versus)
I am quite confident Final Fantasy XV will be at TGS 2014. Why else they would have come to E3 2013 to just tease us after being silent so long. If they didn’t really have plans to kill the silence they wouldn’t have done that. As told in the post, Sony/MS are desperately in need of a big Japanese titles to push their new consoles there and FFXV is right title for that.
Haven’t PS4 sold something like 620 000 units in Japan? That’s not a lot compared to Europe and North America. It’s really no wonder Square Enix is pushing their Japanese studios to work on mobile titles when mobile markets are burning hot there at the moment. All TV channels are full of ads for mobile games and they are really pushing them forwards because its a trend in Japan at the moment. But trends tend to end at some point…. Just see how Wii’s popularity dropped when casuals weren’t excited about it anymore and now Nintendo is struggling with Wii U.
Yes hopefully, more info on both of the games. Looking forward to at least some new info.