Square Enix 2014 Annual Report Download - page 10

3) Product Portfolios Tailored to Regions
Our conventional product sales strategy has been to sell one
product worldwide, and we have been developing games for
the global market. However, each region holds different
cultures and lifestyles, and our customers in those regions
have different tastes in games and playing styles. In addition,
the gaming environment has become diversified; various
options are offered from conventional special-purpose game
consoles to smart devices, and other general-purpose
devices to cloud streaming. Alongside this trend, the process
of game development and distribution are also expanding at
an exponential rate. The series of activities in the games
business process—procure funding, prepare the develop-
ment environment, develop games, distribute and sell the
finished games—has previously been possible only for major
publishers with large-scale funding. However, the shift to
“open source, low-cost game development tools,” “fundraising
through crowd funding” and “direct sales via download” have
created an ecosystem in which large-scale funding is no
longer necessary. This has created a situation where
independent developers are appearing one after another, and
a large number of new games are being produced all over
the world. As seen above, not only the gaming environments,
but also the games themselves are increasingly becoming
more diverse and decentralized on a world-wide basis, and
we therefore recognize that it has become difficult to simply
lump the game market together under the term “global.”
How should our content development deal with such
circumstances? I think the key lies in “focus.” Precisely
because customer tastes are diversifying and decentralizing,
we will be able to create quality content that attains higher
customer reviews if we focus on the strengths and specialties
that our creators are best at. The regions I mean here are not
physical regions. In the current world of digital entertainment,
physical borders and boundaries are no longer meaningful.
The world is fully connected by the Internet, and content is
disseminated to the whole world simultaneously. In this context,
“regional” refers to customer diversity, not physical regions.
The fields in which our creators excel are also diverse.
Therefore, creators can provide customers with the ultimate
experience by focusing on their specialized areas. For
example, there are many customers loving JRPGs (Japanese
Role Playing Games) worldwide. By focusing on JRPGs
tailored to these customers and offering the ultimate games,
we will win acclaim from the world. I think that is a reality of
the modern digital content business.
This concludes my summary of the fiscal year ended
March 2014, and my outline of our future initiatives.
In light of the extremely disappointing results from the
fiscal year ended March 2013, we performed a vast review
of our domestic and overseas development systems, and
developed content with a conscious focus on areas in
which we excel. Such efforts will enable us to produce
diverse content for a variety of genres in the future. The
important value underlying all of this diversity is “fun.” By
letting our creators focus on the fields in which they are
President’s Message
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