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Yoichi Wada has been busy. Ever since Final Fantasy XIV was released to cries of “foul” and “unfinished” from the gaming press, his company has been hard at work playing damage control, refining the game into something more playable. At an earnings briefing on May 13, though, Wada also mentioned that Square Enix plans to bring out a third, currently unannounced, big-budget MMO in addition to its Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV properties. That announcement may soon be forthcoming as the title, already in development, has been teased by Wada for a reveal sometime this fiscal year. This is in service to Square Enix’s eventual plan to have three MMOs running simultaneously.  While there have been successful examples of companies simultaneously backing multiple MMOs, such as NCSoft, Turbine, and Funcom, these studios are generally MMO-centric, able to devote the entirety of their resources to such games. MMOs are expensive to produce and cost money to maintain. With Square Enix suffering financially, one would be justified in questioning the viability of their multiple-MMO strategy. |