President Takashi Kiryu has shared his plans to slim down Square Enix's lineup of titles.
02.01.2024 - 16:38 / pcgamer.com / Takashi Kiryu / Ai
After singing its fingers on the hot stove of NFTs, Square Enix has decided to go in for another cheeky touch with AI—as stated by the company's new president Takashi Kiryu in a New Year's letter to his employees.
«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,» writes Kiryu. He's not necessarily wrong. AI technologies could hypothetically aid artists, writers, and programmers—though often in understated and boring ways, a far cry from the revolutionary 'democratisation of art' its strongest advocates dream of.
The example I always like to use comes from 2018's Into the Spiderverse—a movie with strong artistic merit that's ushered in a whole new style of 3D animation. It used a deep learning program to help it with the busywork of drawing comic-style lines, saving thousands of hours of work.
Similarly, concept artists already grab reference images to help draft ideas—so an in-house AI that can spit out a bunch of concepts already in a studio's style for the artist to then reimagine by hand sounds genuinely helpful. AI-created code is very rarely functional, but it could also serve as a good first draft for an experienced programmer, especially as the tech improves.
The only problem is, these are all uses for the tech that come from the people making the sausage, rather than the owners of the factory. They're not some big, revolutionary silver bullet that'll let companies make heaps of content for free. Kiryu continues:
«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.»
That's the kind of framing that fills me with exhaustion. There's a repeated pattern I've seen among AI's biggest advocates—they'll get very excited about the new technology, make something that's over-reliant on it, and then be very confused when no-one's amazed. Square Enix did this with NFTs—the company's arguably still doing it.
Symbiogenesis is Square Enix's big NFT project, a game designed to leverage tech that's otherwise been bullied out of gaming, and it's not exactly doing great. I don't want to cast assumptions over a company's leadership: but if I had a nickel every time Square Enix became infatuated with some new technology and wasted a bunch of money, I could soon be the proud owner of two nickels.
Kiryu maintains that web3 tech is still an area of focus. «In terms
President Takashi Kiryu has shared his plans to slim down Square Enix's lineup of titles.
Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu believes the company needs to diversify its gaming output, but also focus on fewer releases.
Square Enix appears to be on the verge of shaking up its development portfolio. According to its president, we may soon see fewer titles, but a more diverse array of genres coming out of a developer and publisher traditionally known for its massive RPG franchises.
Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu says he wants to diversify the studio's lineup of games by relying less on "strong IPs" like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
Yesterday, Square Enix announced that its party shooter Foamstars would launch on February 6th for PS4 and PS5. Despite comparisons to Splatoon, it’s received praise for doing different things. Since it’s also out on day one for PlayStation Plus subscribers, it’s almost guaranteed to have a healthy player base initially.
Square Enix has confirmed that upcoming online shooter Foamstars includes AI-generated art.
PlayStation exclusive shooter Foamstars will feature AI-generated artwork, Square Enix has confirmed, with Foamstars producer Kosuke Okatani clarifying to VGC that «in terms of the content of the game, this makes up about 0.01% or even less.»
Foamstars, Square Enix's Splatoon-like 4v4 online party shooter announced last year, is coming next month. The PlayStation exclusive will release February 6 as a day-one launch title on PS Plus, Sony and Square Enix confirmed Tuesday. The game will be available to download for free on PS5 and PS4 as part of the PlayStation Plus Monthly Games lineup for next month, starting February 6 through March 4. Foamstars was announced at a PlayStation Showcase in May last year, showing off soapy shooting and colourful characters, both heavily inspired by Nintendo's Splatoon games. A PS Plus release will likely attract more players to the multiplayer title in its early days.
As reported by VideoGameChronicle, Square Enix confirmed at a recent press event that their upcoming live service game, Foamstars, uses some assets generated by AI. This follows a New Year’s letter from the company’s president, Takashi Kiryu, that stated the company would more aggressively pursue the use of the technology.
The upcoming PlayStation exclusive Foamstarswill utilize AI for some of its artwork, as confirmed by producer Kosuke Okatani. Square Enix announced this colorful multiplayer hero shooter during a PlayStation Showcase event back in May, quickly drawing comparisons to Nintendo’s Splatoon series due to Foamstars’ primary gimmick of spraying the battlefield with foam to help navigate the environment or block enemy attacks. Foamstars is set to launch as part of the PlayStation Plus Monthly Games lineup on February 6, and if successful could kickstart a new wave of Splatoon-like games.
Square Enix's upcoming team shooter Foamstars will have a small amount of AI art, the developer has said.
In unsurprising news, publisher Square Enix has announced a bold new vision for the company in 2024, again promising to chase whatever the hottest speculative technology on the market happens to be. President Takashi Kiryu rang in the new year with a bold directive, confirming the firm will be «aggressive in applying AI and other cutting-edge technologies to both our content development and our publishing functions».