Will success of Bravely Default put focus back on to JRPGs for Square Enix?

The latest Japanese RPG has been a success worldwide for Square Enix, and the president of the publisher believe that's where the company needs to head to repair its image and become more successful.


Bravely Default: Flying Fairy, released exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS, has sold well early in North America's release window. The game launched in the region on February 7th, and within the first two months, has sold over 230,000 copies (via VGChartz).

The game has been out in Japan since October 2012, but the worldwide figures are well over 800,000 units. Bravely Default has the potential to reach the million-unit mark, which is incredible for a JRPG that's new IP.

In comparison, the latest Dragon Quest sold 1.24 million copies and Tales of Xillia has sold 1.08 million copies.

Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda told Nikkei Trendy (via VG247) that he believes implementing a worldwide focus on games is why the publisher has had games that felt "incomplete."

“In the past, when we developed console games with a worldwide premise, we lost our focus, and not only did they end up being games that weren’t for the Japanese, but they ended up being incomplete titles that weren’t even fit for a global audience."

Matsuda focused on Hitman: Absolution, as one of those games. While trying to make the game appeal to everybody, there was a lack of focus on the game itself and strayed away from entertaining the core fanbase.

Matsuda continues that going back to Square's roots and releasing something like Bravely Default is what fans of the publisher wants, and that's why it's seeing all this success.

“Due to having split [the development mindset] according to regions around the world, we weren’t able to see this clearly up until now, but fans of JRPGs are really spread around the world."

I think I speak for everybody when I'm waving pom-poms in the air and cheering for Square Enix to dive back into the JRPG business and bring out something more than Final Fantasy games -- and fix Final Fantasy games while they're at it.