News From 05/28/02


Square Announces Final Fantasy X Spinoffs, Company Restructure to take place
[ Mainichi Interactive(Article) | Bloomberg(Article) ]

Image: Final Fantasy X

Reported by Japanese journal site Mainichi Interactive, Square has announced in their financial report meeting on 5/28 that two spin-off titles based on Final Fantasy X will be released.

Details on both games are not revealed, and their official titles are undetermined as of yet. The development code names of the two titles are "Yuna Version" and "Rikku Version", taken from two characters which appear in Final Fantasy X. Mainichi Interactive assumes that the two titles will adopt the game engine of Final Fantasy X.


In other announcements made in the meeting, Square has revealed changes in their company in order to cut development costs.

Reported by Bloomberg, while Square formally took a development style where teams were formed and dispersed per project, developers will now be fixed into divisions. Source codes and resources will be shared for efficiency, and employees will receive varying bonuses depending on the profit of their division.

By settling developers into groups, Square also aims for the developers to re-use the titles they have developed, making game development more cost efficient. Development costs- originally 2-3 Billion yen, are expected to fall to 1 Billion yen.