A Fresh Start - Part One

I never like to be surprised in business... I'm not sure I'd admit to being surprised - to me it's an ultimate compliment in some ways. When you're doing something that you think is right in business, and people see a commonality in what they're trying to achieve, and potential synergies to move faster or deeper or wider, then those combinations make sense.

I wasn't surprised, but obviously there were a lot of discussions that took place to make sure it was all right. It wasn't a focus for us - I think some of the best transactions are natural ones, and they come out of unforeseen meetings or events.

That was our joint commitment, really. When something's right, you want to move fast.

I felt that Eidos was a very good fit in terms of sharing the same culture and sharing the same foundation for the business. When I say 'sharing the culture' that includes the personality of the top management of the company, and the atmosphere in the studios.

Because even if you were to have just had a capital tie-up, after the acquisition that will simply become a pure business contract-type of relationship. But with Eidos I felt that the fit was very good.

Also, in terms of our business, you need to have content which works like a very strong magnet to attract customers. That is how content is created at Eidos, and it's the same way we create our content.

We share the same concept that it's so important to own our own intellectual property rights, because we have to be able to offer different materials in different formats to our consumers. If you don't own the IP, then the rights of using your content becomes so complicated - and you won't have the freedom to roll out the usage of the content. So that's a notion that we and Eidos shared.

I don't think that Square Enix is necessarily right and Eidos is wrong, as such - but with the merger I think we'll be able to manage as the same family.

When I came to Square in 2000 it was on the verge of bankruptcy, but I managed to revitalise it. When I merged Square with Enix, people said that it was a merger of two companies with completely different cultures - but today there's absolutely no hint of it.

So I don't think there's absolutely any problem with Eidos - it might sound strange, but if there's love, things will work, and I don't think there's any problem with Eidos.

Of course, quality is important, but what's the opposite of that?

Yes - that's what I hope to achieve for the entire group. But we at Square Enix also have a problem - it takes too long for us to produce a game...

In reality I think the issues we have are basically the same. On one side you might say that because of the budgetary constraints they released the games without having the games polished to perfection, but on the other side we take too long to release the game.

So we have the same issue in the management and control of the process isn't strict enough. Even though we're producing entertainment products we need to have the right production process in place - and that is something that I'd like to implement across the entire business in our group.

I personally believe that having a good cost performance and having a good quality game can co-exist - I think that this relationship is actually a positive one. But when you look to the creators they tend to think that if they're asked to pursue a better cost performance, they have to sacrifice quality.

It's not true, but we have to change the mindset of the creators - you probably also do a better job when you're busy...?