Turning Fantasy into Reality

We always wanted a lot of users to enjoy the game, so we wanted to put it on the Xbox 360, and we're happy that we could finally make the official announcement. But more than that, we've had a very positive response from the audience, so we're very happy about that too.

It was a positive response, and we feel a lot of support from the media, and users as well. The title has a lot of focus on it - a lot of people are watching out for it - so we feel that we have to make a really good game. We feel a lot of responsibility, and we don't want to release anything that's not fun, or half-baked.

We're now in the age of the multi-platform, but depending on age and territory, users have different tastes. Therefore it's very difficult to just deal with one company or one hardware platform - in order to offer our product to the vast majority of gamers we need to deal with multiple companies and platforms.

In North America Microsoft is doing very well with its hardware, and for that reason it's a very important partner for us.

In Japan we know that the Xbox 360 isn't really that strong yet, but for me I feel very calm about dealing with any company, and we're not partnering exclusively with any particular company.

You might think that we'll release FFXIII for Xbox 360 in Japan, but that's not what I mean. We always consider the territory and hardware for titles, and I just want to make sure that we're neutral about dealing with companies.

In the future I believe this convergence will probably go further. The main point at the moment is to own original IP - it's very important - and if you own original IP it can be utilised for movies, music, and a great variety of other activities.

When you look at Capcom it has its own IP, and that company is engaged in a number of activities around that IP. We've had our own IP for a long time, and it's an advantageous position to be in, so I think from now on I think we'll be able to work on a greater variety of activities.

I want to emphasise that owning our own IP was a key strategic decision I made, and we try not to utilise other company's IP as far as possible. It was a very intentional direction.

Actually Western companies have only really been talking about original IP in the last couple of years, and recently they're having more and more interest in the subject.

I'm not sure that we've actually been that successful in that translation. But in my opinion I think each media has its own unique characteristics, as well as its own users and customers, as well as its own culture.

So we really need to understand those elements, and I really think that game-makers shouldn't make movies as game-makers - we have to do a professional job, that's a very important thing.

We need to partner with professionals in order to do a good job in each media - making movies, making anime, writing novels, and so on.

Actually I expected that to happen - although it really started happening a couple of years ago I've been anticipating it since 2000. My opinion about the future is that convergence will continue, and that eventually we'll all be in one huge industry.

I think it depends on the field - we'll see the key people evolving, while others will have new content, but I think there will be a variety of paths depending on the content and the field.

On the customer's side, their communication tools, devices and environments will be become more convenient - more utilitarian - so they will probably determine which content and fields will evolve over time.

As for the evolution, a variety of different types will occur, for example in games probably very high-cost photorealistic games will be created, but even casual games are growing as well. Various types of convergence will happen, and it will be very interesting to see.

Our MMO is a very good source of income for us, and the game is growing significantly - not just in the US, but globally. The genre itself will very much evolve, but as for what it will become, it's hard to comment on that - but it will change. Because of the different business models in the genre - subscription models, micro-transactions, and so on - they're all helping the field to grow.

But I have a totally different angle when it comes to looking at the industry. Prior to home videogames, there were arcade titles that you had to go to a specific location to enjoy. People have also always enjoyed films and music by going to the theatre or concerts where they had a communal experience with others.

But today, people just listen to music alone through CDs or their iPods, and watch movies at home on DVDs. Videogames have also provided a similar experience, with users enjoying it on their own and in their own time.

I think that MMOs were the first to provide a communal experience in recent videogames history. People can now share an entertainment experience, despite it being virtual. I think it fulfils a primal need that people have to connect and partake in entertainment experiences together, in an age when digital entertainment has become so individualised and personalised.

I think that's a very interesting element that we have to consider, and I'd like to develop our content and products with that in mind.

Actually there was a demand for the service, so I was surprised that Nintendo did so well, but I wasn't surprised that it was accepted - we saw that demand across the world.

I hope so! I think it's really fortunate that Nintendo made that platform to attract them, and we'd like to create new products for those users.

Actually with the Wii, we also appreciate the core gamers - fans of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. But we have various types of games, with content to satisfy the various types of consumers - not only casual games, but something like learning titles, for travelling, for wine.

So we're ready to offer various types of content to various types of users.