The successor to Yosuke Matsuda (who opened 2022 and 2023 with a strong letter of support for NFTs and blockchain) has already been named.

Square Enix has announced that Matsuda will step down as president and representative director of Square Enix Holdings, and will be succeeded by Takashi Kiryu, the current company director. The change is expected to be confirmed at the 34th annual shareholders meeting in June, after which the board of directors will have to approve it. Here’s the official rationale: “Under the rapid change of business environment surrounding the entertainment industry, the proposed change is intended to reshape the management team to adopt ever-evolving technological innovations and maximize the creativity of [Square Enix Holdings Co. Ltd.] ‘s group to deliver even greater entertainment to its customers around the world.”

That doesn’t sound good. Matsuda has been at the helm of Square Enix Corporation since April 2013 and has been the president of Square Enix Holdings since June 2013, replacing predecessor Wada Yoichi. Matsuda, incidentally, appeared in NieR: Automaton as a hidden boss alongside the then president of PlatinumGames (the game’s dev team), Kenichi Sato. His successor, Kiryu, is now 48 years old and has climbed the ranks quickly in two and a half years. He was director of corporate planning at Square Enix Holdings in June 2020. Before that, he led the Dentsu Innovation Initiative, where he focused on “disruptive new technologies”; he is now a director of Square Enix Holdings. Kiryu’s previous position within Square Enix concentrated on the economic system and metaverse of content creators, so he doesn’t differ much from Matsuda’s cryptocurrency, NFT stance.

Thus, Kiryu will probably continue Matsuda’s trend, so even though he promises transparency, he will continue to follow the path of his predecessor because he wants to respect his vision. But it would be nice to take a new direction from here because Square Enix is currently focusing on blockchain, NFTs, and Web 3.0 rather than, for example, on quality PC ports of its games (and we’re not talking about including Denuvo in nearly every title, but the poor state-at-launch for Forspoken, whose development team has been closed down, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, or Final Fantasy VII Remake…).

Source: Gematsu, News.com.au, PCGamer