Square Enix: Playing PC Catch-Up

Square Enix's Fumiaki Shiraishi, who is heading up the company's new LA studio, has said that Square has been disadvantaged by its lack of PC development.

Shiraishi said, "In this generation, I feel like we're trying to play catch up a little bit. And part of that is because we were really focused on consoles. And we didn't have that PC development.

"This current generation, I think that companies that had invested a lot of time and money into the PC side are seeing payoffs on the console side of things. The companies that just did PS2, for instance, are falling behind a little bit."

His comments fit with those he made last week about Square having been behind in multi-platform development.

Shiraishi was ambiguous about how the issue of companies having fallen behind on the technology front will play out. "I think there are a lot of factors going into the technology issue. I think that, this generation, maybe some companies will catch up, and afterwards everyone will be on even ground again. Or maybe it's going to be a continuing issue going into the next generation -- I really don't know", he said.

Square is clearly of a mind to redress its lack of multi-platform support. Titles such as The Last Remnant (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) have seen multi-platform releases, while it has also pushed its PC efforts (albeit not internally) with its arrangement with PC-focused Gas Powered Games.

^{Source: Gamasutra}