Chuusei Linkshell

After finally sacking its CEO for all the vast losses he caused, Square Enix’s new boss is promising “radical” change – starting by scrapping a lot of as yet unspecified projects and concentrating the company’s resources on what may very possibly turn out to be making social games for the Chinese and Koreans.

New CEO Yousuke Matsuda’s comments come with some of the company’s efforts to explain its latest ghastly financial statements to investors:

“I’m Matsuda. You may have heard this at the annual general meeting, but in taking over the important duties of being CEO from Wada, I’m going to drastically re-evaluate all our businesses, projects, and assets from zero-base [wasei eigo for "without preconceptions"].

With the drastic change in the environment, I’ll be taking a fundamental look at what’s no good and needs to be reconsidered, and what to continue with.

We’ll keep in investing vigorously in what we need to go on with, but the useless stuff will be completely squeezed out.

You’ll have to wait for us to announce a more concrete plan, which will come at the upcoming discussion of our balance sheet.”

Aside from discussions of the dreadful numbers themselves, the rest of the lengthy document concentrates on praising the performance of Eidos titles like Hitman and Tomb Raider, and salivating over the prospects of their social gaming division expanding into Asian markets.

Curiously, there is not a single mention of Final Fantasy in the entire document, and precisely one mention of Dragon Quest.

Despite their radical decision to sack the CEO who drove them into the ground and replace him with fresh new blood in the form of an accountant who spent the last 10 years on the same board with him and now still has only vague assurances of “radical” change to offer, markets have reacted only by driving the company’s share price even lower.