Incoming Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda has announced his intention to “review” the entire company to see “what works and what doesn’t work,” after the publisher’s current president Yoichi Wada steps down this June.
Matsuda talked about his plan to overhaul Square Enix during a recent briefing session with investors, saying:
“After having succeeded the important role as the president, I plan on reviewing all Square Enix duties, business and assets on a zero-based budgeting standpoint. Due to the radical change of environment, I’d like to fundamentally review what works and what doesn’t work for our company, then cast all of our resources towards extending what makes us successful and thoroughly squeezing out what doesn’t.”
“As far as a concrete plan on what to expect from us, I will further explain it on another briefing session in the near future, so I kindly ask for your patience. Thank you for your support.”
In addition to the review, Matsuda also noted that he is planning to promote Square Enix Europe CEO Phil Rogers to the position of director of Square Enix Holdings. While nothing was specifically mentioned in the briefing, Rogers’ history with the Eidos side of the company seems to indicate that Matsuda holds a more favorable view of the publisher’s Western IPs (like Tomb Raider) than Wada seems to have.
Speaking of outgoing president Yoichi Wada, it appears that he will remain with the company in some unknown capacity after stepping down in June. Wada mentioned during the briefing that he “will be retiring from the line of management” but he plans to “work on site as a way to pay [his] debt to the company”.
While Matsuda has not yet finalized his plans for Square Enix, the company appears to be moving forward with some of the restructuring as it relates to Square Enix’s Los Angeles office. Joystiq is reporting that half of the marketing team has been let go (about 10 employees), alongside roughly 30 more from accounting, IT, community and support. Additionally, the unconfirmed report mentions that Square Enix America president Mike Fischer will be let go in May, and further marketing and PR cuts will take place after E3 this June.
The layoffs from Square Enix‘s L.A. office have not yet been confirmed by the publisher. Once an official announcement is made either way we will update this post.
