Square Enix dismisses Nintendo's future?

It was already obvious, but Square Enix has formally announced it will throw its considerable weight behind online gaming experiences.

In an interview with gamesindustry.biz, Square Enix president, Yoichi Wada, claimed that the hardware innovations at E3, such a 3D, Move and Kinect, were of peripheral importance when compared to online services.

“The true battlefield is the respective network services that support consoles, whether or not they can truly establish these network services will have the definitive effect on the future of games consoles,” Wada said.

Wada is also quoted as saying Square Enix is looking into its own online services, and drew parallels to Valve’s Steam service.

The publisher has been actively developing its online capabilities – offering up download-only products on all major consoles, plunging into the iPhone market, and experimenting with DLC for recent games such as Nier.

Interestingly, Wada is quiet on Nintendo and its own network services in the interview. When he spoke of online services, he is talking specifically about Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360.

He was also skeptical on the game changing potential of 3D, saying:

"On a long term basis I think it will have a huge impact but on a short-term basis I don't think it will have any effect. What I'm trying to say is would the customers buy it just because it's 3D and end up paying the premium for that? Would they buy a game they have never heard about or never seen just because it's 3D? No, it's not that easy, so you can't expect that kind of a short term impact. However, on a long term basis there will be solid growth and in fact one of our research and development themes we to include 3D. Whenever we hear about the new 3D models we will make sure we run some experiments with that."

Nintendolife recently reported that Nintendo itself is not happy with its current online structure, and in a previous post I wrote on how I felt Nintendo's poor E3 showing in regards to online cost it significantly, and Wada's comments reinforce this. Nintendo is forging ahead on its own direction. It might work - it did with the Wii and the DS, but when virtually every other major publisher looks to move the market in one direction, it seems more stubborn than brave to look away.