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Square Enix president announces major plans for metaverse gaming

Square Enix president, Yosuke Matsuda, has announced plans for the company to ramp up its blockchain, NFT and metaverse presence going forward

Square Enix President

Yosuke Matsuda, president of Square Enix, has released a letter in celebration of the new year. His letter entails promises of improvement from the company as well as what investors and fans should expect in 2022 and beyond.

Matsuda’s letter is a thorough one and he touches on areas such as the metaverse, blockchain, NFTs, and others. He stated that Facebook’s decision to rebrand itself to Meta was not merely a rebrand, but a demonstration that the metaverse as a concept “is not a mere buzzword but here to stay.”

Matsuda went on to say that he believes the metaverse will go on to become a commercial product in 2022 and could end up having some applicability to Square Enix in future.

“The metaverse will likely see a meaningful transition to a business phase in 2022, with a wide range of services appearing on the scene. As this abstract concept begins to take concrete shape in the form of product and service offerings, I am hoping that it will bring about changes that have a more substantial impact on our business as well,” Matsuda said.

In terms of NFTs, Matsuda stated that it could well be another major business opportunity. And like other tech giants, Matsuda observed the “speculative overturns” in some areas of the NFT landscape.

Matsuda stated, “We do observe examples here and there of overheated trading in NFT-based digital goods with somewhat speculative overtones, regardless of the observed value of the content provided.

“This, obviously, is not an ideal situation, but I expect to see an eventual right-sizing in digital goods deals as they become more commonplace among the general public, with the value of each available content corrected to their true estimated worth, and I look for them to become as familiar as dealings in physical goods.”

Matsuda reaffirmed that Square Enix’s recent plan to invest in AI, blockchain, and the cloud remains unchanged. “Leveraging cloud technologies is extremely effective as a means of making our content and services uniformly available and as a catalyst for creating new forms of excitement that expand upon the content development capabilities for which we are known,” Matsuda said. “As such, we will be making ample investments in the cloud space.”

For blockchain games, Matsuda stated that Square Enix is highly excited due to how those sorts of games can provide “self-sustaining game growth” as opposed to the sort of games being played today.

Matsuda stated, “Blockchain games, which have emerged from their infancy and are at this very moment entering a growth phase, are built upon the premise of a token economy and therefore hold the potential to enable self-sustaining game growth.

“The driver that most enables such self-sustaining game growth is diversity, both in how people engage with interactive content like games, and in their motivations for doing so. Advances in token economies will likely add further momentum to this trend of diversification. I see the ‘play to earn’ concept that has people so excited as a prime example of this.”

Lastly, Matsuda stated that Square Enix will keep a keen eye on “societal shifts” because it relates to decentralised opportunities in gaming such as blockchain. Square Enix is considering creating and issuing their very own tokens in future.

Hardly any of this should come as a surprise, seeing how Square Enix already dipped its corporate toes into NFT waters in 2021. It became clear then that the company had bigger plans for blockchain and metaverse gaming.

Written By

Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.

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