Square Enix Before the Merger - A history of Squaresoft, Enix, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy

Channel:

Tarks Gauntlet

Subscribers:

24,600

Published on November 3, 2018 2:44:12 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRE90AnejdI

Game:

Dragon Quest (1986)

Duration: 50:06

126,026 views

3,864

Square Enix, Squaresoft, Enix, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy. This names have a long storied history that is sometimes very, very unclear. I'll do my best to demonstrate how I view i've pieced it together. It won't be perfect, but it should at least be informative and interesting.

Just a couple notes. For those of you who don't want "The full story" and just bits and pieces here's some time codes.

0:00 - Introduction
1:06 - How Enix started & The birth of Dragon Quest
10:00 - How Squaresoft started & The birth of Final Fantasy
18:31 - Enix struggles and departs from the west.
26:08 - SNES Final Fantasy: critical darling, commercial failure
32:22 - PSX era RPGs profitable. Enix still struggling in the west.
41:42 - Squaresoft gamble ends in failure. Merger with enix begins.

Some aspects of this may be dramatized. I'm pretty sure square didn't want to actually kill enix, it's just a fun way to frame corporate competition. That said this is as accurate as I could make the info. Japan has a pretty "Closed door" approach to business so getting the most accurate info is not always easy.

Furthermore the further back in history you look the more shaky things become. For instance: 3 trustworthy sources have 3 different stories of how Sugiyama came to join Enix. All 3 say it was the result of a letter he wrote the company, but all 3 say the letter was something different. He was asking about a shogi game/he was filling out a routine questionnaire/He was offering praise for portopia etc etc. So if you heard a different story... well.. there's probably good reason.

I also decided to not include Kazuhiko Torishimas account in the creation of dragon quest as it's not very widely corroborated. In short he helped Horii land deals between shonen jump, enix and chunsoft that led to Dragon Quest being created. Some people think this makes him the creator of Dragon Quest. I disagree. I think he was just a good friend/mentor and associate of Horiis and Toriyamas and just wanted good things for them, as well as for the gaming section of weekly jump.

Most video footage is used for purely illustrative purposes.

This history is muddy to say the least, but this is how I pieced it all together.

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Sources:
Unique video sources are cited in video. Research sources for non-generic less/documented information can be found below.

It's worth stating I wrote the scripts for this video a good 9 months before being able to start editing and recording it, so hopefully these links are still active. I will gradually delete any that no longer link to anything or replace them if I can find a replacement.

http://www.jp.square-enix.com/company/en/officer/
https://goo.gl/yJi2fP
https://goo.gl/1imNdk
https://www.stockclip.net/companies/3358/history
https://goo.gl/c2ij9Z
https://goo.gl/s8RwqE
https://goo.gl/nNuXEt
https://goo.gl/PWq4Jo
https://goo.gl/8affGi
https://goo.gl/nJDFRj
https://goo.gl/kzh2Lw
https://goo.gl/thomWd
https://goo.gl/rpeBnE
https://goo.gl/k9RZi4
https://goo.gl/hMNDYz
https://goo.gl/VQxUDs

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