Hajime Tabata Talks About His Departure From Square Enix, More On His New Company JP Games

After his departure from Square Enix, Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata started his own company called JP Games, which he talked about during an end-of-year NicoNico live stream with guest developers.

During the broadcast, Tabata was asked to share what his three major news was for this year, to which he said one was “Not being able to release all of Final Fantasy XV’s DLC.” One of the guest asked “Is that okay to talk about? but CyberConnect2 CEO Hiroshi Matsuyama was more direct and asked if he left Square Enix because they didn’t let him finish the DLC.

Here’s are some highlights from Tabata, starting with talk about Final Fantasy XV’s DLC [Thanks, Gamestalk.]:

• I decided to leave Square Enix, and while talking about succeeding duties and positions, we also decided what would happen with Final Fantasy XV’s DLC.

• I personally thought it was a shame that Final Fantasy XV’s DLC development got canceled. I feel great regret for the people that were waiting for it.

• Responding to Matsuyama saying “As a fan of Final Fantasy XV, I would’ve liked to have had Tabatis work on it to the end before departing,” Tabata expressed a sense of accomplishment saying “I wasn’t able to do it to the end, but I did everything I could.”

• Ultimately, the deciding factor of Tabata’s departure was a problem of motivation. I want to be able to progress through my own path and do what I want without troubling anyone at a company.

• It is a shame that we couldn’t release all the DLC for Final Fantasy XV, and I feel very regretful about it. However, that has nothing to do with the reason I departed from the company.

• There wasn’t any quarrel at Square Enix or anything, and I left the company on good terms.

The next part are highlights from Tabata’s new company JP Games:

• There are several employees working at the recently established JP Games. We’re still looking for an office.

• There hasn’t been any outside investments, but for now we’re using our own funds.

• At the very beginning, I was thinking about going independent and seeing if I can make an AAA title with the company.

• We’ll be adding more staff, but will keep it on the lower number.

• For platforms, I’d like to go multi-platform with consoles, PC, and smartphones.

• While working on Final Fantasy XV, I had a strong desire to change the way it was being developed. During the busy season there’s an increase in work and a shortage of workers. When that happens, for example, we would get a boost in numbers from a studio somewhere in Vietnam or Malaysia and develop, but it was difficult to flexibly scale up like that. I also had to prepare high-spec PCs, create all the security policies, and so on. That part was rough, so I want to change the way things are made, something cloud-based. So before making a game, I’d like to evolve the way they’re made first.

• I’d like to eventually make a large-scale game. However, I don’t think we’ll employ a bunch of developers at once. It’ll mostly be a virtual thing.