Admitting the collapse: the full rebuild of Final Fantasy XIV under Naoki Yoshida (2010)
A bet to rebuild rather than to prolong
The heart of this decision was choosing a two-front campaign: keeping the live online service running and on life support while, behind it, building an entirely different game. Patching and improving would have been the calmer course in the short run, but Yoshida judged that it would never reach a standard worthy of the name Final Fantasy. It can be read as a choice to sacrifice near-term efficiency in order to protect the brand’s credit.
That President Wada officially admitted the failure and apologized also underwrites how unusual this decision was. It is often hard for a top executive to concede fault, yet it was precisely that candor that won users and staff over to the large investment of a from-scratch rebuild. Even so, that success did not spare the company the later struggles of Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. The nerve to admit a crisis and rebuild, and the fate of an in-house model that swings hit-to-miss, seem to run on in this company as two sides of the same coin to this day.
Revenue and net margin, FY2005–FY2015
Revenue in ¥ bn (bars) and net margin in % (line), for the years around the decision. Shaded columns are FY2010 onwards — after it was taken.
Source: securities reports
Read the full dossier in Japanese →
The Japanese edition carries the complete record of this decision — the situation that forced it, the options weighed, what actually followed, and the sources behind every claim.
Other key decisions at Square Enix Holdings
Yen amounts are converted at the average rate of each figure’s own year — not today’s rate; the revenue chart is shown in yen. Exchange rates & sources — the full ¥/US$ table →
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