Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's new sitting president, recently intimated some harsh sentiments regarding Square's first foray into the realm of online RPGs with Final Fantasy XI. Iwata proclaimed the game an outright failure for being unable to attain the initial sales Square expected and criticized Square's management of its online servers. He pointedly commented that new Final Fantasy games have typically sold more than 2 million copies, whereas Final Fantasy XI has failed to garner the 200,000 users Square anticipated by launch.

Square President Yoichi Wada in turn defended Final Fantasy XI as an innovative game and said that the online market is a different arena with its own profitability and problems. He stated, "Final Fantasy XI has been an experiment to broaden the market—something we think Nintendo should encourage. Players have been very pleased with Final Fantasy XI, and we hope Nintendo's comments today don't dissuade any future players from experiencing the game themselves."