Rob Fahey of GameIndustry.biz caught up with new Square Enix Europe president, John Yamamoto to discuss the future of games in Europe. Square Enix mostly publishes titles in Europe through other already well established firms who have that capability. Things could change as we Square Enix put more interest into its European subsidiary. Earlier this month, Square Enix changed SQEX Europe's name to simply Square Enix Ltd. They intend to put tons of investment in their UK headquarter located in London's Regent Street which is not far from Oxford Circus tube Station. The first step was to hire new president, John Yamamoto, who was the former president and CEO of Atlus USA.

Yamamoto will overlook several areas of the European subsidiary including who gets licenses to publish new and upcoming Square Enix games. One thing he mentioned however is that Final Fantasy XI will be the first title that they publish in Europe (September 16, 2004). He further discusses how they will be marketing the product aswell as that is part of the publisher's role. Currently, they are unable to distribute games in Europe but are looking to rectify that issue by the next fiscal year.

Further into the interview, it was revealed that Star Ocean 3 is to be released in Europe during the month of September of this year. It was also mentioned by Square Enix PR manager, Abbass Hussain, that original games could be developed in Europe aswell. But the new president stated that no current action was being taken to make that happen. The ability to publish games in Europe will allow Square Enix to release more games in Europe than ever before. Yamamoto also goes on to say that he doesn't just want games entering the European market but also TV shows like Full Metal Alchemist seeing that Anime is sort of the trend today. He states that the European divison's current main tasks are to localize each product and translate it. They currently have four language teams (German, French, Italian and Spanish) who work on translating games.

There is also work being done on bringing games to Europe's cellphone market including titles like ActRaiser and a tie-in title for Drakengard on the PS2. There was also mention of how FFVII Before Crisis is a game that is being released close to the DVD, FFVII Advent Children, in order to help become more "polymorphic". The term refers to Square Enix trying to expand into many mediums rather than just being restricted to one.