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Final Fantasy XV Director Hajime Tabata [Ex-Square Enix] Talks About His New Studio and DLC Cancellation

Koozek

Koozek

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,913
Last month it was announced that not only three of the four upcoming new DLCs for FFXV had been cancelled, but also that the FFXV Director Hajime Tabata resigned from SE and started his own studio JP Games. His former studio Luminous Productions, which he founded at SE just in March this year, consists of most of the FFXV team and is still working on a new AAA game for next-gen systems (presumably the same new IP they've been working on since after FFXV).

Today Tabata appeared on a Nico Nico livestream with other Japanese devs. Here's a summary of his comments:

We learn that JP Games already has a few employees, but they're currently still looking for an office. The company is self-funded and no external investment was asked or received. While the studio will hire more developers, Tabata-san still intends to keep the numbers quite small.

Tabata-san wonders if he can create an AAA game independently, and he has already thought about some ideas for games that he'd like to make, but he cannot reveal them yet. He does know that he wants to take a multiplatform approach, spanning consoles, PC, and mobile.


While he wants to make large-scale games, he doesn't want to hire a lot of people in a single location. Even while he was working on Final Fantasy XV, he wanted to change the way games are developed. In a normal development process when things get busy the workload increases creating issues with personnel availability. While outsourcing is a possibility, that also creates problems scaling up production due to hardware distribution and security. Before leaving Square Enix he was about to move to try a cloud-based system, so he wants to evolve the workflow of making games before he actually makes one.

Tabata-san confirmed that he wasn't laid off by Square Enix, and his retirement was not a result of a soured relationship with the publisher. There is also no relation between the cancellation of the Final Fantasy XV's DLC and him quitting. He retired on his own due to his own reasons because he'd like to create what he wants and decide his own direction independently.

That being said, he was personally disappointed by the cancellation of the DLC, and he is really sorry for the fans that were looking forward to the new content.


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Source.
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Border

Border

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
14,859
Tabata-san confirmed that he wasn't laid off by Square Enix, and his retirement was not a result of a soured relationship with the publisher. There is also no relation between the cancellation of the Final Fantasy XV's DLC and him quitting. He retired on his own due to his own reasons because he'd like to create what he wants and decide his own direction independently.

"Yeah guys, it was the world's first totally mutual breakup."
 
entrydenied

entrydenied

The Fallen
Oct 26, 2017
7,565
Bye bye to AAA games, hello mobile?

The lack of funds and him wanting to keep employee numbers low is not exactly inspiring confidence. Maybe he will get funded by one of the big 3 like Mistwalker eventually.
 

Deleted member 17627

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,364
This interview kind of makes me sad, Tabata was a pretty good director, and for him to have low funds and a small staff makes me thing he's probably just going to work on mobage.

That and the fact that it really did feel like XV was a passion project to him, ad the more he talks about what happened, the more it seems like he was let go.

I really won't ever forgive Square Enix for hyping up XV the way that they did, only for them to essentially cut off development on it just as things started getting great.
 
Hikari

Hikari

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Oct 25, 2017
23,689
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It's great he wasn't fired or anything and that he knew the dlc was probably good. I have lost so much respect for Square Enix over the years but this might take the cake. Screwing all the ambitious dlc because they couldn't make shite without Tabata just annoys me. It was probably all too expensive to continue and they weren't far along.
 
Aran

Aran

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
354
I guess the interview kinda confirms that the dispute was over the new IP that Tabata was heading.
 
Dreamboum

Dreamboum

Member
Oct 28, 2017
22,861
Border said:
Tabata-san confirmed that he wasn't laid off by Square Enix, and his retirement was not a result of a soured relationship with the publisher. There is also no relation between the cancellation of the Final Fantasy XV's DLC and him quitting. He retired on his own due to his own reasons because he'd like to create what he wants and decide his own direction independently.

"Yeah guys, it was the world's first totally mutual breakup."
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Square-Enix apparently really wanted to keep him in the company, so I don't think it's so much of a sour relationship as Tabata wanting to go his own way.
 
Jorden1506

Jorden1506

Member
May 29, 2018
214
Netherlands
Border said:
Tabata-san confirmed that he wasn't laid off by Square Enix, and his retirement was not a result of a soured relationship with the publisher. There is also no relation between the cancellation of the Final Fantasy XV's DLC and him quitting. He retired on his own due to his own reasons because he'd like to create what he wants and decide his own direction independently.

"Yeah guys, it was the world's first totally mutual breakup."
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Well it does make me think about how Konami said their break with Kojima wat mutual. :')
 
ReginaldXIV

ReginaldXIV

Member
Nov 4, 2017
7,797
Minnesota
Tabata did as best he could with FFXV given the circumstances. FFXV sold well I thought, but I don't think it'll ever recoup the mismanagement of a decade+ dev cycle. I'm also sad the two characters who could have benefited from more story (Aranea and Luna) won't get their time to shine.
 
DSP

DSP

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,120
sounds like it's going to be like what Keiji Inafune was doing with comcept...
 
OP
OP
Koozek

Koozek

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,913
ReginaldXIV said:
Tabata did as best he could with FFXV given the circumstances. FFXV sold well I thought, but I don't think it'll ever recoup the mismanagement of a decade+ dev cycle. I'm also sad the two characters who could have benefited from more story (Aranea and Luna) won't get their time to shine.
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What do you mean "ever recoup"? It broke even on day one and made good profits since then:
Hajime Tabata: We made quite a lot of money off the game on day one - we made good profits off that - and we thought the best way to use that profit would be to thank the fans who'd played the game, to give back to them and use that to improve their experience.

[...]

It shows a lot of faith from your seniors that they're giving you a new IP. So I take it that the Final Fantasy 15 project has been considered a success?

Hajime Tabata: I think that's the way the project's seen within the company. That's the assessment of how it went, and I'm very happy to hear that. It made a lot of money, and a lot of profit for the company - and that's a good thing. And the challenge of trying new things, and expanding that, that's part of the company's strategic plan. Doing new things based on what we did with 15, is perhaps even more important.

Source.
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Masterspeed

Masterspeed

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,825
England
I'm excited to see what the future holds. I'm not getting my hopes up for a full fledged JRPG, but either way, I'm cautiously optimistic.

You do you Tabata-san
 
Jimmypython

Jimmypython

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,533
Him quitting looks like a good move on both parties. The company doesn't like him working on his terms, and he doesn't like to be told what to do.

Also, Tabata seems to be more interested in creating dev infrastructure (team building and workflow dev etc) than actually making games - could be a good thing if he can get some good talents to make the games
 
TaleSpun

TaleSpun

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,449
Border said:
Tabata-san confirmed that he wasn't laid off by Square Enix, and his retirement was not a result of a soured relationship with the publisher. There is also no relation between the cancellation of the Final Fantasy XV's DLC and him quitting. He retired on his own due to his own reasons because he'd like to create what he wants and decide his own direction independently.

"Yeah guys, it was the world's first totally mutual breakup."
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Lol

It reads like a self contradiction, but that kinda describes everything he's saying here. He wants to make big AAA games with a small team, but those things are entirely incompatible. Cloud computing isn't going to make it happen and it isn't going to help with crunch either, so I have no idea what he's even on about with that.

He'll pick one or the other eventually, out of necessity.
 
ReginaldXIV

ReginaldXIV

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Nov 4, 2017
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What do you mean "ever recoup"? It broke even on day one and made good profits since then
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Hajime Tabata: We made quite a lot of money off the game on day one - we made good profits off that - and we thought the best way to use that profit would be to thank the fans who'd played the game, to give back to them and use that to improve their experience.

[...]

It shows a lot of faith from your seniors that they're giving you a new IP. So I take it that the Final Fantasy 15 project has been considered a success?

Hajime Tabata: I think that's the way the project's seen within the company. That's the assessment of how it went, and I'm very happy to hear that. It made a lot of money, and a lot of profit for the company - and that's a good thing. And the challenge of trying new things, and expanding that, that's part of the company's strategic plan. Doing new things based on what we did with 15, is perhaps even more important.

Source.
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By what metric are they basing the profit on though? Curious if they're including the development of Versus XIII in there or just the rebrand to FFXV. Probably doesn't matter much since it was an in-house project and they made a lot of cheaper in-house sequels to XIII during this time.
 
TaleSpun

TaleSpun

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Oct 25, 2017
9,449
ReginaldXIV said:
By what metric are they basing the profit on though? Curious if they're including the development of Versus XIII in there or just the rebrand to FFXV. Probably doesn't matter much since it was an in-house project and they made a lot of cheaper in-house sequels to XIII during this time.
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In general SE isn't at all good about quantifying FFXVs sales. Even with it being "the fastest selling" game in the series, that's with the (often ignored) context that it launched simultaneously in three regions on two platforms. Even FFXIII had a three month delay between the JP launch and the NA/EU release.

Not hard to take a crown no one is actually wearing.
 
OP
OP
Koozek

Koozek

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Oct 25, 2017
8,913
ReginaldXIV said:
By what metric are they basing the profit on though? Curious if they're including the development of Versus XIII in there or just the rebrand to FFXV. Probably doesn't matter much since it was an in-house project and they made a lot of cheaper in-house sequels to XIII during this time.
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FFXV even including Versus wasn't as expensive as people think.

Is it safe to assume that this is the most expensive game ever made, if account for the entire development cycle, before you took over?

Tabata: No, it's not, even including that. From what I've heard, we're nowhere near what Destiny or Grand Theft Auto V [cost].

But Destiny's budget is projected over a ten-year timeline.

Tabata: I suppose if you consider it from when we started Versus XIII, we've been at it for ten years as well. The budgets for all of our projects are controlled quite strictly, but on a company level, so it's not been allowed to go that far out.

Source.
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Versus' development before the next-gen reboot as FFXV in mid-2012 wasn't full-production for the whole 6 years since the reveal in 2006 and it only had a full team some time between 2010 and 2012 where they finally were gearing up development. Before that there were even years where the Versus team consisted of only two CG artists (2007-2008).
 
Aran

Aran

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Oct 28, 2017
354
Hikari said:
It's great he wasn't fired or anything and that he knew the dlc was probably good. I have lost so much respect for Square Enix over the years but this might take the cake. Screwing all the ambitious dlc because they couldn't make shite without Tabata just annoys me. It was probably all too expensive to continue and they weren't far along.
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I mean they were probaly more far along in development than we think considering that a large amount of lines were recorded for the dlc.

But then again I don't know enough about game development to conclusively say what state the dlc was in.
 

Deleted member 4869

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,753
We were not worthy of Tabata San.

May he find success in his future projects. I've come to admire this man for his passion and ability to deliver a great product under terrible circumstances. I'll keep an eye on his new studio.
 
Lukar

Lukar

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23,374
Still bums me out that he left and that the DLCs got canned. He's proven that he can do great work, even at a company that seems to mismanage a lot of things. That said, if leaving is what he wanted to do and if it makes him happier, then good on him for doing it, and I wish him the best.
 
Hikari

Hikari

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Aran said:
I mean they were probaly more far along in development than we think considering that a large amount of lines were recorded for the dlc.

But then again I don't know enough about game development to conclusively say what state the dlc was in.
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.....this makes me angry. Oh come on just fuck off, Square Enix. You should have never cancelled it. I thought the dlcs were vapourware.
 
Tunichtgut

Tunichtgut

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Oct 27, 2017
2,294
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I still don't know what to think of him. I kinda liked his games, and those endings were really great, but everything else was just mediocre. Nevertheless, i sill was kinda excited what he could do with the new IP, but well, let's see what kind of mobile game he is gonna make...
 
JCG

JCG

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Oct 25, 2017
2,535
It still seems entirely possible that they decided to cancel the remaining DLC precisely because he had already quit, rather than the other way around. Still, that's just academic at this point. I wish him good luck with his new projects.
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

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entrydenied said:
Bye bye to AAA games, hello mobile?

The lack of funds and him wanting to keep employee numbers low is not exactly inspiring confidence. Maybe he will get funded by one of the big 3 like Mistwalker eventually.
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Considering how badly that ended for Mistwalker, maybe that's not the best thing to hope for.
 
Inuhanyou

Inuhanyou

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Oct 25, 2017
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Koozek said:
FFXV even including Versus wasn't as expensive as people think.




Versus' development before the next-gen reboot as FFXV in mid-2012 wasn't full-production for the whole 6 years since the reveal in 2006 and it only had a full team some time between 2010 and 2012 where they finally were gearing up development. Before that there were even years where the Versus team consisted of only two CG artists (2007-2008).
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glad i wasnt crazy for remembering things this way. The way people always said nomura was sitting around on the toilet for all those years leaving a team to langish just felt weird
 
glasiche

glasiche

Avenger
Feb 12, 2018
474
Pretty content that he's not working on FF anymore. Not a diss, but his style is his own and trying to bouy the franchise on that style did not interest me in he long term
 
Terrell

Terrell

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Oct 25, 2017
3,624
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Remind me again, Tabata was the guy at SQE that everyone universally believed was their top-tier producer, right?

Either way, I have a feeling that he'll sign a deal with one of the 3 console makers in very short order.
 
Niosai

Niosai

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My personal theory is that he had a project he wanted to work on badly, and the corporate oversight was muddying his vision. He probably wants to make something he can completely control, like a Kojima situation.
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

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Oct 25, 2017
115,625
Terrell said:
Remind me again, Tabata was the guy at SQE that everyone universally believed was their top-tier producer, right?

Either way, I have a feeling that he'll sign a deal with one of the 3 console makers in very short order.
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Not really. Tabata was a mobile game producer who delivered some mediocre crap like The Third Birthday and Type-0 before being promoted to take over XV as Nomura's priorities shifted to KH3 and the Versus XIII project exploded. He's never delivered anything particularly noteworthy except being the man responsible for FFXV actually coming out.
 
HosannaExcelsis

HosannaExcelsis

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Oct 25, 2017
2,333
Border said:
Tabata-san confirmed that he wasn't laid off by Square Enix, and his retirement was not a result of a soured relationship with the publisher. There is also no relation between the cancellation of the Final Fantasy XV's DLC and him quitting. He retired on his own due to his own reasons because he'd like to create what he wants and decide his own direction independently.

"Yeah guys, it was the world's first totally mutual breakup."
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It is not unprecedented for someone, especially someone in a creative field, to leave a company because they want to pursue some project that would be difficult to pursue within that company's structure. That doesn't require a soured relationship. I don't think we should assert against his own words that Tabata bears a grudge against Square-Enix management.
 
ReginaldXIV

ReginaldXIV

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Nov 4, 2017
7,797
Minnesota
Koozek said:
FFXV even including Versus wasn't as expensive as people think.




Versus' development before the next-gen reboot as FFXV in mid-2012 wasn't full-production for the whole 6 years since the reveal in 2006 and it only had a full team some time between 2010 and 2012 where they finally were gearing up development. Before that there were even years where the Versus team consisted of only two CG artists (2007-2008).
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Interesting, thanks for the sources!
 
Saad

Saad

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Oct 27, 2017
478
what a sad outcome! i was really interested in his new game, without influences of kitase's or nomura's
 
Terrell

Terrell

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PlanetSmasher said:
Not really. Tabata was a mobile game producer who delivered some mediocre crap like The Third Birthday and Type-0 before being promoted to take over XV as Nomura's priorities shifted to KH3 and the Versus XIII project exploded. He's never delivered anything particularly noteworthy except being the man responsible for FFXV actually coming out.
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Don't know who it is I'm thinking of then. Maybe Asano, the producer of the Bravely games and Octopath Traveler?

Cuz Nomura isn't really getting high marks nowadays and Toriyama is... yikes. The rest of their producers are on the MMOs, so... not much in the way of options.

EDIT: Kitase was who I was thinking of. I constantly see people rave about how consistently good his work has been.
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

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Terrell said:
Don't know who it is I'm thinking of then. Maybe Asano, the producer of the Bravely games and Octopath Traveler?

Cuz Nomura isn't really getting high marks nowadays and Toriyama is... yikes. The rest of their producers are on the MMOs, so... not much in the way of options.
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YoshiP, the man behind the resurrection of FFXIV and its expansions, is probably the one people are the most consistently happy with.
 
lemonade

lemonade

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May 8, 2018
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Wasn't Luminous Studio built so that Tabata could do his own thing?

Yeah, not buying the "no hard feelings". Won't be surprised if Luminous Studio is developing FFXVI.
 
sensui-tomo

sensui-tomo

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Tabata did give us Crisis Core though. Minus gackt and its a fun story.
 
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