Talk:Square Co.

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[edit] Square VS Square Co., Ltd.

Do you feel we should mention games produced by Square Co., Ltd. before they were an independent company? As pointed out in my King's Knight article, King's Knight was not, in fact, the first game that Square developed. It WAS the first they developed as Square Co., Ltd. However, they produced and/or published no less than six games simply as "Square": The Death Trap, Will, Thexder, Dragon Slayer, Cruise Chaser Blassty, and Alpha, respectively. Thexder was developed by Game Arts and published by Square for the Famicom, and Dragon Slayer was produced by Falcom but published by Square for the MSX, while the rest were produced and published by Square. Most of these games were released on various Japanese computers (notably the NEC PC-8801 and PC-8901) and never saw light outside of Japan. I have the release months and years if you guys are interested in placing this on the site.

EDIT: I also notice that massive gaps of games are missing in any given platform. There is some debate as to why they shouldn't be included, since this is an English version of Wikipedia, and these games (i.e. 'Square's Tom Sawyer' for Famicom) were never ported to English-speaking countries. On the other hand, Final Fantasy III never saw an English release, but is still listed. One could argue that Final Fantasy III is more relevant since it's part of Square's flagship series and, furthermore, it has had an (albeit unofficial) English translation. These arguments don't hold much water, however.

Finally, I'm wondering if I'm the only one that cares to advance this discussion and/or edit the site. :/ Somebody prove me wrong. - Tristam 12:49 a.m., 24 Jul 2005 (CST)

Though it's been more than a year since you've brought it up, I just came across this now and I very much agree. From what little data I have, the company known as "Square" was originally a label of software company Denyūsha; this division seemed to have been managed by Hironobu Sakaguchi's brother. The split from Denyūsha took place around the same time as Nasir Gebelli, Takashi Tokita and Akitoshi Kawazu were hired on staff. (One of the first games that Tokita worked on, it seems, was Aliens: Alien 2, an MSX platformer loosely based on the Ridley Scott film.) This critical mass of new talent seemed to cause enough of an upheaval for Hironobu Sakaguchi to ask for an amicable split from his parent company (and a shift in focus to the Famicom).
That's as far as I've gotten in research of this stage of history, anyway. There is a Japanese site called ROAD OF SQUARE that I've been pointed to in the past, which most likely contains data pertaining to this era and the people involved; due to my backlog, though, I haven't been able to get around to feeding it through the translator. X\
I really would like to see Denyūsha-era Square outlined in this article. Many Americans who do know about it seem to gloss over the fact that there was a history going further back, not realizing that it helped set the stage for the direction the Sakaguchi brothers took their own splinter faction (which was a drastic shift in focus to goals more artistic rather than commercial). The context would further help with present-day context in explaining Hironobu Sakaguchi's own reasoning for founding Mistwalker and AQ Interactive.
Highly recommended that this line of questioning be pursued, thanks. --E. Megas 17:24, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

"Squaresoft" was never the name of the company to begin with, it's only a brand name they (used to) employ. The Japanese company name was Square Co., Ltd. although it did have a US subsidiary called Square Soft, Inc. Of course, it's all Square Enix now.

[edit] Square VS Squaresoft

That's what I thought too, can anybody confirm this for sure? If it's true, then I think we should move Squaresoft content to Square (Videogame company) or something like that and add a redirect from Squaresoft. --xDCDx 13:38, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that idea. I don't think I consider Square's history to be the same thing as Square Enix's. Is Chrono Trigger a Square-Enix game? Merging the articles would suggest that it is, when clearly it is a Square game. - Vague Rant 07:04, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Of course not, someboy altered my coment, I have restored it. My proposal was renaming the article to Square (Videogame company), which was the actual name of the company before the merger. --xDCDx 20:01, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Squaresoft as a brand name

I'm not exactly willing to stake my life on this, but it was my understanding that the name "Squaresoft" was only used as a brand by Square during the 16-bit era: while my imported copy of Live A Live, for instance, bears the Squaresoft name, my imported copy of Final Fantasy VII does not. American localizations continued to use the "Squaresoft" name because it was still the name of the American branch, not because the parent corporation was still actively using it as a brand name. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though. – Seancdaug 17:57, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I don't have any imported games. However, I've found a couple of sites [1] [2] that show cover scans with "Squaresoft" everywhere - US, Japan, and Europe. This Japanese flash animation from the official site, dating from just before the Enix merger, also says "Squaresoft," so it seems pretty settled to me. And yes, I have little enough of a life to go searching for this stuff. :P Beinsane 22:22, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Ah, well. I stand humbly corrected, then. :-) – Seancdaug 22:35, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merger

I think the merger with Enix should be somehow given in the first paragraph, currently the lead in sounds like the company doesn't exist anymore at all. I think a simple "It merged with Enix in ... and became part of Square Enix." should be enough. The article should also tell the reader at the beginning, why this company is relevant, currently it launches straight in the history of the company, which, imho, should be under a History heading below the ToC. --84.184.105.203 12:20, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

It's a good suggestion, and I'm currently creating a massive "History" section. It may not be done for a little while though. :) --Tristam 16:21, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, I'll put it in the intro paragraph! —Wikibarista 04:28, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] square/squaresoft logo font?

i've been trying to find this font for years (the italic futura-looking one with the red triangle A). is it an actual font of which square licensed a modification, or is it a custom font commissioned exclusively for square? -alex rosario —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.88.88.27 (talk) 22:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge in Game Designers Studio

It is a three sentence blurb that can be covered in this article without its own whole article, and makes this article more comprehensive. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 15:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure there's not enough information available to make the article stands on its own? Akitoshi Kawazu did a lot of interviews about the FF Crystal Chronicles series; some stuff that aren't directly relevant to that series could go in the Game Designers Studio article instead. I think the reason the article is so small is because people simply don't care much about the "meta-game" topics in general. It could also be because there's not much to say to begin with, but are we sure of it? Megata Sanshiro (talk) 16:04, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I've merged the article. There doesn't seem to be much information and it can be added in this main article anyway. Kariteh (talk) 11:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)