Kodoani.com – Square Enix Holdings announced on its website on Tuesday that it will merge its wholly owned subsidiary, Kodoani. Luminous Productions (Final Fantasy XV, Forspoken) on Square Enix on May 1.
The announcement said that the merger was “part of the Company’s efforts to further strengthen the competitiveness of the Group’s development studios, an objective enshrined in the current medium-term business strategy.” its.” Square Enix Holdings states that the merger between its two subsidiaries will foster “intellectual property wealth” at Square Enix and “the ability to grow the AAA title” at Luminous as well as “technical expertise”. engineering in areas such as game engine development.”
Square Enix founded the studio Luminous Productions in March 2018. Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata headed the studio, and many other employees who worked on Final Fantasy XV joined the studio. The studio reported an unusual loss for the six-month period ending September 30, 2018, amounting to ,3.733 billion (about US$33 million). The company has stated that the reason for the loss is its decision to focus on “high-quality, large-scale AAA titles”, which it thinks will make the best use of Luminous Production’s strengths.
Tabata resigned from both Square Enix and Luminous Productions in October 2018, subsequently founding JP Games, Inc. Luminous Productions has appointed Takeshi Aramaki as the new head of the studio. Aramaki previously served as vice president of development at Luminous Productions. He was a lead programmer for Final Fantasy XV and was also involved in the development of the PC version of the game.
Final Fantasy XV went on sale worldwide for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November 2016. The game received a Royal Edition for PS4 and Xbox One in March 2018. The new release includes a DLC Season Pass. previously released, as well as other features. The Windows version also came out in March 2018.
The studio launched the story-driven action/adventure game Forspoken for PlayStation 5 and PC on January 24.
