In a recent conference call for investors, Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda expressed his company's intentions for new releases in the West going forward and acknowledged that 'Games as a Service' could be the newest mainstream model for gaming.

According to recently released transcripts from Square Enix's latest quarterly conference for investors, the publisher has big plans for North America and Europe, including an aim to "aggressively roll out both catalog and new titles to the Western markets going forward.”

Essentially, Square Enix plans to enhance digital sales by updating and integrating its own sales websites. This includes the development of an app version to “create a design that provides our customers with a seamless, user-friendly means of making purchases.” Additionally, “Multi Platform Utilization” will be a focus, something in which CEO Yosuke Matsuda mentioned was “the concept of essentially providing our contents on all of our platforms.”

He expressed the intention to design games able to generate recurring revenue streams in the future, saying, "Titles that have become global hits recently have tended to be offered via the 'Games as a Service' model, and we believe this is going to be the mainstream model for gaming in the future. In developing future titles, we will approach game design with a mind to generate recurring revenue streams.”

Though no new use on Final Fantasy VII Remake and Kingdom Hearts 3 were given, the common misconception is that each will release by 2020 at the earliest. Though this could very well be possible, when Matsuda displayed the slide featured below, he explained that the games marked “FY2018/3 and beyond” will be launched “in the next three years or so", meaning each could easily come much earlier than in three years.

The slide also includes the recently announced Marvel IP license, which is realistically within a three year time frame, since it will be revealed next year.

What do you think of Square Enix's approach? Let us know in the comments below!