Gotta give Square Enix credit. For an enormous (and still conservative) company, it sure is trying hard to expand its horizons. Just listen to company boss Yoichi Wada talk.


"Even now, there have been people in Japan using the label youge- (Western games) with a terribly discriminatory meaning," Wada said in a recent interview on Japanese TV in which he discussed Square Enix and Modern Warfare 2, which it published in Japan. "I'd like them to try it once. If they play it once, they'd realize how incorrect that label is."

The term "youge-" has been used to separate Japanese games from foreign titles, which, until recently, were believed to have little or no appeal to Japanese gamers. "Game" (ゲーム）refers to video games. "Youge-" (洋ゲー）means something else — these games are different, they are the other.


Continuing, Wada noted that Western developers really started to come into their own in 2005, but that there was a lag in importing these titles into Japan. "Japanese game makers have been overwhelming strong," Wada said. "Thus, perhaps it was not necessary to look outside." Times are changing, and so is Square Enix, it seems.

Wada Interview [YouTube]