This year marks the first New Years’ letter for Square Enix president and representative director Takashi Kiryu, succeeding Yosuke Matsuda in June 2023. In last year’s letter, Mastuda expressed a heighted interest by the company in exploring new technologies including NFTs.

Despite being a major strategic theme for the company in 2022, it appears Square Enix’s approach has been tepid at best. The company has previously incorporated NFTs into one of its smartphone games, Shi-San-Sei Million Arthur, an idle game that allows you to mint NFTs out of a character’s undergarments, though the company remains noncommittal the project, as if it were a joke. Another NFT game, Symbiogenesis, promised a “digital collectible art project” that was intended to launch in Spring, but spent the year stringing followers along with cryptic teases about gameplay elements.

Perhaps the non-committment can be attributed to the floor falling out from under NFTs in the last year, with as much as 95% of the assets now being essentially worthless.

In Kiryu’s letter, he remarks upon the challenges emerging from COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing geopolitical turmoil, and inflation, and attributes this to a “rise in uncertainty in society”. Emerging and “eye-catching” technologies such as the metaverse or “extended reality” products and the commercialization of many AI products such as ChatGPT and other LLMs. Of note, Kiryu sees the latter as an opportunity to “fundamentally change the processes by which we create, including programming.”

It’s here that Kiryu plans an aggressive approach, with goals to use these techonolgies to “enhance” development productivity and marketing — using them as opportunities to create new types of content.

The company dipped their toe in the water earlier this year by releasing a free to play project on Steam, an adaptation of Yuji Horii’s The Portopia Serial Murder Case where players can use text input to converse with characters and embark on a murder mystery. However, much of the functionality of the project never materialized. And, as shown in our video below, struggles to recognize and interpret basic communication.

Square Enix will plan to change up their organizational structure to pursue new areas of business as they pursue AI, NFTs, and other Web 3.0 technology. The company will also be employing initiatives to diversify their projects, and to “allow each and every one of our employees demonstrate the full measure of their individuality and creativity.”

Kiryu, 48, is the youngest person to lead the company in the position, joining in 2020 as a general manager of the Corporate Planning Division, then a chairman of the the board at Square Enix China, and then board of directors in 2022.

He’s made several public appearances last year to speak to fans, including the Final Fantasy XVI launch celebration. It was here he addressed the audience, in something of an introductory pitch, referred to himself as a gamer who cherishes the experiences the company has provided and believes games “offer infinite possibilities and the potential and alter the course of our lives” and that as CEO he will “strive to deliver fans across the globe entertainment that provides new and unforgettable experiences.”

It’s important to keep in mind that Kiryu is obviously speaking to two different types of people: consumers like you and myself, and investors and shareholders who expect the company to embrace new business opportunities to grow. Perhaps endlessly. Perhaps perilously In 2024, Kiryu plans to purse additional growth for Square Enix as a company through an aggressive adoption of these technologies. However, if it’s anything like 2023s adventures into NFTs, it’s possible that its fruits may be highly limited.

Square Enix also celebrated 20 years of operation since 2003, when Squaresoft and Enix merged.

To read our collection of New Years’ greetings from Square Enix’s developer and operations teams, check out our post here.