• 9 years ago
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    There, all of Square's and Square Enix's Product Development Divisions are now in the database and filled out. That took *a while*. Papi still has to accept some of my edits, so some information may still be missing, but it's now possible to rank individual Square Enix studios.

    The existence of all these studios was somewhere from late '90s or early 2000s till 2007. Officially, the PDD system is no longer in use, but some these teams are still intact.

    #Square Enix Product Development Division 1
    The 2-team studio responsible for FFX, FFX-2, KH1, and KH2, that later went on to develop FF13 and FF15.

    #Square Enix Product Development Division 2
    The shitty action RPG studio. All their output has been mediocre. I dunno why you'd want to rank them.

    #Square Enix Product Development Division 3
    Responsible for Chrono Cross, Threads of Fate, and Xenogears, but have since been doomed to work on FF11 and FF14.

    #Square Enix Product Development Division 4
    The Tactics and Ivalice Alliance guys. Also includes all former #Quest employees.

    #Square Enix Product Development Division 5
    The good action RPG studio, responsible for the Musashi series, Parasite Eve II, and the Kingdom Hearts series starting with Re:Chain of Memories.

    #Square Enix Product Development Division 6
    Responsible for Front Mission 3-5, as well as the remake of the first game.

    #Square Enix Product Development Division 7
    No one should care about these guys, because all they did was Hanjuku Hero, and you don't know what Hanjuku Hero is.

    #Square Enix Product Development Division 8
    A tiny production studio whose task was to oversee the development of Mana games by third-parties. They're much too small to develop Dawn of Mana on their own, but I couldn't find any sources on who did. I wanna say it was PDD2, because it'd fit right in with the rest of their mediocre work.

    #Square Enix 1st Production Department
    The result of a 2010 merger of the former PDD1 and PDD5 into one big FF and KH superstudio.
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    • Gries He
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      Gries He
      Editing … Very informative post, demi! Couple of questions , though: is there a Square Enix 2nd (3rd, 4th etc) Production Department, or do PDD 2-4 and 6-8 still exist? Do we know what projects they're working on and when can we expect to hear more about them? Are all their dev studios located in a single building/city?
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    • Axersia
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      Axersia
      Editing … Oh right, I was too occupied with saying how mediocre PDD2's action RPGs are that I forgot they also did the SaGa series. Well, that gives you a little more incentive to rank them I suppose. Anyway, no, the 1st Production Department is the only "named" studio they have now. Of course, they still have many other people working there as well. PDD3 more or less still exists, as they've continued to work on FF11 and later FF14. PDD2, 4, 6, 7 and 8... hard to say. I'd have to do more digging and look through staff credits. It's possible Rise of Mana still had some of the PDD8 people working on it, but Koichi Ishii, former head of the studio, no longer works there and wasn't involved. Akitoshi Kawazu, former head of PDD2, only recently came out of the woodwork with the announcement of SaGa 2015. The Front Mission (PDD6) and Hanjuku Hero (PDD7) series are dead, and we haven't heard anything from the Tactics team since 2010, but the director of Tactics Ogre PSP, Hiroshi Minagawa, now works on FF14, so the same could be true for other PDD4 staff. Officially, the teams are assembled on a project basis now, so there could be a lot more crossover. As for where they're located. Well, PDD5, a.k.a. Square Enix Osaka, is their sole Osakan studio, but as far as I can tell, their Tokyo staff works from the same building in Shibuya. That said, Square Enix has begun to adopt more Western development ideals, with specific aspects of a game being outsourced. For example, tri-Ace helped out with FF13-2 and Lightning Returns, and HexaDrive and XPEC are working on FF15.
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