Square Enix is most renowned for its multi-million selling role-playing series Final Fantasy, but the company has so many other hits under its wings that its support can many a time make or break a system. Therefore, when the company’s boss goes on record to call Nintendo’s market leading Wii console a mere ‘toy’, you have to wonder just how seriously Square Enix is taking the platform. But was it all just a misunderstanding?

Speaking in a recent interview with popular UK Industry website ‘GamesIndustry.biz’, the president of Square Enix, Yoichi Wada-san, spoke candidly about how recent remarks made by himself in another interview, this time with CNET Japan, had been taken slightly out of context. Below is a snippet of what he said to right the misunderstandings:

GameIndustry.biz: “In a recent interview with CNET Japan, you said that consumers are purchasing the Wii as a toy…”

Square Enix president, Yoichi Wada-san: “That particular article interpreted what I said in a rather coarse way. To fill in the context, with this generation of consoles, people take it for granted that all of them should be and are multi-functional. So it is each manufacturer’s responsibility to communicate with potential customers, and let them know which of them would make the best use of which function in each console.

“In that context, Nintendo seems to place a great emphasis on Wii Sports and Fit rather than Zelda, a role-playing game. In my opinion, if they expose the functions in this way, they are making the Wii look like a toy. With PlayStation 3, Sony are not appealing to consumers with strong messages that say this kind of user can make use of PS3 in this particular way for this particular kind of fun. That, they are quite weak at.”

GameIndustry.biz: “You did however note that software attach rates are lower for Wii than for other consoles. So does that make it a less appealing platform for Square Enix to develop and publish games on?”

Square Enix president, Yoichi Wada-san: “No, that’s not the case. What we have to do to start with is ask what kind of consumers are buying Wii for what purpose. When we’ve finished that analysis, then we have to work out what kind of games we should create for Wii. For DS, Square Enix publishes both traditional games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, and also more casual software. The DS is managing to get through to a really broad range of people at the moment, and I think the Wii can follow in its footsteps.”

So should we be expecting strong support from Square Enix on Wii? And what would you like to see come from the RPG heavyweight? Be sure to share your thoughts by posting below and stick around for further updates here on Nintendic…