Even after the purchase of Tomb Raider creator Eidos, Square Enix has no plans to hop off the acquisition bandwagon anytime soon. According to company president Yoichi Wada, control of Eidos was “the first step” towards its ambitious Western expansion plans. That means if Wada sees fit, laying down the dollar for other companies isn’t out of the question.

Further to this, Wada labeled the Japanese video game market as “xenophobic,” alluding to Square’s plans to gain a more prominent foothold in the West as a result of this downturn.

In the last five to 10 years, the Japanese games industry has become a closed environment, with no new people coming in, no new ideas, almost xenophobic. It is now slightly behind western counterparts.

Interesting to see how things change so quickly. Japan was a key market for video games a few years ago. No one could have predicted that its leading position would begin to rust away like this. Clearly the economic climate is a factor here, but that cannot be the only reason Japan is experiencing a lack of innovation.

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