Square Enix has announced intentions to succeed Yosuke Matsuda as President of the Company, with Takashi Kiryu as a candidate. Matsuda took over as president in 2013 after Yoichi Wada resigned, during a period of bad sales for the Japanese video game publishing business, which led in major restructuring. Matsuda has recently been at the heart of several controversies stemming from his strong support for NFTs and blockchain games, which he was still supporting in January.

Square Enix has made noteworthy restructuring moves in the last year, including the sale of a large portion of its western development teams, Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal, to Embracer in 2022 and the announcement earlier this week of the merger of Luminous Productions within Square Enix. Forspoken’s company is Luminous Productions, which did not have the greatest business success globally.

Takashi Kiryu, a relative novice to the Corporation, will take over as president. In 2020, he joined Square Enix as the Company’s planning section chief. Since then, he has held a variety of roles at the company, including director of Square Enix Corporation (the Company’s main video game production partner in Japan) and, most recently, director of Square Enix Holdings. He will now assume the position of President.

According to the formal Notification of Changes, the risky business climate encircling the entertainment industry forces them to “reshape the management team with the aim of implementing ever-evolving technological advances and optimizing the Company’s group’s ingenuity.” They also expect that this shift will enable them to “deliver even better amusement to its consumers all over the globe.” The move will be decided on at Square Enix’s annual shareholder gathering in June, with the Board of Directors approving it later.