Bringing Western Games To Japan, Square Enix’s Next International Move

In another step forward away from their in house development Square Enix is pulling a Capcom move, publishing and localizing Western games for Japan. Their first project is Lost Winds, a WiiWare launch title in North America, and it’s slated to come out in Japan this December.

While Lost Winds isn’t a mammoth franchise like Grand Theft Auto it’s interesting to see Square Enix make more and more partnerships with Western developers. Earlier this week Square Enix made a deal with Gas Powered Games to create Supreme Commander 2. Square Enix Europe also actively publishes third party games like Odin Sphere and Disgaea 3. The only part missing in Square Enix’s international strategy now is grabbing orphaned Japanese games and localizing them for North America. A long, long time ago Squaresoft tried this with Breath of Fire, but most of the time they have been too busy localizing a never ending stream of Final Fantasy games.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see Square Enix jump into the localization biz? Space is crowded with newcomers like Ignition and Yuke’s joining the scene now too. But having more companies localize games means we’ll see more titles come out so…

Images courtesy of Square Enix.