Square Enix considering its own subscription service

Square Enix is exploring the possibility of launching its own game subscription service.

President and CEO Yosuke Matsuda told Game Informer the Final Fantasy maker wants to leverage its rich library of classic and new games by making them all available digitally.

“We’re working on that in a variety of ways,” he said. “That is a request that we hear often. As far as our major titles go, most of those, we still have variations out that you can play now.

“The more classic titles that you might have played on NES, we are still working hard to make it so you can play those. We actually have launched a dedicated project internally to port those, so we are working to make them available on a variety of platforms.

“Certainly down the road, we would like to see that on a subscription or streaming service, so we’re exploring the possibility of creating a dedicated channel for ourselves,” Matsuda added.

Matsuda also told Gamesindustry.biz: “At the end of the day, the direction that we’re thinking about is having a channel of our own”.

“But at the same time that would require significant preparations and investment. We’d also have to consider whether or not it will work well solely including our own catalogue titles.”

Subscription services were a trend at this year’s E3, with Game Pass becoming increasingly central to Xbox’s strategy, and Google announcing that Stadia Pro subscribers will also be able to sign up to publisher-specific subscription services through the streaming platform, including Ubisoft’s newly announced Uplay+.

EA also continues to add AAA content like Battlefield V to its long-running Xbox One and PC subscription services, while EA Access will finally launch on PS4 next month.