Yeah just saw the news on ResetERA and was hoping we'd have a thread on here. My first reaction is "The fuck?" since it's such a strange move. And yeah I guess Prope is no more then. So many questions. Like is he working on Final Fantasy and thus current Square Enix projects or are they giving him the freedom to work on his own projects? We need more info.
Wonder if he wants to do something very specific there. Can't think of any real reason to quite your OWN game company.
Thank god Prope is over. 12 years and nothing to show for it besides Rodea? Particularly exciting since he's explicitly participating in game development now, no more managerial roles. Maybe he finally learned C++?
Prope is actually still around and still making games (you can check their website here), but their output seems to have narrowed their focus more towards the mobile space ever since the early 2010s. Compare the catalog of games they developed for PC/consoles/handhelds (13), to the catalog of games they developed for iOS/Android (35). Moreover, they seem to have exited development for console games completely; the only console game they developed since 2011 (when Prope's Fishing Resort for Wii was released, and the original Wii version of Rodea finished development) is a 2014 Digimon game (All-Stars Rumble) developed for PS3/360 that was never released in Japan. My personal theory is that Prope's shift to mobile development and Rodea's failure presumably prompted Naka to continue producing / designing games elsewhere. A quick glance of Naka's gameography on Wikipedia and Sega Retro show few, if any, mobile games he was involved in at either Sega or Prope (Ivy the Kiwi? being the one exception, and even so, an expanded version of the game was released to Wii and DS). All things said, I'm interested to see how Naka's projects at Square Einx turn out.
Guess he wanted a new car and Prope wasn't paying Ferrari money :v: Best of luck to him, he's a gifted programmer with some really unique design ideas. He seemed happiest when he was able to be working on new things, so hopefully Square Enix can give him a reasonable budget to create games rather than the management stuff he ended up doing at SEGA.
It certainly seemed like he wasn't doing anything useful at Prope, so here's hoping. ...chocobo A-Life when? *shot*
What a weird ride Prope was. A long, snail-like, almost entirely forgettable one. It's so interesting to me to hear he really hadn't done programming in any capacity in just about 20 years. I know being in a production role means not getting your hands dirty with the day-to-day of development, but I'm surprised he wasn't keeping up with trends/languages to the point that he just picked it up again this recently. I wonder if his new role at Square Enix begins and ends with programmer, or if his experience with being in a producer role netted him something higher up the foodchain there. Because right now it sounds like it's just a regular programming role?
I'm excited to see what he does. Prope certainly was pretty forgettable. Honestly, part of me wishes he would've ended up back in SonicTeam (like ... replacing Izuka), but he'll probably be happier and get to do cooler stuff as a programmer at Square Enix.
Yuji Naka isn't going to join Square Enix as "just a programmer". He's considered too much of a legend in the industry - it's good PR to give him a visible role. I expect that he's going to be a games designer at SE, and his recent programming swot-up has been to catch up on current industry standards since now he'll be free of the burden of managing his own games company, he'll have more time to get into the nitty-gritty of actually making them. If he's leading a development team then it's much easier to communicate design ideas if you have a rough idea how to make them.
