Over the years, Platinum Games has become one of the best game developers over the past few years, delivering great titles like Bayonetta 2, Vanquish and, as of late, NieR: Automata. But it appears that the last title, which has become quite the best-seller for Square Enix, actually did more good than anyone could have expected.
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Producer Hideki Kamiya recently took to Twitter to discuss the success of NieR: Automata, and it turned out to be much more beneficial than expected, as he noted that the game practically “saved Platinum,” indicating that the studio might have been in some financial trouble – possibly over the fallout of what happened to Scalebound when it was cancelled earlier in the year.
Although the tweet was in Japanese, here’s how it was translated:
“Nier’s success has to this point given Platinum a new fanbase, a growing staff, a brilliant success story, an increase in qualified job applicants, and a great favour. Normally, I can’t help but do everything by myself… it’s a pitiful story, but to say that Yoko-san saved Platinum would not be an overstatement. I cannot thank him enough.”
We’re not quite certain how much financial trouble Platinum was in, but its last couple of projects aside from NieR haven’t gone as planned. The Legend of Korra didn’t turn out as well as the company expected when it was released through Activision, coming across more as an average adventure; Star Fox Zero, alongside its sub-game Guard, came out for the Wii U, but considering that the game was released at the near-end of that system’s cycle – and with a frustrating control scheme, no less – it didn’t fare as well as expected. And then there’s that whole fallout with Scalebound, in which Microsoft noted it didn’t want to move forward with the project, and that didn’t help the company out.
But we’ve seen a turn-around with NieR and its add-ons, selling quite a few copies for Square Enix and proving to be the driving force to put the company back on track. Congrats to all involved!
Now then…perhaps we can get that third chapter of Bayonetta to really get the ball rolling…?
