It looks like I misinterpreted that blurb yesterday about Square-Enix’s rough financial news. When Square President Yoichi Wada said the company needed “to go beyond traditional Square-Enix,” I thought it meant a renewed emphasis on innovation. If Kotaku’s rumor mill is to be believed, it may mean less.

Word has it that a fierce meeting was held over a month ago where the Square Enix honcho threatened to start axing employees if they didn’t (and we’re paraphrasing) “stop making games that only they wanted to play.” Wada is supposedly worried that the company’s games have become more and more insular, alienating itself from the mainstream.

(Joke opportunity: If Square-Enix made a game that only 30 developers wanted to play, that would still be 30 more people than wanted to play Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerebrus. Ba-dum ching. Now back to the blog in progress.)

It’s not hard to read this as a dig at The World Ends With You, the critically acclaimed but bizzare DS game about being AWESOME in Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya district. And it’s strange to hear Square-Enix being described as non-mainstream, owning as they do the blockbusting Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest franchises.

Still, this is an unsourced quote from an unsubstantiated rumor, so maybe it’s best not to read too much into it.

In other news about games that only the creators supposedly want to play, Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness went on to break debut sales records on Xbox Live Arcade.

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