The director and producer of Final Fantasy XIV, Naoki Yoshida, commented in an interview on the future of gaming. He spoke about the concept of online gaming and the technology that he believes could revolutionize game development.
Although Yoshida has been working at Square Enix since 2004, he only became famous through the reboot of the failed 1.0 version of FFXIV in 2013. His successful leadership of the MMORPG led to him being regarded as one of the industry giants in gaming.
This is what Yoshida says: The Final Fantasy series is one of the oldest franchises in gaming and will celebrate its 35th anniversary in December 2022. While the vast majority of these games in the past were purely offline games, Director Yoshida believes that this will change in the future, as the distinction between “traditional” and “online” games will become irrelevant.
I think that the inherent concept of online gaming will gradually disappear. While the degree of implementation always varies, there are hardly any video games today that do not include some form of online components. I think the distinction will simply be reduced to “single” or “multiplayer.”
Naoki Yoshida in an interview with Inverse
Yoshida also believes that MMORPGs as a genre and video games in general will experience massive changes in the future. According to him, this will happen due to the constant development of technology. In particular, the head of FFXIV is looking at quantum computing.
Quantum PCs can be significantly faster and more efficient than even the strongest commercially available PCs, but this technology is currently only being used in very limited ways. However, Yoshida believes that the development and spread of quantum computing could revolutionize gaming:
This would drastically increase server performance and the elements that could be simulated. It could lead to the creation of a living world that is similar to reality. Or even to new ideas that could create a real online world.
There is a chance that game development will change drastically and reach a peak in a significant turning point that will not only change video games but also everyday life.
Naoki Yoshida
The timeframe in which Yoshida expects these changes has been set at the next 10 years. He admits that the speed of development may have slowed down. He sees the reasons for this in the Covid pandemic and the semiconductor shortage, which affected not only the gaming industry but also automotive manufacturers.
As for the future of FFXIV itself, Yoshida wants to continue leading the MMORPG, so fans need not worry that their “Yoshi-P” will suddenly be pulled away for other projects. According to Yoshida, the lifespan of the game is still expected to last “hopefully decades.”
In the near future, however, the MMORPG is expecting the major content update 6.2, which will also bring the island paradise:
