Hidetaka Miyazaki is the new president of FromSoftware

[Mistilteinn]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/05/21/dark-souls-director-hidetaka-miyazaki-made-from-software-president

With Kadokawa's acquisition of FromSoftware, they have now appointed Miyazaki (the director of Demons' Souls and Dark Souls) as the new president, effective immediately. I'm not gonna lie this is pretty exciting news, and to be honest, pretty well-deserved for the man. He's made fantastic games (and still is if Project Beast is indeed what he's been working on), so I'm really interested to see where the company goes from here. My only concern is that, as president, he may not be able to work on games as much--or at all--than when he was just a director.

 

[Casual Shinji]

My only concern is that, as president, he may not be able to work on games as much--or at all--than when he was just a director.

That's the only concern to have.

So yeah, good for him, but this means no more Miyazaki games.

 

[ninja666]

What Dark Souls 2 was missing was definitely Miyazaki's imagination and creativity. Unless they find someone of an equal mindset or Miyazaki will still have time to participate in any future From's games, all their next productions will be like Dark Souls 2 - bland, soulless and uninspired. And that's my biggest fear with Miyazaki getting the job of the company president.

 

[stroopwafel]

I think it's fantastic news actually. Demon's and Dark Souls were the biggest successes in Fromsoft's history, so what better strategy than to make the guy responsible for all that president of the company. I wouldn't even be surprised if this was part of Kadokawa's negotiating terms. Without Miyazaki and the Souls IP Fromsoft is a marginal company. I applaud Fromsoft for staying true to their core design philosophies and giving Miyazaki the opportunity to create Demon's Souls(which Sony didn't even want to publish at the time) establishing a franchise way more popular than their previous niche titles like King's Field, Shadow Tower and Armored Core.

Kadokawa wants Souls to do well which(atleast initially) probably motivated their acquisition of Fromsoft for 90%. The key to that success is Miyazaki, a rising new talent and visionary genius the likes of Konami, Capcom and Squeenix failed to produce. Also with Fromsoft being a small subsidiary Miyazaki will be the guy with the corner office, not the corporate fat cat in the top of the ivory tower guarded by three secretaries. As such I think Miyazaki will be very much involved with conceptualization, planning and design of new games. And hopefully recruiting new talent similarly as Shinji Mikami is doing at Tango(a Bethesda subsidiary).

I really, really hope Miyazaki's next game will meet expectations and, for that matter, that Evil Within will sparkle some of that old survival horror magic. I've pretty much given up on all of the corporate dinosaurs(espescially Capcom and Squeenix) that have given us nothing but garbage over the years so my hope is really on small companies like Fromsoft or studios like Tango or Kojipro.