It may well be the ideology that Square Enix executives subscribe to, in fact. But whether they do or don't, a free gacha has zero potential to step on the sales of SaGa,
Whether one is a F2P gacha or not, a game is still a game and demands a time investment from the player. Missing Link more so than other gachas as you have to get out and walk around if you want to keep playing for free. These two games are obviously not in direct competition, but they can still affect each other.
I’m personally interested in SaGa: EB. But if Missing Link comes out shortly before or at the same time, that’s what I’ll be spending my time on since it is free and part of a franchise I’m invested in. Maybe no one else shares my singular experience, but I’m probably not the only one. But that’s at least one more than zero. Lol.
The company has also said recently they’re trying to have their lesser-known franchises reach a broader audience. You’re not giving it a very good chance to do that if all people are talking about is the new entry from one of your big three franchises. Even though it’s a gacha, the game looks and plays like a mainline KH game and is pretty much being advertised as such.
Moreover, I do find it bizarre that literally 100% of release date speculation now consists of operating within this producer ideology. Sure, they're unlikely to put things on the same day/week, obviously - anyone at all would avoid doing that (in fact, the concept of "same day" is one youve kinda just inserted into this topic on your own). But on here it's always stuff like "well it can't come out in this entire half of this year because [game]". Surely the process of actually, you know, making the damn game has a larger effect on the release date than where the marketers slot it after they're done??
Obviously, the development is the biggest factor in when it releases. But we have little to no line of sight on how much longer that will take other than that they still have at least one more beta go. After which they’ll need more time to make any adjustments to the final build of the game. It’s worth noting all the footage we’ve seen in the most recent trailer was all from the beta. So the final build could still look significantly different,
I can’t speak for others, but l focus on things like the handling of previous game releases (Ever Crisis,) the timing of future releases (like SaGa and Rebirth) because there just isn’t much else to go off of. They’re less important factors to be sure, but they still can make an impact. As an example, KH3 was pushed out of 2018 for reasons related to the distribution process rather than anything development related.
I’ll also add that if a game is released later because of coordination between releases and other non-development reasons, this is usually a good thing for devs as it means they don’t have to crunch as much and can spend more time polishing the game.
And my first post did not say “surely it will take sales away from SaGa.” I said: “I think Missing Link is more likely to release in May to not step on any sales of that game.“ I could have been more clear, but my intent was that it is something they may want to avoid. Not that it would be some guaranteed thing that it would hurt SaGa’s performance. This thought was also unfortunately made with the incorrect translation regarding the May thing in mind. I wasn’t trying to imply that would be the singular reason it would release in May. Tbh, I was expecting to get dragged for suggesting a 2024 KH4 release date and not for this.
I actually had Goldpanner take a look at the May thing since literally every other Translator seems to be lackluster these days.
Q: When is this releasing?
A: Nomura: I'm working really hard right now, if you can't tell from my expression. I'm trying to release the game as soon as possible
Shirakami: I want to release during a time of year when it's not a bad time to walk.
Nomura: I mean, this year summer started in like May, so we may be in trouble...
We're not in an era where you can trust any translator 100%, I'm sorry to say.
Please give them a huge thank you for clearing that up. If their Ko-Fi is still active, let me know as I’d like to buy them one. I haven’t seen anything from them in a while on Twitter so haven’t been sure if they still use it.