{"id":69639,"date":"2026-07-15T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=69639"},"modified":"2026-07-15T17:08:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T08:08:49","slug":"nihon-falcom-is-aiming-for-one-flagship-ip-entry-and-one-younger-staff-led-game-every-year-ceo-says-the-studio-needs-to-cultivate-its-successors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/nihon-falcom-is-aiming-for-one-flagship-ip-entry-and-one-younger-staff-led-game-every-year-ceo-says-the-studio-needs-to-cultivate-its-successors\/","title":{"rendered":"Nihon\u00a0Falcom\u00a0is aiming for one\u00a0flagship IP entry and one younger-staff-led\u00a0game\u00a0every year.\u00a0CEO says the studio needs to cultivate its successors\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tomorrow,&nbsp;<strong>Nihon&nbsp;Falcom<\/strong>&nbsp;will release the brand-new action RPG Kyoto Xanadu in Japan and Asia, followed by the&nbsp;much-anticipated worldwide release of Trails in the Sky 2nd&nbsp;Chapter, coming only three months later.&nbsp;While Nihon&nbsp;Falcom&nbsp;has previously positioned \u201ctwo new titles a year\u201d&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/trails-developer-nihon-falcom-to-shift-focus-on-increasing-number-of-released-titles-per-year-and-publishing-more-switch-2-ports-six-unannounced-titles-currently-in-development\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">as&nbsp;a future goal it strives to<\/a>,&nbsp;president and CEO Toshihiro Kondo&nbsp;recently talked about&nbsp;whether&nbsp;2026\u2019s dual release means the studio has&nbsp;now&nbsp;achieved this goal,&nbsp;and why&nbsp;he considers this to be so important for the studio\u2019s future.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In an interview with&nbsp;South Korean gaming outlet&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisgame.com\/articles\/427744?newsId=263&amp;categoryId=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ThisIsGame<\/a>, Kondo says he is&nbsp;more&nbsp;inclined&nbsp;to&nbsp;attribute Nihon&nbsp;Falcom\u2019s&nbsp;larger output in 2026 to good timing&nbsp;(note that this article relies on machine translation, so exact nuance should be taken with a grain of salt).&nbsp;In his view, the studio has not yet built a structure&nbsp;capable&nbsp;of consistently delivering two new titles&nbsp;a year, and he cannot&nbsp;definitively&nbsp;claim that&nbsp;they\u2019ll&nbsp;be able to pull off the same thing next year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rather, the release of Kyoto Xanadu was possible because an independent team, whose members don\u2019t overlap with the core Trails and Ys development teams, had been working on it \u201cbehind&nbsp;the scenes,\u201d&nbsp;and the project happened to be completed at the right time.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1531\" height=\"857\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1531px) 100vw, 1531px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/20260715-69639-001.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-69651\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/20260715-69639-001.jpg 1531w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/20260715-69639-001-380x213.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/20260715-69639-001-768x430.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, releasing two new titles annually continues to be Kondo\u2019s&nbsp;ambition.&nbsp;A challenge Nihon&nbsp;Falcom&nbsp;faces is that its heavy focus on developing&nbsp;established&nbsp;IPs like Trails means&nbsp;there are&nbsp;too&nbsp;few&nbsp;projects where&nbsp;its&nbsp;younger staff&nbsp;can&nbsp;evolve and challenge themselves. Kondo believes that if younger developers&nbsp;aren\u2019t&nbsp;provided with&nbsp;opportunities to experiment and improve, there will be no successors capable of carrying Nihon&nbsp;Falcom&nbsp;into the future.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of note,&nbsp;he mentions that the company has gradually been increasing its headcount (<a href=\"https:\/\/shachomeikan.jp\/industry_article\/5363\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">69 people as of the end of March 2025<\/a>), while also expanding the number of producers&nbsp;on board&nbsp;capable of overseeing projects.&nbsp;Ultimately Kondo\u2019s goal is to establish a structure under which&nbsp;Falcom&nbsp;can routinely release one flagship IP entry (such as Trails and Ys games) and one original project every year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The upcoming Kyoto Xanadu, though a successor to the existing Tokyo Xanadu, is an example of the latter, as it was headed by&nbsp;Nihon Falcom\u2019s&nbsp;young newcomers alongside&nbsp;more experienced&nbsp;(but&nbsp;recently hired)&nbsp;mid-career veterans.&nbsp;As a result, the game has a \u201cfreshness\u201d that sets&nbsp;it&nbsp;apart from existing&nbsp;Falcom&nbsp;titles, and Kondo hopes to increase the number of such projects going forward.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Related:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/nihon-falcom-reports-1227-year-on-year-operating-profit-growth-thanks-to-strong-overseas-sales\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Nihon\u00a0Falcom\u00a0reports 1227%\u00a0year-on-year\u00a0operating profit growth\u00a0thanks to strong overseas sales\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/trails-in-the-sky-the-3rd-or-from-zero-could-be-next-in-line-for-a-full-remake-but-the-devs-are-torn-about-what-order-to-go-in-nihon-falcom-ceo-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Trails in the Sky the 3rd or from Zero could be next in line for a full remake, but the devs are torn about what order to go in, Nihon Falcom CEO says<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toshihiro Kondo recently talked about Nihon Falcom&#8217;s goal of releasing two new games annually.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":69649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","autoblue_publish_document":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-69639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - 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