Many fans of Final Fantasy XIV appear to have clung to admissions from producer and director Naoki Yoshida during the recent live letter about missed quality targets and some dropped features like a lack of two different difficulties for the Forked Tower dungeon due to “cost,” which MOP’s Eliot argues likely doesn’t mean fiscal (and has once again revived misconceptions about the MMORPG’s budget). Still, it’s something on many people’s minds, and Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu is reportedly not blind to that fact.

According to a highlight from an attendee of the company’s latest shareholder meeting (run through auto-translation), Kiryu has stated that he is aware of FFXIV’s lowered quality and loss of fans as well as concerns that Yoshi-P’s attention is being pulled in too many directions. Bear in mind that Yoshida produced Final Fantasy XVI and co-produced Fantasian: Neo Dimension, while his Creative Studio III is assisting with development of the Final Fantasy Tactics remaster.

Ultimately Kiryu appears to brush those worries off, stating that FFXIV is entering “the next decade” with Dawntrail, assuring investors that CS3 is hard at work to ensure the next expansion and post-release patches are enjoyed by fans, and arguing that Yoshida’s multiple concurrent roles “will definitely contribute to Final Fantasy XIV as valuable experience.”

We further note here that this is information shared through machine translation and the full transcript of that shareholder meeting is expected within a few weeks, so it’s entirely possible that there is some important context and nuance missing here – like whether Squeenix is doing anything about the matter or not. All the same, it’s not entirely lost on the company.