Square Enix closes cloud gaming service Shinra Technologies

Square Enix has announced that it is ending its cloud gaming service Shinra Technologies. As the reason for the termination, the publisher states that the service was not able to raise enough capital from third parties.

Currently, the subsidiary has offices in New York, Montreal and Tokyo. Square Enix has elected to discontinue the service entirely and sell as much of it as possible. The publisher indicates that this will lead to a total loss of two billion yen, converted approximately fifteen million euros, for the fiscal year ending in March 2016. The company wants to completely shut down the Japanese branch of Shinra Technologies by the end of June. More time has been allocated for the American branch, the termination of which is planned for March 2019. No closing date has been announced for the Canadian office.

Square Enix established Shinra Technologies as a subsidiary company in 2014. The cloud gaming service focused on making games playable via the cloud by streaming them to PCs. The idea was that the service would differentiate itself from similar services by providing different servers for developers. This would allow better graphics and physics to create new games. According to the press release, Shinra Technologies has not been able to attract enough third parties and therefore does not have the resources to continue.