This may ruffle a few chocobo feathers

News bit via Joystiq:

Square Enix President Yoichi Wada, speaking at a Tokyo games press conference "spoke about the importance of online gaming" (as covered by IGN). He specifically speaks of online's ability to push episodic content (Cool, I'm in favor of that).

"Online will also allow for easy ad placement in games, Wada said." Hmm, this is interesting. As you all know, I'm a fan of in-game advertising's potential to bring value to players. However, I'm not sure if this is going to sit well with Square Enix's fans if they retain the retail model. They may not be so happy to pay $60+ for a game and then be thrown ads.

You know what though, I've been a long time fan of their games and I have a feeling they'll be smart enough to put together a tit-for-tat system that will give some benefit to players for seeing ads. If they don't, well, let's cross that bridge when we come to it. =)