Ichiro Otobe (乙部一朗)

Chief Strategist, Square Enix

Ichiro Otobe is chief strategist of Square Enix. He joined the company in 2003, and served as president of Square Enix Inc., the U.S. arm of Square Enix, until 2005. Prior to Square Enix, he was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company. His clients include a mobile phone operator, media companies as well as financial institutions. He played key roles in introducing innovative mobile and network services in Japan. He holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a Masters of Engineering in Electronics Engineering from the University of Tokyo.

Otobe is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the 2007 Game Developers Conference entitled "Serious Games Squared: What happens when serious games get backed and powered by a leading game company and what can we learn from it?" In the opening keynote, Ichiro Otobe will detail the thinking and the efforts that went into Square Enix's entry in the serious game business. He will focus on how the company is reconciling the economics and approaches from commercial entertainment with the realities, challenges, and opportunities from serious game sectors including education, health, and more. His talk will also feature demos of prototype games and of titles under development.

Source: Game Developers Conference

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