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FFXIII Not Due Until Next Year

Posted by Zonk on Fri May 25, 2007 08:55 AM
from the wait-for-the-other-shoe dept.
Role Playing (Games)
IGN translated an article discussing a financials meeting recently held by Final Fantasy creator Square/Enix. According to company president Yoichi Wada, don't expect FFXIII until next year. At least. "'It will still take a bit more time. At the very least, [a release] this fiscal year is definitely out of the question.' Japanese is known for being a pretty vague language, but Wada's words were pretty clear. No FFXIII in Japan until some time after March 2008. Let's hope Square Enix starts the translation before development finishes up." The implication there, of course, is that if we follow the trend from FFXII the U.S. may not see the game until Winter 08, or even early 09.
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[+] Ten Years of FFXIII? 146 comments
IGN is reporting that the next game in the Final Fantasy series will probably be around for quite a while. If Square/Enix has anything to say about it, we'll be playing the FFXIII family of games for the next ten years. "Although speaking with a Nintendo magazine, Hashimoto brought up Final Fantasy XIII as a comparison for Square Enix's decision to expand upon the FFVII storyline through the Compilation project years after the game's original release. 'Different from something like VII, which we expanded upon afterwards, with Fabula Nova Crystallis FFXIII, we've thought about an expansive world setting from the start. Under the idea of wanting everyone to be sucked into the world for 10 years, we're preparing a number of categories.' He likened this approach to films like Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings." Chris Kohler took the time to point out that, in the same interview, the Square folks stated they're still not entirely convinced about this whole Virtual Console thing. "We feel that the Japanese game market still requires [physical] media. Also, FF and Dragon Quest are played by a wide range of users, from children to adults, so there are limitations when you consider the problems that we would have with billing systems."
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FFXIII Not Due Until Next Year 43 Comments More /

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  • Wishful thinking (Score:5, Informative)

    by BecomingLumberg (949374) on Friday May 25 2007, @09:05AM (#19269303)
    Maybe by then I can afford a PS3 to play it on.
    • I feel the same way. I'm not planning on upgrading my PS2 until the PS3 is closer to the $400 mark - but by then, the games that I'm looking forward to should be pretty cheap, so I'll probably still wind up spending $600 between system and games by then ;).

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by danielk82 (939157)
      FFXIII is not exclusive to the PS3 anymore, so you just probably just need to afford an Xbox 360. Link: http://www.ps3center.net/story-394.html [ps3center.net]

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by DrEldarion (114072)
        No, the Final Fantasy XIII series is not PS3 exclusive. They've said that they want to develop a ton of games using the same world, and they're branching out onto other consoles to do that. See also the mobile phone game. Nobody every said anything about the FFXIII "base" game, people are just jumping to conclusions (illogical ones, at that, considering how long FFXIII has been in development for the PS3, how badly the 360 is doing in Japan, and how much Square loves their CG, meaning they require a TON of

        • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          The thing is, given how poorly the PS3 is doing in Japan, it would be financial suicide to release the primary Final Fantasy XIII as a PS3 exclusive. A big budget Final Fantasy game has to be a multimillion seller and it can't do that unless Sony can sell 5 million more PS3s between now and FF XIII's release. And Sony can't manage that unless they can cut the price in half before this Christmas.

          Mark my words: the primary Final Fantasy XIII will not be a PS3 exclusive even if they have to rewrite half the ga

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by DrEldarion (114072)
            They don't have to sell PS3s BETWEEN now and then. People will buy them once FFXIII comes out. You mention that it would sell 360s - why wouldn't it sell PS3s?

            Basically, the PS3 is doing poorly now because of the lack of good games, particularly good RPGs, which are a Japanese staple. I'll guarantee you that PS3s will fly off the shelves once FFXIII comes out.

            Sadly for Sony, this looks to be a yearish away.
            • Eh, you'll get spurts of sales for MGS4 and GT5 as well.
            • Yep. I'm waiting for a Final Fantasy to come out before getting the PS3...and for the price to drop. No way I'm paying $600 for a system just to play a couple games on it.

            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by amuro98 (461673)
              Actually....yes they do.

              If no(or very few) PS3s sell between now and then, would you feel comfortable releasing a game you've just spent $30mil making on a console that doesn't have a large enough market to make back your money?

              Sure, FFXIII will sell consoles, but how many people do you know will be willing to pay close to $800 (PS3, game, better cables, tax) just for _one_ game?

              There are already very unsubstantiated rumors that many PS3 titles have been delayed simply so that the publishers can take more
  • And we waited how long for FFVII? I would rather they spend years on a project making it good than just rush it and push out an FMV-centric piece of crap. Bring back the world map!
    • Wait, are you pro or con FFVII? Because I definitely thought FFVII was an FMV-centric piece of crap.
      • Not all FF fans mind "FMV-centric".

      • FMV-centric
        I think it was a step up from just watching your character sprites in earlier versions just run around out of your control (FF3 comes to mind). At least with the FMV's we got a nice break. I do admit though that wading through 3 to 10 minutes scenes just before a major boss battle (FFX comes to mind) a few times can get tedious, but that always gave me time to make a sandwich.
    • No, the world map isn't why they're delaying the release. The estrogen treatments are taking longer than expected to make the game's male lead sufficiently effeminate.
    • That's amusingly ironic, considering that FFVII was originally in development for the N64 (complete with lush, gorgeous promo screens that no one believe were real), when the project was shifted over to the PS1 (complete with three-disc FMV-tastic gameplay) when Squaresoft decided that Sony was going to move more units.
    • I find myself repeating this a lot, but graphics have absolutely nothing to do with gameplay. Therefore it is not an excuse to have blame poor gameplay on good graphics, or vice versa. The skillset needed to crank out polygons has nothing in common with the skillset necessary to be a good writer, or a good game designer. If a game had great graphics but poor gameplay, it's because the guy designing the game let the team down, not because they forced all game designers to learn how to crank out polygons i
  • In my opinion, none of the final fantasy's since FF6 have really been worth the time invested anyway...
    (and yes, I have played them all)

    • Re:::shrug:: (Score:4, Interesting)

      by quarterbrain (958359) on Friday May 25 2007, @09:36AM (#19269761)
      FFVII will always be the last good Final Fantasy in my mind. Even though the cast would change the characters never did, the angsty hero boy, the obnoxious fighter, the cutesy mascot, all there. The outline also got recycled. At some point you will lose access to magic. Your group will get broken up. Somewhere along the way there's a fight you have to lose. No, you didn't beat the last boss, there's someone pulling the strings, and that guy has 15 different forms.

      Now I just kinda wish they'd go away.
      • Hey, guess what, all narratives can be classified if you abstract it enough; there's the 36 Dramatic Situations [gamedev.net], and a lot of games follow the Monomyth [wikipedia.org] to some extent. Should all games go away? Maybe. To say that there's a lack of originality in storywriting for games is an unfortunate truth, but it by no means is limited to the Final Fantasy series. In fact, the situation you described applies to a whole host of console RPG's, churned out because a lot of people love it and (more importantly) will pay
        • RPGs have a lot more common rules than the monomyth. For example the parents of the main character are 99% sure to die within the first 15 minutes of the game or if you ask any large organization for help it's either too weak to deal with the enemy, getting wiped out in no time or they're actually more evil than whoever you tried to send them after. If there's a mention of n objects that will bring about great disaster if action x is performed on all of them you can rest assured that there's a 100% chance a
    • I enjoyed 4,6,7,9, and 10, for varying reasons, with fault to be found here and there.

      FF4 to me was the first with a bit of depth to the story and characters.
      FF5 I found to revert to a more straightforward story with more flat characters.
      FF6 was quite epic with a deeper world and characters, but I found Kefka to be a weaker concept in terms of a villain. Also while the story was deeper, it still seemed too straightforward.

      FF7 I feel is different and I loved it. They took some living planet philosophy to i
  • Did anyone really expect it to be released this year?
  • I'd be shocked if it did get a release next year. FFXII too forever it seems. Square likes to polish their games, and why not. Once they release it, I'm sure it will be quite good.

  • Still at the drawing board. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Spazntwich (208070) on Friday May 25 2007, @10:35AM (#19270673)
    Their biggest developmental hurdle will be choosing how many spikes the main character's hair has, his bust size, and the source of his isolation from society and inexplicable feelings of angst.

    Will his fashion sense be a hodge podge of articles from the pirate era, or the dark ages? Will his plucky love interest be a young queen society won't accept marrying him, or a rags to riches disadvantaged girl?

    Will the airship be powered by magical beads, or fire? These are all important questions the developers must answer before they can even begin work on Final Fantasy 6, no 7, no 8, no 9, no 10, wait. What?
    • The European PS3 is crazy considering the price. I'm going to be in Japan for 2 weeks this July, and am considering picking one up, since it costs the same there that a Wii costs where I live. According to Wikipedia it does after all have a universal power supply with a standard IEC connector, so the only problem will be the games...
  • i would like to see a full 3D "..of mana" (slash FF Adventure) title. i know that it would take away from the design of the Mana series thus far, but those games aren't hugely budgeted like FFs. it would be interesting for square to take the hack and slash genre a little further.. a full 3D reproduction of secret of mana would be amazing, and take a retardedly long time (if you wanted full mastery of the spells and weapons anyway) to play. i have faith that square could make it interesting, unlike untold l
  • So I'll have at least two years to play and finish Final Fantasy IV, V, VI, IX, Revenant Wings, and Tactics A2. :D Then other than Crystal Chronicles, Mystic Quest, X2 and Chocobo Fudgepackers, I can claim to have played through and beaten every US released FF title :D
  • I always thought that FF13 was going to be a 2008 release, my biggest surprise is that this is news at all.

    In any case, Final Fantasy, while not dead to me, ha really lost its charm as of late. I mean, I liked FF12 well enough, but then I went on to play Tales of the Abyss, and realized that I was enjoying myself a whole lot more, and found that title to be much more engrossing. FF12 came in a distant fourth this year after Twilight Princess, Okami, and Tales of the Abyss. That's not bad, since all those ga

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