Dell Partners with Square

zenintrude writes "Gameforms is reporting that Square has signed a deal with Dell that will secure new Dell computers to be shipping with Final Fantasy XI pre-installed. This comes on the heels of another story involving Square partnering with nVidia, in which certain aspects/details in Final Fantasy XI will only be able to be accomplished with a geForce4 card."

This is sad...

[jpt.d]

I sure don't mind it shipping on new computers from Dell, but requiring a nvidia card for certain things? That is rediculous. I use an ATI Radeon (aging one mind you) and would like to see some real compatibility between them!

Connections

[nukey56]

Interestingly enough, a large amount of market share of Square is owned by Sony, which also sells PCs. However, I have yet to see any announcement of Square products being shipped on Sony PCs. It seems strange that the reverse is not the truth.. is there something going on behind the scences here?

Why won't they move on?

[LighthouseJ]

Why can't square move on from the Final Fantasy name? Do they bank that much on the Final Fantasy name because they are that afraid of beginning another project? I think it's time for Square to move on gracefully now, rather than when Final Fantasy XV comes out and it's completely dead.

great idea for selling computers

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell Preinstalling computers with FFXI is a nice idea. It will probably help assure compatibility with their machines. Both Dell and Square would benefit from the sales.

Now only if Dell could convince them to port the game to Linux, they could have a killer game, on a killer OS!

I want a recompiled FF7

[man_ls]

I want to be able to play FF7 on my new PC.

There would be such a massive market if they released a patch, or released a remastered version of the game (updated graphics, perhaps?) that it would easily cover it's own production costs.

Re:If you can't beat em with technology

[Archfeld]

I will echo the above AC's comments LOUDLY and logged in. I've got a ti-4600 and a radeon 9700 pro, the Radeon is a better faster board, that has bugs in places I've never even considered. The 4600 is rock solid and compliant. ATI has yet to realize that a video card IS the drivers. ATI support is slow to respond, they often send the wrong info out, heck they did not even have drivers up for the 9700 for nearly 2 weeks after issue. My cd arrived damaged and I had to plead on IRC to get someone to let me ftp the drivers...
I hope ATI gets it together but how long have people been saying that ?

nVidia Isn't Appearing So Virtuous Anymore...

[chip2000]

Heh. I remember back when nVidia support was in the minority and 3dfx was 'the' graphics card chip. nVidia didn't use any sick tactics back then: their business practice was clean. It seems that has changed; though I suppose Intel was that way once, too.

It's a lesson in monopoly. You keep a company at bay, balanced by another and they BOTH behave and keep prices down. You leave one alone, and prices go up, service goes down, and the customer gets screwed.

I can only hope ATI does well with the latest Radeon Pro (quite highly rated from what I've seen). I'm disgusted with nVidia. This kind of business practice makes me think I should never buy an nVidia card again. Some areas only playable if you buy a ridiculously expensive card? It's incredible what capitalism gives us, just incredible.

nVidia=3dfx?

[puppetman]

We just saw a story on the collapse of 3dfx. One thing the story didn't mention was Glide, and 3dfx pushing it down the throats of game developers to try to get a monopoly on the market. Thank God for John Carmack, Id Software, and OpenGL.

Now nVidia is doing the following: "This comes on the heels of another story involving Square partnering with nVidia, in which certain aspects/details in Final Fantasy XI will only be able to be accomplished with a geForce4 card"

Now a geForce4 is a nice card, but the ATI 9700 is the only card that fully supports DirectX 9. You would think the 9700 would be better for Final Fantasy.

There is probably a chunk of code that says,

if (card_manufacturer = nVidia)
{
frame_rate=fast;
colors=vibrant;
special_effects=on;
}

It seems like nVidia is going the 3dfx route. Too bad; competition in the graphics card market is good for the consumer.

Is this a good thing or bad thing?

[higuy48]

This is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, Dell is offering pre-installed games (albeit with only one choice). This increases the number of people with the game, and we all know that when your friends tell you to play something, you should give in to peer pressure. On the other hand, this is just another app that the common computer user will never figure out. They'll probably try to do a straight delete of the game and accidentally delete their important documents in the process (so goes the way of Windows). You know, maybe if these people read Slashdot, they would instantly become intelligent and open-minded.

Problems with MMO games in general

[Killjoy76]

I have a problem with all Massively Multiplayer Online Only games... and I think a lot of other people have the same problem with them... monthly fees! I don't want any game where I HAVE to have an Internet connection (broadband preferably) and also HAVE to pay a monthly fee just to play a game. You may also even be required to pay for the game up front too. This just doesn't seem like something that the general consumer wants to bear. I like gaming a lot, and I like playing my games online... but I only play the ones that are free to play online (Unreal Tournament, Medal of Honor, Warcraft 3, etc.). I have played Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, and EverQuest but it turned out that I had a lot more fun playing those types of games (RPGs) by myself. Also, a huge problem with MMO games, is their longevity. Think about it, if you have your NES, Sega, TurboGrafix, NeoGeo, etc. games still and the consoles, you can still play them now. This will probably (95% sure) not be the case with all your MMO games. How many of those will still be around and playable 5-10 years from now. My guess, not many. There goes your time and money investment.

Another Vote for Shadowrun

[E-Rock-23]

Good call. Shadowrun would be a great MMORPG. The "D&D" style fantasy games, even with FF's added technology aspects, are played out to beat the band. Give us Seattle, plus (with game technology's capabilities these days) an expanded Shadowrun universe (worldwide, perhaps?), and you have something that would put MMORPG on the map for keeps. Deckers, Mercs, Street Docs, awesome weapons and wild magic. This game is screaming to be made for the online audience.

Re:This is sad...

[Unknown Relic]

Because there's no article attached to the comments about the GeForce 4 I can't be sure about this, but I would imagine that the nvidia cart would be required for certain visual effects, not game content. I see nothing wrong with nVidia striking a deal with Square to include some fancy visual effects only possible with the GeForce 4. In fact this deal is probably nothing more than nVidia footing the bill for Square to add some spiffy new graphical perks for the cards that support them.

All this does is gives nVidia a game with which to showcase some of the new features of their new cards, how is this a bad thing? Let's not forget that this game is also going to be released for the PS2, so I find it highly doubtful that anything especially important would need a GeForce 4 to run.

137 comments later noone think this may be a hoax?

[lingqi]

i mean... seriously... are there ANY other sources backing this up?

Square USA has nothing even close to this; Dell is silent as hell. even square japan has nothing at all:

the only press release i can find is here [nvidia.com] but it just says Nvidia chips are used for testing and with the "best way to play" logo -- so does Unreal Tournament 2003 -- it says nothing about GeForce being the ONLY playing video-card (as all directX compatible (OpenGL?) should work okay. (just like UT2k3 runs just fine on my radeon)

besides this is all for japan anyway. There are rumors (Electronic Gaming Monthly) that says there may not ever be a FFXI release because of the massive amount of support square will have to burden -- and if EA does not want to do it, they may just skip it. (can't find online version of article)

small side note: i remember back in the days when FF7 supported every videocard *except* nvidia TNT... haha... but eventually nvidia gained enough popularity / people bitched about it and they released a patch to allow nvidia. (they even had software rendering back then!) i bet if us radeon users bitch enough they will make a patch for it too.

another small side note: again. back in FF7 pre-nvidia-patch days -- the software rendering was so slow it was possible to predict the slot-machine thingy for one of the mini-games. i actually did much worse in that mini-game after the patch was installed. -- so i finished that part with software rendering, and played the rest with the patch.

"Sir, I'm scared."

[Saxerman]

So, when Microsoft does it it's bad, but when Sony does the same thing it's a good thing? I don't know about the rest of you, but this deal scares me. In terms of revenue Sony is on pretty equal footing with Microsoft and when giant companies like that make deals with their 'partners' to promote their products I can't help but feel that the consumer is the one who suffers.

As a Linux convert I've come to really like having choices. When a piece of software (open or closed) rises to the top on its own merits I don't have much to complain about. The problem is when a product is artificially bootstrapped the alternatives tend to get ignored, even if there are 'better' choices. I really liked my Amiga and Atari Lynx. Unfortunately I was 'forced' to switch to the 'inferior' substitutes of a Windows 3.1 PC and a Gameboy in order to stay mainstream. Certainly poor company management was a factor in both these cases, but I consider them clear examples of quantity beating out quality.

Hopefully I'm just old and bitter. I used to play Everquest, enjoyed it for a time, but in the end it was just sucking up time and providing little enjoyment. I was aware of the amount of willpower I needed to exert in order to give up the game. MMORPGs can be fun, but addictive. Everquest was certainly much harder to give up playing than any MUD I played, and those were free.

FF11 might be a great game. Square has certainly rarely disappointed me. But this is a new and wide open market, and name recognition will sell units even if the game sucks. I just don't want to take another step backward, and I'm pretty sure deals like this aren't designed to improve the market for me.