Final Fantasy XIII Is Coming To Xbox 360 541
An anonymous reader writes "In a stunning change, Square-Enix announced today at Microsoft's E3 press conference that its next iteration in the Final Fantasy series is also coming to Xbox 360." And I just rationalized the PS3 purchase by telling myself that the next FF will require it.
I have always been a Sony fanboy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well there goes the history of decent quality.... (Score:2, Interesting)
I might be wrong, but given the trend of games, I am gonna be very skeptical if square-enix can keep the quality of the game up while making it cross-platform.
A good portion of the smoothness, graphically and gameplay wise, was from the fact that the developers knew their system and how to program with it. Odds are that goes out the window and it gets degraded to craptastic quality to meet the "crossplatformm" requirement.
Re:Well there goes the history of decent quality.. (Score:5, Interesting)
FF13 was not being developed directly on the PS3 hardware. It was instead being written to run on the Crystal Engine, which was being programmed to run on the PS3. It is just now the Crystal Engine has been ported to the 360 so FF13 can follow.
Sounds like the PS3 will still be the system to play it on if one owns both.
Re:Well there goes the history of decent quality.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I might be wrong...
Not just wrong, but delusional too!
Almost every game that is developed cross platform ends up way better quality wise then when developing for a specific platform. This is the reason why Blizzard ALWAYS releases cross platform. It's part of their strategy to maintain top notch quality.
Re:I have always been a Sony fanboy... (Score:5, Interesting)
- Final Fantasy Versus XIII is still (supposedly) a PS3-exclusive
- Metal Gear Solid 4, as you mentioned
- Valkyrie Of the Battlefield [wikipedia.org] is coming out later this year
Also I don't think Sony has had their chance to show off at E3 yet, so there may yet be more stuff along the way.
I've never been a Sony fanboy.... BUT (Score:5, Interesting)
During the format wars, Sony updated the Blu-Ray version by adding new features; new features that made new Blu-Ray discs incompatible with older players. If Sony decides to add more features in the future, the PS3 is the most versatile player they have.
The PS3's Blu-Ray decoding is software-based, it can be updated and upgraded easily. And the PS3 already comes with a wireless card in it that makes it extraordinarily easy to update.
Also, additional content on many Blu-Ray titles was done in Java. (AvP for instance has a game on the Blu-Ray disc) Most stand-alone players grind to a halt when trying to run Java. The PS3 has computing power to spare and chew those Java apps up and spit them back out. And speaking of computing power, it's designed to have amazing graphics. When you apply that to 2D video, the colors and picture quality are on par with the best devices out there. I'm sure there are better players out there, but those top of the line, multiple-thousand dollar units. For 500 bucks (plus HD cables, plus 30 bucks for the remote), you'll be near top of the line for significantly less money.
The PS3 also will upconvert your old DVD's to 1080p. So, your library of DVD's isn't obsolete like VHS tapes were with DVD's. It'll make all your DVD's look better.
So, it's an amazing player. It displays the movies in crisp, clear graphics - comparable to higher end Blu-Ray players. It can easily update its firmware so it can play all current and future Blu-Ray titles. It has the capability to play all additional content that many other players are incapable of playing. It upconverts old DVDs. And to top it off, it's the cheapest Blu-Ray player out there (or it was when I bought mine). If you've got a 1080p capable TV and you buy movies, the PS3 is going to be the way to go. And, if you see a game worth playing, well, that's just icing on the cake.
Let me finish off by saying I've been a Nintendo Fanboy. I've bought every Nintendo console that's come out. I was pissed off by Sony's arrogance about their system. I was voting for HD-DVD to win. But they didn't. Blu-Ray won. And I'm a pragmatist. If I want to watch movies in 1080p (which I do) there's only one way to do. The president of Sony can go eat a dick. I don't like his business practices and arrogance, but my opinion isn't going to change that. And even though I don't particularly care for him or the way, I have to admit that Sony makes awesome stuff. The first thing I watched in 1080p was a Wall-E trailer I downloaded. Jesus F-ing Christ. If you have the opportunity to see what 1080p video looks like, take the chance.
Re:I have always been a Sony fanboy... (Score:4, Interesting)
then why arent they releasing it for the wii which has a larger install base world wide then both the ps3 and xbox360 combined?
Re:Well there goes the history of decent quality.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree. I played Final Fantasy VIII on the PC as my first Final Fantasy game. I had a PC gamepad to use which worked fine for the game, and the experience wasn't much different than a console (except that I was playing on a 17" computer monitor - still, that was decent sized and I had a nice tilting leather office chair, so it was comfortable). That prompted me to get FFVII for the PC and play through that. I bought FF IX for the Playstation when it came out (I actually played it on my roommate's PSX as I didn't have one yet :)) and it ran pretty similar to the computer titles that I'd played.
Overall, I think that Square-Enix has some pretty good programmers, and they can pull off a cross-platform title pretty easily.
Re:I have always been a Sony fanboy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably because a major part of the core Final Fantasy lineage is eye candy... and the Wii doesn't have adequate hardware to provide said eye candy for their flagship title.
That and the fact that FF is really not a franchise for casual gamers... it doesn't really cater to the Wii audience regardless of how large that audience is.
Re:Well there goes the history of decent quality.. (Score:5, Interesting)
And I'm guessing that the PS3 version will probably require a HDD install, much like Devil May Cry 4, MGS4, etc.. and load 1-2 seconds faster.
An interesting sidenote, with the announcement that the 360 can install games to the HDD, but you have to have the disc in (for verification that you own the game), if they allowed a full game install of FFXIII, allowing the first disc to be the "verification" disc, the "LOL1l!! multiple disc" arguement would go away. Get on in MS, for those who don't like getting off the couch every 10 hours.
Re:Final Post (Score:5, Interesting)
Just one question: Will the 360 version be a bare bones, no-cutscenes version, or will it sport 5 discs, or more? I mean, taking MGS4 as an example, that game renders all cutscenes in-game, yet _still_ fills up a whole dual layer BD, meaning 50 GB of textures and sound (minus some GB of double content for better reading performance, I know).
I just hope this doesn't mean dumbing down both versions, technically.
Re:I have always been a Sony fanboy... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I have always been a Sony fanboy... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've never been any console's fanboy. (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't care about exclusive games particularly. I was waiting for UT3 for Linux, but it's looking like that might never happen, so I've got it for the PS3. With a wireless keyboard and mouse, it's pretty nice. (I'm too old to be anything but a convenient target, but it's fun.) "Resistance: Fall of Man" is an exclusive, and I'm slowly getting used to using the controller for an FPS... meh. The kids like playing "The Simpsons Game" with me, and I've got a PS2-to-USB adapter that lets us use a PS2 controller so we can double up. Bought "flOw" from the network, not bad. Worth $8, anyway. It's the 40GB model, so no PS2 games... but we have a PS2, so oh well.
The Blu-ray stuff is nice, but I'm not going out and re-buying my library. After the 45 minutes of updating the firmware to the latest version (Oy!), upconverted DVDs look good, and it's much more responsive changing menus than our old upconverting DVD player. (Given the CPU in there, it had better be.) Still, now that the format war is over, the PS3's the obvious choice over the Xbox 360, given that I'm not a big gamer worried about exclusives. It's the best Blu-ray player, and I can play some games with it. For 'drama' movies, DVD is fine, but for the occasional F/X-heavy blockbuster, I'll want Blu-ray. ("Iron Man" will probably be my first Blu-ray purchase.)
I'm going to set up MediaTomb [mediatomb.cc] on my downstairs box as soon as I update to Ubuntu 8.04, and then it'll be a nice way to watch videos and play music, too.
Sony made a risky play hitching the PS3 to Blu-ray, but it seems to have paid off. Nintendo made a different risky play eschewing raw horsepower for simple, social games... and that paid off, too. Microsoft didn't take too many risks with the 360, and that doesn't seem to have paid off so hot. (Well, except for the risks that backfired [slashdot.org] on them.)
Re:Final Post (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you? Also isn't it small? And doesn't some 360s lack hard drive? And doesn't the harddrive cost a lot? How big is it?
Earlier I used to belive the 360 would cost as much or more than the PS3 with the same equipment and during it's whole life.
Now I don't know because it's so very cheap, but I guess the PS3 have fallen in price as well and live gold still cost money.
Re:Well there goes the history of decent quality.. (Score:2, Interesting)
I doubt Blizzard releases cross-platform in order to make their games higher quality. More likely, companies like Blizzard who release high quality games have more leeway to do what they want (they may have more money, a more devoted fanbase, a more lenient publisher, or something else), and this also allows them to release the games on multiple platforms.
Re:I have always been a Sony fanboy... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I've never been a Sony fanboy.... BUT (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I have always been a Sony fanboy... (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe because Toshiba never produced a single decent HD-DVD player, and the discs will scratch to the point of being unplayable if you just look at them wrong.
I could power my PS3 up and load the movie, be through the warnings and have the movie started in less time than it took to even power up my HD-DVD player. Then you had LONG loading times, and there would be a couple of second delay between the time you hit a button and the time the player actually responded. Then there was the space issue. Paramount actually said the reason there was no high-resolution audio on Transformers was because there was not enough disc space. [highdefdigest.com]
Also, there were some early movies that were released on both platforms where the HD-DVD actually costs more than the BluRay discs. The only reason you can pick up HD-DVDs now for $12 (I picked up six at that price two weeks ago) is because they are clearing out the discs.
But this is offtopic. The article is not about HD-DVD vs BluRay, but Xbox vs PS3. I also have both of those, mainly because I had the PS3 first to play older PSX and PS2 games, and I wanted a BluRay player, but also wanted to play Viva Pinata and Beautiful Katamari. My experience with games that are released on both systems are quite interesting. Early PS3 games were usually Xbox 360 ports. As such, you rarely saw a difference between the two, and when you did, the Xbox outperformed the PS3. However, on newer games, I have seen the PS3 have better framerates and sharper colors. It is really annoying playing the exact same game on both systems, to have the Xbox drop frames at a crucial moment.
As for the Final Fantasies, if you do not have a PS2 or an XBox, the PS3 would probably still be your best option for playing the older games. Last I checked, Final Fantasy 7 and 9 did not play on the Xbox. And I am still looking forward to Little Big Planet.
Re:I have always been a Sony fanboy... (Score:3, Interesting)
One thing I still wonder about is the disc scratching problem. Early on, even before all the overheating Red Ring of Death issues, I heard horror stories about the XBox360 drives scoring grooves in the game discs. Has the Xbox360 disc scratching issue been sorted out? Because I buy a lot of my games previously-owned (patient cheapskate that I am), I decided not to invest in the Xbox360 because you could never count on the used game discs actually working when you brought them home.
Those other issues which crept out of the woodwork simply sealed my decision to stay away.
Re:I have always been a Sony fanboy... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, you can buy an HD-DVD addon for the Xbox 360. Probably dirt-cheap now, and it'll work on a computer, also -- I use it on Linux, on my laptop (which has a broken optical drive).
I think that for a long time, DVD will be the new DVD. The studios are trying hard to make Blu-Ray look better -- Superbit is gone, and even standard DVDs seem almost deliberately worse in their encoding than they were a few years ago.
The strangest part was that your $99 HD-DVD player had persistent storage, networking, picture-in-picture support, and a script engine built-in, with decent menu animations. Base Blu-Ray players had none of these -- if they had the "script engine" (Java, actually), it'd be much slower (weird, huh?), and the PS3 had neither persistent storage nor network support (for HD-DVD) early on, when it was relevant to the format war.
It really seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with technical merit and everything to do with who was fellating which studio execs, and (possibly) the "extra protection" of the DRM. The same DRM which is so successful [slysoft.com] at stopping piracy [thepiratebay.org] so far.