Final Fantasy XII Delayed

Final Fantasy XII will be delayed in appearing on the PS2, and will miss the intially expected release date of Spring 2005. Gamespot has the story and the news that, on the upside, starting in April Square/Enix will be releasing a new game every month for several months. From the article: "Square Enix also plans to boost its worldwide sales. Currently, about 30 percent of Square Enix's game sales take place outside of Japan. Wada told Bloomberg that he hopes to increase that number to more than 50 percent."

Meh

[Ayaress]

So they want to raise their sales outside of the US. Let me know when they're ready to honor or refund my pre-order of Valkyrie Profile from four years ago.

Correction

[Ayaress]

They want to raise their sales IN the US, OUTSIDE of Japan. Sorry, I type fast when it's about a company that's made me angry. Whenever they actually come out with something that isn't another FF game, they either don't ship enough copies outside of Japan or they don't ship ANY copies outside of Japan.

I must be confused...

[Thedalek]

Am I missing something? Valkyrie Profile was definitely released in the US. I had a copy at one point. Played the heck out of it.

Re:I must be confused...

[Ayaress]

They released it, but they did not cover all the pre-orders. They barely shipped as many copies as there were pre-orders, if that, and some copies ended up in retail.

Fine With Me

[blueZhift]

Heck, that's fine with me since I still haven't finished FF X and X-II anyway. Yeah, I play slowly, but it saves me money, $19.95 USD for each! So I can wait!

Re:Fine With Me

[Riddlefox]

Yeah, I hear that. I'm still working on FF VII :(

I can beat you both :-)

[Jerf]

Oh, you wanna play that game? Thanks to Dawn of Souls on the Gameboy, I'm still working my way through Final Fantasy. You see the lack of a Roman Numeral? That's because it's the first one.

You can't beat that without leaving the series :-)

(OK, it's a remake, but still...)

Re:I can beat you both :-)

[Riddlefox]

You mean you haven't heard of the Almost Final Fantasy games, or the Really Close to Final Fantasy games? Of course, there's always the Original Fantasy game, but that may not be work safe.

;)

Re:I can beat you both :-)

[thegrue76]

Newbies.

The "Still Reality" series? Now THAT'S oldschool.

Re:I can beat you both :-)

[Jerf]

The "Still Reality" series? Now THAT'S oldschool.

Sure, but I've been playing that since I was conceived. It's kinda played out and definately lacking in some simple features that make Final Fantasy fun. On the other hand, the ability to travel a mile without a significant chance of being attacked is probably a good thing, given the stakes of "Still Reality".

(And this general joke has been done to death, so I'll just refer people to the other fine treatments of "Reality" as a role-playing game. Regrettabl

Re:Fine With Me

[May Kasahara]

*nods* I'm still on FFX-2 myself (doing some last-minute side missions at the moment), and after that, the next FF in the series I want to play is FFVI (I've played all the games in the series from FFV on, save for FFXI and FFTA).

I'm usually playing an earlier FF when the new one comes out, so I usually get said new ones fairly cheap later on as well ;)

Game releases

[Bloomy]

However, Wada said that starting April 1, Square Enix will release a new game every month.

I wonder what that exactly means. Will Japan get a new Square Enix title every month, will each market (Japan, North America, Europe) get one, or will a new game be released in some location in the world each month, giving them the chance to count localizations of the same title more than once?

Re:Who cares?

[incom]

Exactly, the north americans who buy ps2's are less likely to care about square-enix games than the north americans who have gamecubes. They really need to pay attention to whats going on outside of japan.

Re:Who cares?

[Babbster]

That kind of makes no sense since the North Americans who care about Square Enix already know that the main Final Fantasy line is a PS2-only deal, ergo they would have a PS2.

OB

[HeliumHigh]

So? I can just go back and play my fifteen hundred other final fantasy games!

(PS. I'm still wondering when the last one comes out. Then that one REALLY will be _final_ fantasy.)

Re:OB

[CoderBob]

The first one was supposed to be the last one. The company wasn't doing well, it was a "let's go out with a bang!" kind of decision, and they didn't even research the market. Suprise, suprise, when you let people who are creative and like gaming make the game, it turns into something other gamers like. Who'da thunk it?

Granted, none of them have come close to the awe of the original (graphics aside), and perhaps it's time for a new franchise. Then again, why bother? The name is a freaking icon in EB,

Re:OB

[HeliumHigh]

Sadly enough, I already knew that. I was joking. Personally, I agree, in the part that nothing really compares to FF (the first one). But hey, as long as there is more Rikku in store, I'm happy!

(JOKE. IT WAS A JOKE.)

Re:OB

[CoderBob]

Rikku?? As long as I can repeatedly kill her off within 10 seconds of any voice acting...what possessed them to use Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls as a voice (at least for the American market)?

Gimmie more Celes and Terra all the way! Maybe a little Evil Princess Sara? /me removes tongue from cheek

A Game Every Month?

[DLWormwood]

I don't know if that is really a good thing. I got burned on Unlimited Saga, which felt like they only spent a month to develop it. I've also seen other Squeenix titles "bargain bin" quickly, like Drakengard. (Though I admit to not playing that one...)

And here's why...

[OmgTEHMATRICKS]

They had to spend another few months figuring out ways to make the main character look even more like a woman while keeping him a man to attract the schoolgirls - and at this point that's a challenge that would make even a Klingon plastic surgeon gasp in horror.

I'm not surprised

[Dekethedog]

Honestly, this doesn't surprise me considering every game these days gets their release date pushed back.

Riiiiight...

[Guppy06]

"on the upside, starting in April Square/Enix will be releasing a new game every month for several months."

And how many of those will be *ahem* real games instead of something they threw together over a weekend for the cell phone market?

Re:Working the numbers?

[wheany]

And the second most easy way would be to actually release some games in Europe. Of sure, we get the Final Fantasies, but that's about it. And even Final Fantasies are relased a year after their release in Japan.