Square Steps Back from 'No FF on 360' Remark

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Square/Enix has stepped away from a comment made by Executive Producer Shinji Hashimoto. Wednesday we discussed his comment, which would seem to indicate that Final Fantasy titles won't be coming to the 360. Square took pains today to specify that he was only referring to current plans. "A spokesperson for Square Enix told GamesIndustry.biz, 'Hashimoto-san was talking about the current situation' - which would suggest his comments shouldn't be interpreted as forward-looking. Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said he expects the next Final Fantasy to appear on PlayStation 3 exclusively - but observed that Square Enix will face a tough decision. 'The series has always been single console and given the Xbox 360 sell through in Japan, it would be hard to put the next Final Fantasy installment on the 360 only. Square Enix faces a dilemma: put the next game on the 360 only and alienate Japanese fans, depart with tradition and make it multi-platform, or go with PS3 as an exclusive and deal with the backlash from the west. I view Square Enix as a tradition-bound company, and expect the last alternative to be chosen.'"

Solution:

[Dancindan84]

Go back to Nintendo! I'd be interested to see
1) If the wii had the horsepower for what they want
2) How the Square guys would take advantage of the wii design

Re:

[Belgand]

Exactly what I was thinking and with much the same problems.

The more recent Final Fantasy games (I'd say from VII on) have been increasingly driven by technology while not expanding significantly on gameplay. Sure, XII had a number of changes, but by making the game more or less play itself (or, if you prefer, drastically changing the player's role in battle to being more of a coach) it had gone too far in the other direction. The possibility exists that motion-sensitive control would also be too radical of

Re:

[penp]

The more recent Final Fantasy games (I'd say from VII on) have been increasingly driven by technology while not expanding significantly on gameplay. Sure, XII had a number of changes, but by making the game more or less play itself (or, if you prefer, drastically changing the player's role in battle to being more of a coach) it had gone too far in the other direction. The possibility exists that motion-sensitive control would also be too radical of a change, but the Wii would allow them to refocus on game design as opposed to making some very pretty cinematics.

Talking about recent Final Fantasy games, you quote from VII on? Doesn't anyone realize that game is now ten years old? While I agree that it is a trend, it's hardly anything recent. I'd also like to note that the gameplay of Final Fantasy XII is nearly identical to the MMO gameplay of Final Fantasy XI, so it's not really as much of a change as most would say. Personally, I really enjoyed XII, because it was the first one since VII to have a story worth mentioning without solely (the key word here, of cour

Re:

[Belgand]

I actually was originally going to mention how XII was very similar to the MMORPG gameplay of XI, but I didn't like the way it was reading so I went back and changed it omitting all mention of XI.

Part of the reason I quote from VII on is because that was really the moment when they moved to a new paradigm. VII was the first to use extensive cinematics that were not just in-engine sprites moving around with text boxes. It was the first to use a 3d isometric world. It honestly changed everything.

On a more per

Re:

[Sciros]

1)not even close. The White Engine was designed with the PS3 in mind, and that includes graphical capabilities. It's what FFXIII is built on, and it shows :-)
2)they wouldn't in any appreciable way I reckon, especially with the more "traditional" JRPG setup they have in FF games. Navigating menus and selecting "yes/no" in conversation is about all there is to it. The Wii's controls are better suited for pure real-time [inter]action, and I don't think even FFXIII will make quite that leap. (Although FF games

Re:wHii?

[Trent Hawkins]

plus the later of Square's Nintendo Game Cube titles really sucked ass. They should stick to the high end and make those awesome graphics, not like their game play is getting any more original.

Gamecube == High End

[LKM]

plus the later of Square's Nintendo Game Cube titles really sucked ass. They should stick to the high end and make those awesome graphics, not like their game play is getting any more original.

Uh... the Gamecube was the high end compared to the PS2. Maybe they should continue their PS2 tradition and stick to the low end if that worked so well?

Re:

[7Prime]

Honestly, am I the only person who thinks that, regardless of horsepower and snazzy mapping effects, hardware anti-aliasing is the SINGLE most graphically enhancing thing out there? Seriously, the difference between the GC and PS2, at least to me, is like night and day because of it.

I saw Need for Speed: Carbon, on the PS3... and I swear, with all the flickering (on a large screen HD display), it looked like it STILL didn't have anti-aliasing. I'm going out on a limb here and am going to say that any Wii ga

Re:

[seaturnip]

Of course the PS3 has hardware anti-aliasing. The 360 and PS3 are about 10x as powerful as the previous gen. However, developers are given the option of turning it off if they want to use the antialiasing hardware for other purposes. (Not everyone agrees with you about antialiasing trumping anything else.)

Re:

[7Prime]

I've never seen a situation in which anti-alaiasing is a BAD thing. No matter how fine your resolution is, antialiasing reduces flicker during motion, as well as increasing percieved resolution.

I think most people don't know what anti-aliasing is, exactly, and what it can do. But the difference very is apparent at the subconscious level.

I'm playing Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, right now, on the PS2. Arguably the best graphics on the system (way above FF12 in quality, for instance). But the lack of anti-ali

Re:

[seaturnip]

Of course anti-antialiasing always looks better, what I'm saying is that there's a framerate hit when you turn it on, and one might prefer to have either higher FPS or some other effect (e.g. Multiple Render Target-based bloom and DOF) instead.

Full-scene anti-aliasing isn't done on the CPU and it's not hand-coded into shaders either -- it's a GPU render state flag -- so I think you're misunderstanding something if you use the word "subroutine". I'm not sure you entirely know what antialiasing is either,

Re:

[7Prime]

Anti-aliasing essentially takes neighboring pixels, such as those in between every pixel on a diagonal, and makes them a semi-transparent color of the internal edge, thus approximating "half way to being the edge". What results is a pixel-based structure that represents more geometery than the exact location of all the pixels. Probably not a very clear way of describing it, but I don't know a better way without grabbing a sheet of graph paper and making a diagram.

Flicker occurs when "jaggies" (to use layman

Re:

[seaturnip]

"jitter" is a better term for the motion jaggy artifacts you're talking about. "Flicker" generally implies something is rapidly flickering on and off.

And obviously, no, anti-aliasing doesn't reduce framerate if you have the horsepower to do it.

This statement doesn't make sense in context. Most games exploit all the resources available and never have free horsepower left over, so yes turning on antialiasing will reduce framerate (unless there is a big bottleneck on the CPU or memory bandwidth).

Re:

[7Prime]

This statement doesn't make sense in context. Most games exploit all the resources available and never have free horsepower left over, so yes turning on antialiasing will reduce framerate (unless there is a big bottleneck on the CPU or memory bandwidth).

That's completely untrue. Most games use nothing near the power output of a modern console. I remember Nintendo complaining, a while back, that noone had really tried to push the GameCube as far as it can go... and it's pretty damn obvious.

Now there is SOME

Re:

[seaturnip]

"Lazy" programming, or in other words, code that was as optimized as possible given the deadline. The point is that all the hardware is used, whether efficiently or no.

It's kind of ridiculous to claim that the problem is that game programmers love to sit on their asses and be lazy. The massive overwork and crunch times in the game industry are legendary. Have some sense of the tradeoffs involved here.

And no, no amount of "graphical tricks" and "cleaner design" can counter a something like 10x differen

Re:

[7Prime]

Note that most of the "crunch" does NOT come from coding, but from the artists/designers. Games, these days, are about 90% art/design, and 10% coding.

And sure game design can counter 10x difference in power. In the opinion of myself, and most people who have played it, Okami is one of the greatest looking games ever made. That was a PS2 game. The graphical "trick" in this case, was coming up with a style that was so wonderful, in it's own right, that it completely overcame a lack of horsepower.

Re:

[Sciros]

Graphical fidelity can greatly complement or improve many games, though. A new Resident Evil title, for instance, which relies in large part on realism to produce its indended "boo" effect, has more potential in that regard if developed for PS3/360 than Wii.

Crunch time in MANY games doesn't rely on artists/designers as much as you say, but on the script writers, QA personnel, and random other stuff like voice recording and sound editing. An MMO I alpha tested, for instance, frequently had visual assets read

Re:

[donaldm]

I have a HDTV (only 37") that will display and enhance standard definition input (composite or AV and S video) so if I play a GameCube game the graphics comes out as "good" to "not bad" and the same is true for my PS2 games. From my personal perspective it can be quite hard to pick the difference although I would definitely concede that the GC graphics for the games I have are marginally better than some of my PS2 games but not all.

Enter the 60GB PS3 (Australian) which I recently purchased for a very good d

Re:

[7Prime]

I have a nice 19" Samsung HDTV that I bought a few months back, and to double as a computer monitor. Honestly, I don't understand how anyone can afford something like a 37" HDTV. Hell, I paid a good $440 for mine, and that was probably more than I should have. Anyway, it is true HD, though it doesn't have an HD tuner (which is fine, since I can't get TV reception in my cabin anyway).

Now, I am interested in the rescaling of PS2 games on the PS3, but from what I've understood is that there's no smoothing goin

Re:

[rtechie]

Nobody is claiming that the PS2 had better graphics that PCs (even at launch) or the XBOX. The claim is that while the Gamecube technically had better hardware than the PS2, most games looked better on the PS2. Especially multiplatform games. I generally agree with this statement. With a handful of exceptions, most notably Resident Evil 4, PS2 games looked slightly better than Gamecube games.

I'd also like to address one other point: The deranged notion that most games don't use 100% of a console's resources

No surprise

[hidannik]

This should come as no surprise to those who know what "We have no plans" really means, when translated from PR-speak.

Re:

[Aladrin]

So you're saying that 'we have no plans' means they don't have any plans? Wow, genius.

This is EXACTLY what they said, and it's how it should have been interpreted. They never said they won't be doing it, that was the Media trying to put spin on the quote. I believe the quote was "There's nothing on the books." It's means exactly that. They haven't written anything down, they aren't currently working on anything, they have no plans. Period. No more, no less.

I can't see how this is even slightly newswo

Why does it have to be exclusive?

[Wicko]

I understand the pains of coding for 2 entirely different systems, but they have the man power and they have the money. Why close themselves off? While I'm sure that both console makers would like to have an exclusive FF game, but that doesn't mean Square-Enix has to take a side. I would think it would boost sales for both consoles.

Re:

[Sciros]

Well, FF already *has* made its way onto Xbox with FFXI, but when it comes to the "flagship" FFXIII title, I think the problem is they are way too far along in development making the game *specifically suited* for he PS3 when it comes to the "white engine." Though that's just my speculation.

Re:

[Umuri]

The reason a lot of titles are exclusive, especially in the current "age" of consoles, is twofold.
First the architectures are entirely different, so a lot of extra work has to go coding a compatible version for whatever other platforms you are designing for.

Second is called reduction.
When you make a crossplatform game, it is limited by the lowest hardware specs of each console. maybe graphics for one, storage medium for another, and persistent objects for a third.
What this means is if they design for the w

Re:

[My name is Bucket]

Indeed. And that inevitably results in the ported game actually being LESS feature-rich or MISSING content due to the problems of translating code under time constraints. And that results in morons being led to think that the inferior console is instead SUPERIOR or that the more powerful console's architecture is somehow COUNTER-INTUITIVE. Which results in my face COMBUSTING.

Re:

[Wicko]

Good call. But, its Square.. pretty damn successful/large company. You would think they have the man power to code for both.. similar to coding for PC, you have so many hardware configurations/restraints. While the PC's would have much more in common than these two consoles, a bit of modular coding wouldn't hurt. But come to think of it, I can't really think of a block buster game released for two different consoles that really pushed the hardware to the limit.

I guess its also possible that the returns they

Re:Why does it have to be exclusive?

[Applekid]

"When you make a crossplatform game, it is limited by the lowest hardware specs of each console. maybe graphics for one, storage medium for another, and persistent objects for a third."

Now that's just silly. If all they're doing to change from building for Platform A to building for Platform B is changing a command line switch in their compiler then they deserve to be LCD'd.

Good porting means balancing and mitigating the strengths and weaknesses of each platform. If Console A has less graphical power than Console B, then THAT version might get geometrically simpler models or smaller textures or a lower framerate. If Console C has the juice to perform full physics on a moving car while Console D doesn't, your build for Console D will have a simplified physics model.

I mean, PC gaming has had those tweakable settings for over a decade, to compensate for the varied power in each machine. Naturally developers know of this.

Re:

[tepples]

If Console C has the juice to perform full physics on a moving car while Console D doesn't, your build for Console D will have a simplified physics model.

And then you make it impossible to compare scores from the two consoles and impossible to play online between the two consoles.

Re:

[Applekid]

And then you make it impossible to compare scores from the two consoles and impossible to play online between the two consoles.

And if you're locked onto XBox Live, Nintendo WiFi, or whatever Sony's network is called, it's a moot point anyway.

Re:

[tepples]

And if you're locked onto XBox Live, Nintendo WiFi, or whatever Sony's network is called, it's a moot point anyway.

Then how does Final Fantasy XI run PS2, PC, and Xbox 360 clients on the same net?

Re:

[Applekid]

Lowest Common Denominator. I'm not saying that LCD is not an option, or that it's impossible. I'm just saying that LCD is generally a bad option and that well-funded games that happen to get ported to multiple platforms usually get polished pretty nicely for each platform above the level of just merely "it'll work for everything."

For me, I'd rather a game go multiplatform sensibly than just pushed out settling on the baseline performance in all areas of each console. If that means we won't see a flagship (n

Re: Getting lost in this discussion.

[trdrstv]

And then you make it impossible to compare scores from the two consoles and impossible to play online between the two consoles.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Are we still talking about Final Fantasy XIII? Isn't it still a single player game?

PvP in a primarily 1-player game

[tepples]

and impossible to play online between the two consoles.

Are we still talking about Final Fantasy XIII? Isn't it still a single player game?

Some single-player games still allow for occasional item trading or PvP skirmishes. These include at least Nintendo's Pokémon RPGs.

Re:

[CaseM]

Good porting means balancing and mitigating the strengths and weaknesses of each platform.

Please note that you said "good porting". That's the problem. Many ports are shit and do get held back by the lowest common demoninator. Xbox owners were constantly receiving substandard ports of PS2 games because the PS2 happened to be the main development platform last generation.

Re:

[patternjuggler]

Good porting means balancing and mitigating the strengths and weaknesses of each platform. If Console A has less graphical power than Console B, then THAT version might get geometrically simpler models or smaller textures or a lower framerate. If Console C has the juice to perform full physics on a moving car while Console D doesn't, your build for Console D will have a simplified physics model.

That costs a lot more money and time than just focusing all development on one platform and releasing a shoddy por

Re:

[jchenx]

A lot of technical reasons have been provided by other posters, so I won't dive into that. One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is money, specifically however much Sony may have provided to keep the title exclusive to their platform.

Naturally, the smaller the install base, the more you would expect the platform provider to pay in order to keep the title exclusive. There has to be an incentive for a developer NOT to spend some time/money to broaden the audience. It could be straight-up dollars, or it cou

Final Fantasy? Who cares...

[Stormwatch]

I'd much rather get updated versions of Chrono Trigger and the Soul Blazer trilogy.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Trolling != Rumors

[My name is Bucket]

I make it a rule to disregard any "rumor" that can be traced back to flamebaiters on message boards attempting to piss off fanboys. Speaking of which: did you know Gears of War might come to the PS3?

I don't understand...

[Ecuador]

why doesn't MS just tell Square - Enix, hey give us the exclusive and we will pre-pay you for 10 million copies. That should help the XBOX sell a few units at the tough (for outsiders) Japanese market and help bury the PS3... A very good investment IMHO.
And Square whether traditional or not, is still a business, so I can't see offers like that rejected "by principle".

Re:

[asuffield]

why doesn't MS just tell Square - Enix, hey give us the exclusive and we will pre-pay you for 10 million copies. That should help the XBOX sell a few units at the tough (for outsiders) Japanese market and help bury the PS3... A very good investment IMHO.
And Square whether traditional or not, is still a business, so I can't see offers like that rejected "by principle".

Japanese are not like Americans. They need to make a profit. They do not feel compelled to maximise their profit at the expense of all else -

Re:

[Ecuador]

I really think you take the difference in the Japanese business ethics to the extreme. The company I work for (electronics sector, not gaming though) does deal with Japanese manufacturers (well known ones) and I do have a good perspective on some aspects of their business culture, however they certainly do care about profit. Granted, they are different than some other manufacturers who care ONLY about profit, and that makes them unique, but I really don't think they are the tradition-fixated caricatures you

Re:

[7Prime]

Well, one of the distinctions isn't so much "profits" overall, but "when" the profits will come. Most countries in the world tend to think longer term than we do in the US. Most decisions in large corporations, these days, are made by the quarter or the year. Then again, many corporations in the US get big very fast, and then die very fast. American companies aren't very good at, and aren't too concerned with longevity. Japanese companies notice that what's good for the consumer is often good for the corpor

Re:

[DeepHurtn!]

Where does this myth of Japan being prejudiced against non-Japanese companies come from? From what I understand, with many young Japanese it's actually the opposite: a bit of a fetish for things seen as Western. And it doesn't explain at all the dominance of say, the iPod in Japan. The reality of the Xbox's failures in Japan are certainly much simpler: they just don't design the product with any understanding of the Japanese market (the first Xbox in particular).

Flamebait

[ivan256]

Square Enix faces a dilemma: put the next game on the 360 only and alienate Japanese fans, depart with tradition and make it multi-platform, or go with PS3 as an exclusive and deal with the backlash from the west

That is just pure flamebait, and shouldn't have ended up on the front page of anywhere but an Xbox360 fansite.

Why is it flamebait? The subtext to that one sentence is that the PS3 is going to fail in the US, and ignores the fact that Final Fantasy titles usually sell as many copies in Japan alone

Re:

[Doctor_Jest]

I think people are drinking too much of the kool-aid. The war's not over (if there ever was one... why does there have to be one winner?) and any snippet, shred, tiny molecule of information that makes console A look better than console B in the tiny minds of the fanboys is scraped up off the web and spread around like creamy peanut butter.

WTF? Yeah, I own both... I've got a good job... so I couldn't care less which one is "cooler". I might even buy a Wii if I ever can find the bloody thing.

I wish these

The Wii Nazi

[antek9]

Can't find a Wii? Hop over to Europe, they're sitting on shelves here. Nintendo's distribution practices surely are enigmatic.

Wasn't that in a Seinfeld episode once? "No Wii for YOU, come back, next year!"

Re:

[Doctor_Jest]

heheh. I think so. I don't think the Wii Nazi had a mustache... ;)

Nintendo's up to something, I'm sure. :)

The more I wait for one, the less I want one... the less compelling reasons I have for getting one, that is... the VC is nice, but not _that_ nice yet... and they're pretty draconian about what console they are tied to and where you can copy them, etc.

At least that's what I've read...

Re: Wii VC DRM...

[trdrstv]

The more I wait for one, the less I want one... the less compelling reasons I have for getting one, that is... the VC is nice, but not _that_ nice yet... and they're pretty draconian about what console they are tied to and where you can copy them, etc.

At least that's what I've read...

Yeah the DRM is even less restrictive than the 360's which was already pretty tight. The thing is you can copy the files to an SD card and put where ever, but you can only play the games off of the internal memory of the

Re:

[Doctor_Jest]

Great. If it works for you, that's fine. For the record, I didn't mention the 360's live arcade, but that doesn't mean I endorse it over the Wii's. (I own the live arcade game disk they came out with a while back... that's it. I refuse to "rent" games...)

The least restrictive I've seen so far is Sony's... it's tied to your account more than the machine, and you can redownload it no problem... (that is IMPOSSIBLE without a lot of ass-chewing on MS side... don't know about Nintendo... but it sounds just as

Re:

[trdrstv]

Great. If it works for you, that's fine. For the record, I didn't mention the 360's live arcade, but that doesn't mean I endorse it over the Wii's. (I own the live arcade game disk they came out with a while back... that's it. I refuse to "rent" games...)

You own them, not rent them. Unless of course you're of the mindset where you "rent beer" and don't own it either, then I understand. You pay a nominal fee for a restricted copy of a game, and it's yours to play (or anyone in your household) until such

Re:

[Doctor_Jest]

I support none. itunes is the most unobtrusive (and easiest to get rid of if need be)... but I still have no idea why DRM exists at all... it simply makes the legitimate purchaser out to be a common criminal. If you don't think so, that's fine. I simply hate the idea that DRM has to exist when stores like eMusic have 0 drm and are doing fine (I in fact buy most of my music from them, that I don't buy on physical CD). And _NO_ before anyone gets the wrong idea.. I'm not against DRM because I love bittorr

Re:

[Doctor_Jest]

Oddly, something else that caught my attention was the only able to play on internal Wii memory... I don't get that... that is indeed odd... *shrug*

Ah well... Their lineup on the VC is impressive (of the bunches I've seen released so far..) but the DRM is bugging me to no end.

Doesn't matter anyway... I can't find a Wii... and I think after this discussion, I'll stop looking.

Re:

[trdrstv]

Oddly, something else that caught my attention was the only able to play on internal Wii memory... I don't get that... that is indeed odd... *shrug*

That is currently the case. The Wii has 512 megs of internal storage and that's where all the Channels load from (including the VC games). The files sizes however are still quite small so you can have a lot of games on it. The SD card reader is available to backup games (I have a 2 gig SD card and it works fine.) but they cannot be played directly from the S

Re:

[_xeno_]

The more I wait for one, the less I want one... the less compelling reasons I have for getting one, that is... the VC is nice, but not _that_ nice yet... and they're pretty draconian about what console they are tied to and where you can copy them, etc.

I have to agree with that statement - after being unable to find one when I was looking, I just sort of stopped caring and stopped looking. At some point I wandered into a Target, and someone else was buying a Wii and I discovered that this Target hadn't bot

Re:

[Doctor_Jest]

Thanks for the explanation... the thing that bugs me, particularly with MS and Nintendo's versions of this store crud is the idea that if your console goes tango-uniform, your purchases on that console die with it... and they "let" you put them on a new console... (assuming they are less pissy about it at Nintendo... I mean, you literally have to threaten microsoft to get them to do the xfer... and even then it's some convoluted "dummy account" and some weirdness that is totally unacceptable even for $5 and

Not Flamebait

[MMaestro]

Its not flamebait because one developer, even one as big as SquareEnix, cannot single-handedly hold up a console.

A number of developers have either jumped ship (Capcom is pretty happy with Dead Rising sales), went cross-platform (Devil May Cry 4) or aren't putting all their eggs in one basket (SquareEnix announced Dragon Quest/Warrior 9 for the DS and several Final Fantasy spin-offs for the DS and the Wii.) Unless Sony suddenly creates (first-party) the next Mario; the PS3's outlook is bleak.

Re:

[ivan256]

Just because you agree with it doesn't mean it's flamebait.

Nobody is asking a single developer to hold up the PS3. If the PS3 needed that, this wouldn't even be a question, FF13 would be on the 360. The problem is that outside the US the 360 may as well not even exist.

Re:

[MMaestro]

The problem is that outside the US the 360 may as well not even exist.

Except for the fact that the 360 is doing fairly well in Europe (not sure about Australia). Japan is really the only market that hasn't gotten over the anti-Microsoft/Xbox/they're-not-making-game-genre- X sentiment and adopted the system.

Re:

[ivan256]

It's doing fairly well in the UK. It's doing horribly in Europe.

In March Microsoft predicted 12 million consoles sold worldwide by the end of June, but by their numbers they've sold less than a million since Christmas.

Re:

[ivan256]

If it's the harddrive-less 360 basic that gets the price cut (It's already being sold way below list as brand new on overstock auction sites, and people aren't bidding) The only thing that will happen is a large, collective point and laugh.

Re:

[airos4]

The backlash from the West is the howl of gamers when they find out they're going to have to fork over $500 to play the next chapter in the series. It'll be the game that spurs mass adoption of the PS3 which hasn't happened yet. I have one, some of my friends do, but there's arguably no KILLER reason to get one right this second. FF drove me to buy the PS2, it'll drive others to buy the PS3... even if they already have the Xbox. It's not predicting failure, it's predicting people being pissed that they have

Re:

[ivan256]

It's not predicting failure, it's predicting people being pissed that they have to buy another console.

Microsoft has only sold 10 million 360s. That's not very many. The number of people who will be purchasing "another" next-gen console to play Final Fantasy will be low in comparison to the number who are picking up their first. Remember, the market share leader this generation will likely have sold close to 200 million consoles by the time it's over. The race just started.

Re:

[airos4]

Not very many? It may not be very many when you're looking backwards at the end of the race, but as a headstart and an installed user base it's pretty decent... especially when Sony really hasn't let out anything as a killer app yet. No GT, no GTA, no FF yet... the PS3 needs something that makes people buy it, and FF might well be it. One or two games recognized as great will make the price seem a lot easier to swallow. Part of the problem so far has been you drop your five bills, and play... what? I rented

really.

[Pojut]

No offense intended, but they would be ass-backwords fucking stupid to not release it on the 360.

"I have an idea! Let's release our next Final Fantasy game exclusively on the system with the lowest install base worldwide!"

"That's a fantastic idea!"

I rarely enjoy the buisness side of gaming, but in this instance...well, as previously stated, they would be ass-backwords fucking stupid to not release it on the 360. The Playstation doesn't have the highest install base this time around, and they would be losi

Re:

[DarkJC]

It's not as simple as worldwide sales. The largest FF market has always been Japan BY FAR, the market where the 360 trails the PS3 by a very very large margin. Even a new designed-for-japan JRPG IP from a legendary designer, Blue Dragon, barely moved 360 units. Square knows that FFXIII will move PS3s like there's no tomorrow when it's released in Japan. They don't have that guarantee for the 360, and judging from it's still poor reception in Japan, it's not as simple as you suggest.

Re:

[endianx]

Square knows that FFXIII will move PS3s like there's no tomorrow when it's released in Japan.

And when it is released in the US too. I have little interest in a PS3 right now, but I'll be buying one when FF13 comes out...no question. FF13 will make Sony more cash than it will for Square.

Re:

[jstomel]

Except that each PS3 sold looses sony money

Re:

[endianx]

Very true. But they can make it up in game sales. There should be good games by then. Also, the manufacturing price should be lower by then as well. Sony must plan to make money on PS3s somehow or they wouldn't be selling them.

Re:

[edwdig]

You're forgetting that RPGs sell more copies in Japan than they do in the rest of the world combined.

The 360 is a lot less attractive when you factor that in.

Re:

[Pojut]

Well, first off regardless of how slow it's selling there are still more gamers around the world with a 360 than a PS3. This is just a simple hard fact.

Secondly, Sony has lost many exclusives as well as gotten the short end of the stick. So you get Ninja Gaiden Sigma, congrats...the THIRD VERSION of a game that was what? Oh yeah, originally on Xbox. Tell me which system the next Ninja Gaiden game will exclusively be on? That's right. Your nemesis.

That being said. ALL consoles have their strong points

Someone from the west

[HalAtWork]

Speaking as someone from the west, it doesn't really matter what platform FF appears on. The series has proven that it will sell systems if consumers want it. Yeah, that includes the PS3. The reason that seems far fetched is because the series has seen a decline in what attracted the casual gamer. It concentrates more on mixing up the RPG formula than providing a good overall experience that is accessible and as deep as the player wants it to be. Final Fantasy 7 was praised for its mini-quests such as

Re:

[king-manic]

FFXII is all over the map and spreads itself too thin, and thus appears daunting to the casual gamer. Not to mention that it's not as story-driven or character-driven as the others, so casual gamers don't have as much of a desire to see what's next and they aren't as attached to the main characters and they don't really care about making them survive or making their world better.


Considerign how well it sold This is purely incorrect conjecture. It's as deep or as shallow as you want it to be. It doesn't dema

Tradition?

[Aurin Wildfire]

Final Fantasy VII and VIII were both released for the PS1 and PC.

Final Fantasy XI is on the PS2, PC, and 360.

A 360 port wouldn't exactly be an earth-shattering move.

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[Anonymous Coward]

And lets not forget about all the others too.

FF on the NES, PSX, WSC, GBA, PSP.
FFII on the NES, PSX, WSC, GBA, PSP.
FFIII on the NES, DS.
FFIV on the SNES, PSX, WSC, GBA, DS.
FFV on the SNES, PSX, GBA.
FFVI on the SNES, PSX, GBA.

And any other platforms that I missed.

Re:

[Breakfast Pants]

Basically none of those were simultaneous releases, which is what the article is concerned with (referring just to your post here).

The original FF devs have already moved to 360

[Temporal]

Blue Dragon -- to be released in the US this summer -- is directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the original creator of Final Fantasy, who directed or produced every FF through FFX. The music is by Nobuo Uematsu, the composer of all the music in FF 1 through 9 and some of FFX. Neither of them were involved in FFXII nor are they involved in FFXIII. Blue Dragon is an XBox 360 exclusive.

I know a lot of people liked FFXII, and indeed I thought the gameplay was awesome, but I was disappointed by the story. Although intriguing in some ways, it was much thinner than in previous FF games, and lacked any sort of emotion. I'm hoping that the spirit of FF has gone with Sakaguchi and Uematsu and will return in Blue Dragon. This is also convenient because I have a 360 but really don't want to buy a PS3. :)

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[jandrese]

To be fair, people look back on the storyline to FF games with rose tinted glasses IMHO. Half of the time they make no sense [penny-arcade.com] or are a rehash of "giant evil guy wants to blow up the world for no good reason".

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[Kelbear]

I had to smile reading that "50 weirdest moments in gaming" article.

Cloud having to crossdress to get into a club and being picked over the girls as the playmate for the night...

Just creepy beyond words.

Developers go to where market share is

[Astarica]

Unless you're talking about a company that's actually owned by a console maker, there's no loyalty in the 3rd party world. If Wii has 95% of the market, Square will probably find a way to get FF13 on that instead even if it means scrapping the grahpic engine they've been working on. It's not like Square stayed exclusive to PSX out of loyalty to begin with. It's because PSX/PS2 had a huge dominating position in the market, coupled with some technical/political issues (i.e. feud with Nintendo, plus N64 was delayed so they couldn't develop for it even if they wanted to).

When N64 wasn't going anywhere, 3rd party had no problem jumping ship (but still develop for the dominant Nintendo handhelds). No reason to assume it's any different for Sony. And if PS3 really manages to take off, expect FF13 to go back to exclusively PS3 again.

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[king-manic]

Square was the king maker in the PS1 vs Saturn vs n64 generation.

Square was one of the king makers in the PS2 vs Dreamcast vs GC vs Xbox.

There is no doubt that a FF XIII exclusive will allow Sony to compete int his generation. Tiem will tell if that is alsoa king maker. At the very least it'll pull #3 sony in to #2.

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[LKM]

Final Fantasy VII came out in 1997, three years after the release of the Playstation. By that time, the war was already pretty much decided. Final Fantasy games are incredibly important and move tons of consoles, but I don't think they are "king makers." It's just that Square usually released them on the most successful console.

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[LKM]

I don't know. I think it started out as a N64 game and was converted during development, but I don't know when the switch was announced. Do you? Would be interesting to know.

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[blueZhift]

A FFXIII PS3 exclusive would certainly help Sony move some consoles, but at the current price, the PS3 is still too expensive. If the price comes down a couple of hundred USD by the time of FFXIII release, then they may get people who have been waiting for a must have game to buy the system. In the meantime though, people are spending their money on Wii consoles and games. And in the US at least, the 360 cannot be ignored either. So I think Square's remarks are their way of hedging their bets. Since the 360

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[brkello]

They left Nintendo because they like to push the edge with their games. Nintendo refused to move off cartridges which limited the amount of data too much. Also, Nintendo didn't treat their third parties very well. So they left to Sony. It wasn't just a "this console sales more" sort of thing. The Wii will get games from SquareEnix, but it won't be the main Final Fantasy series. The Wii just doesn't have the horsepower to handle that companies flagship product. But the PS3 and 360 are acceptable candi

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[Chris Mattern]

plus N64 was delayed so they couldn't develop for it even if they wanted to

While the N64 delays certainly weren't making Square happy, I believe the real deal-breaker was when they decided to drop the CD-ROM. Square's new game (the future Final Fantasy VII) was simply *not* going to fit on a cart. That's what made them jump to the PSX.

Chris Mattern

They have 3 options:

[Cadallin]

Duh! 1. Playstation 3: A system that performing so poorly about all you can is its outselling the 360 in Japan.

2. The 360. Piss-poor market in Japan, good everywhere else, but not selling as fast as:

3. The Wii - Fastest selling home console on the market worldwide, as fast as Nintendo can make them. Selling faster than the current numerical market leader (the 360) is or ever has. Popular everywhere, including Square's home turf.

Now, of course the intelligent thing to do would be to just make the damn series Wii exclusive. But of course, Square has be too smart for that! So instead they're pissing around waiting to see if PS3 sales will perk up, and trying to cover their asses in the meantime. I think it's clear they desperately don't want to have to crawl back to Nintendo. They ran off from Casa Nintendo 10 years ago like a spoiled Rich-Bitch, "You don't own me! I don't need you! I've got Sony!"

Of course, I'd really love to see Nintendo turn Square out on their ass "Uhhh, yeah, see, I'm kind of busy, and you're really a lot older and saggy now. Not as hot as you used to be at all." And let them slum it on a system with a barely 7 figure market, while Nintendo's well into 8.

I'd guess they don't want to go to Microsoft because MS poached all their talent. Including fucking Akira Torayama. Who by the way, has the worst fucking art style on the planet. Who the fuck decided that the most bland, uninteresting mangaka on the planet needed to be the most famous? Any schmuck with a one-shot in Shounen Jump can draw better than that hack (and make characters that don't all look alike through every fucking project he's ever been involved in!)

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[Firehawke]

Um.. no. They didn't "crawl away from Nintendo", they left because Nintendo insisted on using cartridges on a platform where it was obvious they couldn't handle what Square was aiming for.

Secondly, as has PREVIOUSLY been noted above, Square's stuff sells about as well in the rest of the world COMBINED as it does in Japan. At a 50% ratio, it makes sense to stick with the devil you know and not have to rebuy all your devkits and retrain. As for the Wii, Square's always been more interested in pushing graphics

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[Cadallin]

"Couldn't handle what they were aiming for"? You mean CDs full of FMV? Blech.

I say the reality is that by aiming to keep load times unnoticable, Nintendo inadvertently saved its audience for the worst trend in Gaming History. Do you remember the garbage that got produced? Ye gods! The Live Action FMV clips? "Mad Dog McCree" "The Horde" Yes, those both predate the PSX, but they illustrate perfectly the kind of excrement that got produced.

Yes, I was talking out my ass, by exaggerating and using

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[Firehawke]

Yeah, pretty much, on the FMV topic-- The preliminary 3D stuff Square had been playing with was SD models of the FF6 characters, and it was all purely done in a FMV style setup. I think it's pretty clear they'd been aiming to put more of the story sequences either in FMV or realtime rendered.

I think it certainly hurt Nintendo to lose Square. I feel Pokemon would have happened either way, but it certainly didn't help Nintendo to lose one of its biggest third-party developers at a time when JRPGs were startin

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[brkello]

They left Nintendo because Nintendo treated them like crap and refused to give up cartidges. The Wii isn't an option since it lacks in power. Sure, they will make games for the Wii...it just won't be the main FF series. They don't want to go MS because the install base is terrible in Japan. They play wait and see with the PS3 to see if the sales pick up. The Wii isn't mention for a reason...and it isn't because of the ones you list.

What this means

[suv4x4]

MEDIA: Do you plan FF on 360?

Exec1: Well.. I don't know of any plans to make one on 360 for now.

MEDIA: Aha! "EXEC SAYS: FF ON 360, NEVER!"

Exec2: Wait, we never said that, we're talking about immediate plans.

MEDIA: Aha! "SQUARE STEPS BACK FROM WHAT THEY SAID BEFORE!"

Exec3: But we never said it...?!

MEDIA: Aha! "SQUARE TRIES TO BEND HISTORY AND CENSOR MEDIA!"

Exec1: O_o
Exec2: o_O
Exec3: O_O

Solution! (Not really but what I'd like to see)

[rnmartinez]

I remeber that Square showed off a souped up remake of FF 7 at E3 - and they claim to have no plans to release it on PS3 (even though it was demoed on that hardware). Seeing as FF7 was the game that sort of broke them away from nintendo and to sony, I tihnk it would be cool if they finished it, made it possible to scale down to 480p and released it on the Wii. If it does well, then they should consider FF X3 or X4 on the Wii. hopefully the dev cost wouldnt be too bad since they are using some assets that t

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[My name is Bucket]

If you buy a $600 console to play one game, you're a moron.
If, however, you buy a $600 console to play a bunch of games, watch HD movies, have an easy-to-use media center and more, well... you have a smart purchase right there.

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[Megane]

Well that's great if 1) it has the bunch of games you want to play 2) you want to watch HD movie discs, and 3) you want a toy "media center".

But 1) the PS3 doesn't have any compelling games for me (just like the Xbox didn't in the previous generation), 2) 99% of the HD movie discs are crappy Hollywood movies that I don't want to watch at any resolution, ever, and 3) I already have a real PC hooked up to my TV set, in beautiful 480p resolution using a DVI connection. (the chroma resolution even at 480p is f

Re:

[Megane]

How is an army of first person shooters a well balanced game library? Been out for a year and they are still lacking.

And the PS3 has anything other than a bunch of first-person shooters and racers? At least the 360 has a couple of games that I might be interested in, like Ninety-Nine Nights and Blue Dragon.

But I'm still waiting for the die-shrink 360, because I don't want a system that you have to wrap in a freaking towel to get it to work again after it breaks.

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[KDR_11k]

MS probably doesn't make an offer partially because the things they've been offering other companies are of less interest to square enix, and partly because they wouldn't want to spend enough money to bribe for a game so far from what their ideas of the right games for the xbox are.

The right games for the XBox? MS doesn't want a homogenous library, they want lots of games to attract lots of users. They've already paid enough companies to get japanese RPGs on the system (to the point where the 360 actually h

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[mulvane]

Square never released FFVII and FFVIII to PC..Those were both done by Eidos who licensed them for PC release. At the time of release square has never released for more than one console at a time. They have in the past years done re-releases of many old classics though.