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Squaresoft To Go Multiplatform
Gemini writes "Gamespot has an article on how Squaresoft is to go multiplatform, starting with Final Fantasy XI. This is good news for Nintendo." Well, good news for the Microsoft's X-Box as well, since they will release for it as well. But I'm sure Sony has happy to hear that it will be out for the PlayStation 2 first, since that will be key to their strategy for defeating the X-Box.
-It isn't impossible, they just made the basic avenue of programming the bare metal. Developers have been asking for this since the PSX was released
"Numerous companies have jumped ship because of that single fact."
-One company jumped ship. They had never done a 3d title before. Their reason is also dubious as this Penny Arcade comic so nicely points out.
Companies have been all over debunking the 'hard to develop for' FUD such as in this article.
Some more quotes:
Hideo Kojima - "It will take three years for games to make complete use of the total potential of the PS2. What's key is where to use those capabilities and what to make stand out. After some trial and error, titles with new ways of expressing things will appear. However, this is not going to happen right away."
John Riccitiello (President of EA) - "It's drop dead sexy."
George Lucas - "It's mind-boggling. What they've accomplished is just beyond comprehension, if you know anything about computers."
Trip Hawkins (President of 3D0) - "It's historic, a mass market appliance that fundamentally changes society in the same way the printing press did."
Jeronimo Barrera (Rockster Video Games) - "What usually happens with new hardware is, the people who are having a lot of trouble are the ones who are talking a lot of sh-t."
Most developer house already have created their own toolsets, some are even licensing them out to other developers, the 'hard' to program issue is a dead-issue and has been for several months now.
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Eh? The original GB had FF Legend 1-3, and FF Adventure - there may have been one more, but I can't remember.
I do remember FF Legend II fondly though =)
I'd love to see them release FF 1-6 on the GBA - perhaps 1-3 on a single cart (those were pretty small games), then 4-6 on their own...but as others have pointed out - the relationship between Nintendo and Square isn't exactly a very good one, so it'll probably never happen.
Yep - confirmed from the back of the FF Chronicles instruction booklet (released just a couple days ago) - Square's planning the US release of FF X for "Early 2002"
Frankly, I'm suprised -- Square's marketers are missing an Xmas release. That *may* be bad...
IIRC, FF7 was an Xmas release - FF8 was late fall, and FF9 was late summer/early fall (US releases, not Japan, and I could be wrong...)
Japanese price dropped to 35,000 yen ($280.72), down from 39,800 yen ($319.22).
UK price dropped to £269 ($380) from £299 ($424). (Ouch, I'd forgotten how much I used to get stiffed by exchange rates.)
Given this, significant US price cuts around October time are almost inevitable. At least to $275, probably down to $250, possibly less if you figure in bundles. Add in the DVD player, and a library with a significant number of exclusive AAA titles (MGS2, GT3, Twisted Metal Black, FFX), PS2's gonna kick X-Box arse this christmas, assuming MS can even get the thing out of the door on time (GC will have been out in Japan for nearly two months before the US launch). Quite how it fares against GC, well, they're different markets. Apart from us hard-core gamers that is...;)
Personally speaking, If I only buy one console this christmas, it'll be a Gamecube (but only because I already have a PS2).
> First off, if Resident Evil 2 could fit on a
> cart, so can Final Fantasy
Resident Evil 2 consisted of two CDs, both of which utilized the same prerendered backdrops, as well as videos of equivalent length. For all practical purposes, you have a 1-CD game. Compress images, drop movie quality, etc, and you can cram it onto an N64 cart.
Final Fantasy 7, the smallest of the three PSX games, consisted of three CDs, each of which contained prerendered backdrops. However, while many of these backdrops were common between the disk, many were not, thus increasing the size of the game dramatically. In addition, there were far more movies interspersed throughout the game, and the background images for the battles varied depending on the location of the fight. There were many more characters to model and texture than Resident Evil 2. And this is for the smallest of the three games! Things such as the Garden battle scene in FF8 could conceivably take up most of a cart in and of themselves.
In other words, it would take an Act of God to put anything approaching a full FF game onto an N64 cart.
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FF7 was September 9th, and FF8 was the 10th... I think 9 was too, but I'm not sure. Important titles for Sony systems, and, in fact, the PSX itself, were released the second week of September for quite a while... in fact, FF6 was a mid-november release. And, if I recall correctly, both FF4 and FF1's American releases were early summer... At least that's when Nintendo Pravda hyped them. ^^;;;
What I'd really like to see, beside stunning graphics which have become the norm for recent FF games, is a story in which a decision you make matters. I'm currently playing FF9 and it annoys me that when I have a choice to take a variety of actions, whichever I choose I see the same outcome.
1. I'd really like to see something like old-school choose your own adventure books (Lonewolf was my favorite) which provide a number of different endings or varried paths to the same outcome.
2. Moral dileams would be nice. Perhaps even a choice to be good or evil ala Fallout.
I realize the game is written for teenagers and even at 22 I will certainly buy it (and see the movie), I just wish they were more challenging and had some replay value.
Squaresoft is to go multiplatform, starting with Final Fantasy XI
However, their entire front page is a flash applet. Doh!
(Note: my domain name is a reference to number theory, not to any corporation. Square-free numbers are integers that can be written as the product of 0 or more distint primes (not divisible by 4, 9, 16, 25, etc).)
The shareholder is always right.
A year advantage doesn't always equal success. Look at the Dreamcast, it has entertaining games but its dead (although one could attribute this to Sega's previous track record catching up with it.)
Well if you already own a PS2, than it's the hands-down winner. Sony has had a year now to sell, and it's out there. So all things being so conveniently equalas you describe, the PS2 wins because it plays the same games, it's just as good, and since people already own one, it's cheaper.
I think the X-box is going to make an impact for different reasons. I look foward to offers of getting an X-box for only 50 dollars when you buy an MS Office suite at full price, or some silly thing like that. MS is all about bundling...
J
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
That sounds like a fairly reasonable explanation to me.
"Although he refrained from naming the specific platforms, the game's release will include the Microsoft Xbox and likely the Nintendo GameCube." Anyone else see something wrong with that statement? Considering those are the only 2 consoles left after the demise of the Dreamcast, it only makes sense. Square is building the PC version of FFXI from the ground up, instead of it being a port like previous PSX->PC FF games. Since the XBox is so similar to the PC, an XBox release only makes sense. Yamauchi, the President of Nintendo, has been very hostile towards Square in recent years. They jumped ship to the Playstation with FF7 and haven't released a game on a Nintendo platform since. Rumors are that Square is trying to release FF4-6 for the Game Boy Advance, but Yamauchi won't let them! If that keeps up, it may be doubtful that we'll see FFXI for the Cube. Yamauchi has always been strictly against online gaming, and in interviews has actually insulted online gamers. Once he realizes how profitable the market is, he may change his mind, but right now I wouldn't count on a Gamecube FFXI release.
I disagree.
Personally, I think that FF6 is one of the best games ever made. Some people disagree with me, and say that their favourite is FF4, but none of us are picking any of the first few games they made.
With FF7 and FF8, Square showed people what could be done on the Playstation, and took the game in a different direction. In fact, no Final Fantasy game has been related to the plot of another (except for a few summon monsters/Espers/GFs/Eidelons that Square didn't make up anyway (Odin, Ifrit, Shiva, etc.), and a few side references thrown in for amusement purposes). And with FF9, they've responded to fan's pining for the lightheartedness of FF6.
FF4 had the standard Black + White mages, Fighters, etc. FF5 introduced the Jobs system, where anyone could take on a different role and learn those skills, then combine them in unique ways. FF6 had characters that were slightly more unified, though some were better spellcasters/fighters than others, they each had their own type of armour/weapons (Sabin's claws), and there were a few specialty characters (Gogo, Gau, Shadow, Umaro, etc.). They also brought in the Espers for the purpose of learning magic and summoning (available to all). With FF7, it was still "everyone can use magic and has their own type of weapon", but they did away with armour, and introduced Materia, which was _somewhat_ similar to Espers, but still very different. FF8 introduced the Junction system, which I really like, and GFs, which are not quite Espers nor Materia. It also had a very complex card game. FF9 has Eidelons, which are similar to Espers, except that we're back to only certain people using certain skills now. And also Abilities, which are excellent, and the way Espers _should_ have worked in FF6. I haven't played Tactics, but it's apparently a Shining Force-ish sort of battle system, and you have generic comrades who can actually die. All very different, while keeping enough elements in common to make them easily playable by fans.
Don't get me wrong; I play nearly every Working Designs title, and sometimes buy them just because they were done by WD. But with Final Fantasy, Square has produced a stream of games which, since FF4, have never failed to entertain me. "Final Fantasy" is more like a brand than a string of movie sequels (speaking of which, the movie has nothing in common, plot-wise, with any of the games...just like the games themselves).
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if it's called 'final fantasy', why are there so many versions?
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The next question would be how much does the TOOL system cost, and how would a normal mortal go about getting on? More than likely though, if you have to ask those questions, you will never get one. such is life. Anyone have a yaroze they want to get rid of cheaply?
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
FF is the only reason I bought a Playstation 1. Hopefully Nintendo won't treat Square like crap like they do to all other third party vendors... FF 2 and 3 came out for Super Nintendo, remember?
Even if you aren't porting, it's much easier to find trained directx developers and teach them a few X-BOX tricks than it is to teach coders a whole different style of programming needed for the PS2 (steaming textures in mid frame, etc) because of it's low system memory and odd design. If you can take "commodity coders" and use them for 6-8 months compared to sony-gurus for 12 months, which is a better way to make a profit?
In a 3+ console world, a game company wants to hit as many platforms as possible while still being economical. Square is no longer producing games just for the PS2 because it wants to maximize profits. Next time around, Square probably won't do a PS version at all because it won't be worth the time/money investment compared to just doing X-BOX/gamecube versions.
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My PC. Its already on the internet. I won't have to buy a broadband adapter, modem, or any other peripheral to make it work.
Captain_Frisk
Final Fantasy XI won't be out any time soon. By the time that it is, even the xbox will have been out for months, if not a year. Its FF X that will be the difference, as it will be released in the US in early 2001, just a few months after the xbox, assuming that it is released on time. FFX is going to be out in Japan in a few days, which will pretty much seal the deal for the PS2 in Japan.
It's sad, really.
There is a lot of things in 2000 that are really cool.
Then again, I'm still waiting for that 2000/XP only game. As long as there is a need to run on 9x, applications are going to suck.
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Two witches watch two watches.
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Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
Final Fantasy XI is going to be ONLINE-ONLY. OF COURSE they'll make it for multiple platforms. Why hit the millions of PS2 owners when you can also hit the millions of GameCube, XBox, and PC gamers too! DUH! ;)
I'm surprised people think this is "shocking" or "new". Square, whether you like their games or not, has always excelled in marketing, and that alone has turned an almost bankrupt company from the 80's into one of the biggest game developers today.
Now this isn't to say the X-box is the gaurenteed winner, it is possible that the PS2 will get more games people want, however based on the list of developers MS has signed on board and based on the similarity to PC hardware, I think it has a very good chance.
look foward to offers of getting an X-box for only 50 dollars when you buy an MS Office suite at full price, or some silly thing like that. MS is all about bundling...
Actually, I think it's more going to be along these lines: You buy an X-box for whatever price and get MSN broadband service via their deal with Qwest and other local telcos. Then, using their new .NET technologies you have access to Office, IE, and other productivity/internet programs. So long as you subscribe, you can keep using the software (since it's all running off of MS servers). Hence you have a cheap unit that servers as a game console, DVD player, internet appliance, and so on. Great for people that want a second computer for the kids, or the colledge student that doesn't have the cash for a full blown PC and all the accompaning software.
The way I see how this is going down, Nintendo is going to go off and do its own thing, and just give Square the complimentary "Fuck You", if they ask to port a game to the gamecube. The consequences? Who knows?
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I don't recall which system(s) Square said their re-releases of VII, VIII, and IX will be for, but I wouldn't be surprised if they also excluded GameCube.
Before peeing all over yourself in joy about the possibility of Squaresoft on GameCube, remember that this is a company that decided to develop for the no-name WonderSwan (is it even still alive in Japan?) instead of Game Boy Advandce (talk about your fumbled no-brainers). They're still in the mentality that they need to compete with Nintendo, to prove that they're somehow a better software hosue than the big N. They're still trying to say "Our games can sell hardware just as well as yours can!" Even if that means going down with sinking ships.
Not to mention Square has historically treated non-Japanese gamers as second-class (if not third), but that's a whole other rant to begin with.
Personally, I'm waiting for the system announcement for Dragon Quest/Warrior VIII (not to mention American versions of V and VI would be nice).
So, what you're saying is that Squaresoft totally ignored Sega's example?
"Bandai had already announced plans for interoperability between the WonderSwan and the Playstation 2."
And also ignored SNK's example to boot?
"But given that the market for nostalgic rereleases is generally larger in Japan than the US, they didn't take any major damage."
Nostalgic re-releases are one thing. Two games that may never see this side of the Pacific are something else.
"As for treating non-Japanese gamers as second-class: well, yeah. Duh. Square is a Japanese company. The console industry is significantly larger in Japan, not to mention that Square's stock-in-trade, console RPGs, have always been bigger draws in Japan."
Enix, on the other hand, is in exactly the same situation, yet that has not prevented them from building a top-notch localization arm. While Enix of America has given us Dragon Warrior games with flashier title screens, updated graphics, and even entire scenes that the Japanese audience didn't see until the Super Famicom remixes, the only memorable things that Squaresoft's US arm has given us are translation flubs like "spoony bard" and "this guy are sick."
And as if that weren't enough, Squaresoft decided that the normal version of Final Fantasy IV might be a little too hard for us, so gave us the EastyType game with just about every character's special move disabled. And they were also afraid that calling those games IV and VI might hurt our heads, so they decided to confuse people for years afterwards by renumbering them.
After that, Japan go Final Fantasy V while we got Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (later released as Final Fantasy USA in Japan). Enough said.
While Square may be a Japanese company with mostly Japanese interests, the way they've all but ignored the US while Enix gave us the benefit of the doubt and released the first four Dragon Quest games (and almost the fifth) has shown a large gap between that which Square has done and what they could have done. And I have yet to hear an acceptable explaination for this difference.
"The US got the special edition of Final Fantasy VII (our regular edition) months before Japan,"
Wow, a game with two new monsters, monsters that only the true die-hards would really want to spend time levelling up to mess with. I'll keep in mind the "advantages" Square gave me when next I manage to accidentally submerge on top of Emerald WEAPON again.
And the way they had the time to add in two new monsters and assorted items but were unable to show the script to a grammar-checking program suggests that the deluxe version already existed in Japanese before translation, and the decision of translating it before releasing it to the Japanese audience was more spontaneous than anything else.
You're over-simplifying it. First off, if Resident Evil 2 could fit on a cart, so can Final Fantasy. It would be even easier if they didn't insist on pre-rendering everything.
However, in general, Squaresoft left Nintendo over a difference of opinions over how games should be made. Nintenedo's pilosophy has always been "game first, flashy stuff later," which they've been operating under for a long time. For example, it was more important for the original Game Boy to have better games than to be technologically superior to the Lynx and Game Gear.
On the other hand, Squaresoft would rather make a/v masterpieces and put a game in there afterwards; less of a game, more of an interactive movie, even going so far as to make a non-interactive movie.
There were other less-important arguments between the two (the cart size of Enix's Dragon Quest V comes to mind), but this was the biggie. In the end Nintendo said "not on my hardware," so Squaresoft went off to find different hardware.
I also feel it's wrong to place all the blame on Yamauchi. The bad blood flows both ways. For example, if Squaresoft was interested in turning a profit, would they have re-released their first three Final Fantasy games for WonderSwan Color instead of Game Boy Advance? That act can only be seen as an attempt at a direct (but poorly thought out) attack at Nintendo's cash cow. They only started talking about GBA development after they finally realized (duh!) that the GBA is the superior platform, both from a technology and sales POV. But Nintendo said "no" to that...
Their differences at the start of it all was philosophical, but it's been getting more and more personal. I think the current state of affairs are more Squaresoft's fault than Nintendo, but others see it differently. All in all, though, it's not entirely one side's fault.
With all these game systems, each having unique excellent games it's getting to be a tough time on the pockets of someone like myself who just has to have one of all of them. No big complaints there, I'm spending the money willingly, but it's getting to be annoying trying to figure out how to hook them all UP.
Is squaresoft going to be producing the SAME game for each of these platforms? I've seen it before where two versions of the same (titled) game had small differences dependant on the platforms.
I imagine it's all just different types of data files from the game perspective-- it's only the various parts of the game and rendering engines themselves that would need to be rewritten on a per-platform basis. That would mean that the people desigining the "game" part of final fantasy wouldn't care what the "engine" people were doing for the most part. Story-line, gameplay and the rest *ought* to be the same, just small differences in rendering capabilities, loading speed, etc.
And on my first note, has anyone found anything better than a 4-1 switch for multiple game-systems? I'm currently chaining a pair of Recoton switches in order to get VHS, DVD, PS2, Dreamcast, N64, and SNES all on the same tv (the NES is the only one using an RF Modulator still).
what the hell is a 'junk character', anyway?
Before the launch of GBA there were roumors that some of the firat FF's were going to be released on that platform. However they were discounted by both Square and Nintendo (the two havn't had the best of histories.) The only hand held to feature any of the FF's was Bandi's Wonderswan which has never been slated for a US release. But since they are aparently thinking of getting together again maybe there is a chance. I might actualy have to get GBA now.
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