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SquareSoft to Develop for Nintendo Again
magicsquid writes: "GameSpot is carrying the news that Square has finally returned to Nintendo systems after a 5 year absence. This brings with it the knowledge that Final Fantasy XI will truly be playable on every console as well as PC to be uniquely massively multi-player." Planet Gamecube has a similar story.
Personally, I've found that the FF series is probably the only reason I would plunk down cash for a PS2. Now that I'll be able to play Mario, Zelda, and FF on the same system again, the Gamecube is the only way I would possibly go.
... then it would be gaming nirvana.
The one move that would make this perfect, IMO, would be if they would go back and bring the rest of the Final Fantasy series over to the
When encryption is outlawed, ?o'AZ-,++o+i++##4AoA+-/-C++bI+/.+~
Wasn't it Yamauchi himself who said not so long ago, that essentially, after Square left Nintendo for Sony, that Square would be allowed to develop for Nintendo platforms again, over his dead body?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Square basically stabbed Nintendo in the back, telling game makers not to develop for the N64. It is my understanding this is why Enix didn't release an N64 RPG. Square publically apologized for this last year, for exactly that reason.
It's because of this, Yamamuchi's attitude was basically "We don't need Square. They need us. They lost money on the FF movie, and developing only for the Playstation won't make enough money to make up for that.".. or something along those lines. He didn't feel that Nintendo needed Square to be big, but Square needed Nintendo in order to get back in the black.
I have to admit, I'm surprised Yamamuchi is putting money into Square for this project. The only thing I can think of is that Square has something up their sleeve to make the Game Cube and the Game Boy Advance pair together. Square is an ambitious enough company that I wouldn't be surprised at all if they came up with an FF game for both GB and GC that can be played seperately, but when put together it brings a lot more.
Imagine if the GameCube version was the full plot, battles, etc, but the GBA version was for training your characters and improving their skills. Or maybe something even more sophisticated like the GBA version is a stripped down version of the game. Like you play it on the Game Cube, then you stop and save your progress to the GBA version, then you can continue the adventure on the road.
Man... if they did that, that'd be killer.
"Derp de derp."
There was definitely secret money involved when Squaresoft abandoned Nintendo for Sony and the PS.
The official argument was that their games would not fit on cartridges, so they chose a CD-based console. But why did they choose the PlayStation? Why not Sega's Saturn? At that time, every other newcomer console had failed, why would Sony's be any different? Sega was quite well established in the console business at the time, Sony was not, everything indicated that Saturn would make a success.
I do smell conspiracy...Hmm, I really liked FF7 a _lot_ tho. I still think it's the best FF ever made, especially with all the minigames and the really nice art (not shiny stuff, which it had too, but the art art, like some of the backgrounds in the Ancient Capital [drool]). The only nasty thing about it was how Square was so fond of telling people how great it was that the game took up 3 CDs, when in fact the game itself occupies only a few hundred MB and is on every CD, and the rest is used up by FMV.
:) I didn't play it, just saw it. I could have also have seen how annoying it would have been if you needed to use it alot though! Apparently you couldn't skip it! (For those of you who don't know, this spell took about 2 min. to cast because it just played a (really nicely done) FMV EVERY time you casted it!)
I must say, I did like the spell 'Knights of the Round'!!
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
Nintendo has done more than their share of backstabbing too, and they've caused most of their own problems. First they backstabbed Sony with the N64 CDROM deal. They backstabbed Square by refusing to move from the outmoded cartridge game format, keeping Square from being able to create Final Fantasy VII. (They started in this direction, see the Final Fantasy SGI demo. In the end, Square said they could have done FF7 for the N64, it just would have cost $7k for the cartridge.)
Thus the rise and domination of Sony. It's interesting to note that every platform Square has seriously developed for has been the dominant platform: NES, GameBoy, SNES, PlayStation, PS2.
Nintendo can say what they want, but after the fiasco that was the N64, and the pressure from Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo needs Square a lot more than they'll let on. Excluding Square is not really an option. They need third-party games; first-party games just aren't enough (as the N64 showed).
That said, I don't mean to imply I'm upset in any manner at this news. This is great! I've wanted to see Square and Nintendo get back together for awhile... I want to see Square stuff on my GBA, and getting a GCN I'd love to get Square games on that.
Plus, as history has shown (see: Dreamcast), Square leads the majority of buyers, and this is probably a nail in the coffin of the XBOX. ;-)
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Sony has announced their PS2 modem, complete with specs, price, games, and other non-vaporous things. It will be available in AUGUST. Nintendo has announced their GameCube modem, but has yet to say anything about its specs, how it will work, what games will support it, or how much it will cost. Nintendo also has a history for announcing hardware, even giving it specific details, and then cancelling it.
;)
They've committed to making the modem and NIC add-ons, but that means that we'll see it, at minimum, in six months or more. It's also likely that we may never see it, which would match Nintendo's track record perfectly.
Your first post was actually more accurate than the second. Unless "Umm... we're working on it" (the classic Nintendo blow-off phrase) somehow means that they're deeply committed to making these add-ons.
FFX is selling very well, no doubt about it. That doesnt mean that the company is in great financial shape however.
Square was in *extreme* financial trouble after the flop of the FF Movie, they approached Sony themselves to be bailed out, and asked Sony to purchase a large of amount of their company (which Sony did).
They make very good games, but they seem to be managed by terrible businessmen, heck as we speak they are working on trying to set up *another* FF TV Series (hmm sound like the last TV flop, or maybe the movie?)
try reading this for a idea of how they are doing , or maybe try your own google searchs if you dont trust me.
The fact is that they are a company which got in so much financial trouble that they ASKED Sony to buy a large chunk of em, and even after Sony did so, they still need to find new ways of making money, and are willing to market their products to the competitiors of their parent company's product.
you do the math
I taught myself how to code just to make a MMORPG back in 1990 >:) Then I managed to get top in the world as an HCI guy, trained with MTG world champs, made world semis in Broodwar, designed gnutella, designed diablo 1 unhackable using client side storage(uses a p2p psuedo server), designed true artificial intelligence. All I do is code, play video games, and design video games :) In fact I sell third party applications that automate some MMORPGS. I'd go on, but it would just be exhausting. Also I just graduated with a degree in Scientific Computing from Carnegie Mellon University. No matter how much effort you put into life, its just a big fucking crap shoot. Now excuse me while I go rob a bank to pay back my $100,000 in student loans.
www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~sager
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