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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.
For those that don't know the backhistory, Square left Nintendo when the N64 went from a CD-based system to a cartridge-based. This was after Square had pledged their support, which was bad enough. Worse still, Square then went to other developers such as Enix(Dragon Warrior games), and convinced them to switch to the PSX as well.
The feud has finally ended, and it's a complete surprise. Hiroshi Yamauchi, president of Nintendo, is not the type to give in. No one's saying he did, but this announcement at least shows the guy can put business sense ahead of personal feelings. That's a revelation most in the industry would have strongly denied before today.
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?
I'm assuming that since Yamauchi is retiring in a few months, that perhaps this is his way of making peace (and leaving a legacy) before his departure.
Last I heard Nintendo is sitting on a big fat pile of cash courtesy of strong franchise characters and the Gameboy. Square is currently in the economic toilet because of the debacle that was the Final Fantasy movie. Not to mention that they've lost a lot of street credit on their last bunch of sorry-ass excuses for games, it's just taking the mainstream (and noisy fanboys) awhile to wake up to the fact.
Square has been floundering for some time now and can use all the help they can get. They're probably thanking their lucky stars that Nintendo is also in serious need of securing software partnerships and was willing to talk with them. This is a compromise on both thier parts. If anything, they'll sink or swim together for the near future.
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with
Jumping to Conclusions.
"First they backstabbed Sony with the N64 CDROM deal."
h tm ... but the whole story is in an early issue of Next Generation magazine.
Do you mean the Super Nintendo CD? If so... then this isn't exactly true. What happened there was that Sony wanted an all in one unit that played Super NES and the new CD-Based games where they could slap their name on the unit, call it 'PlayStation', and get royalties for every game made. Here's a website that tells part of the story: http://www.emulationzone.org/consoles/snes/cdrom.
"They backstabbed Square by refusing to move from the outmoded cartridge game format, keeping Square from being able to create Final Fantasy VII."
Nintendo didn't backstab Square by going with cartridge format. Nintendo made a very wise choice that cartridge was the way to go with the N64. There were several advantages to it:
- Fast Load times.
- The system would be a lot cheaper (like $100 cheaper).
- The system would be far more reliable, ie. fewer moving parts. The original shipment of Playstations were horribly made and had a 1:4 defect rate where I worked.
- Game companies would be more inclined to make an original game for the N64 instead of diluting it with ports of PC games that used CD ROM. (Remember the 'Dream Team'?)
- Very hard to duplicate compared to CD's
- Nintendo could get more money per cartridge because CD's were cheap to make.
- Good games can be made to fit on cartridges. N64 proved that.
N64 royalties were high. I'm not disputing that. That wouldn't have hurt Square though, I remember people paying as much as $80 for FFIII (including myself). What really happened was that Square decided they wanted to do Full Motion video along with the game, they wanted to try something unique. The N64 wasn't what they wanted, so they moved to Playstation. That was a smart business decision to make, particularly since Sony gave them a deal they couldn't refuse. Where Square backstabbed Nintendo was when they told other developers not to develop for it. That was just wrong. Square may not have been able to do FFVII for the N64, but they could still have made games for it. They have a lot of franchises. Instead they just flipped Nintendo off and went into Sony's court.
"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."
Sony may have beaten Nintendo, but not by much. N64 did very well for itself. Nintendo also has provided a lot more to the game industry that Sony has. Nintendo has a game audience that Sony should be extremely envious of.
The N64 was not a fiasco of any sort. Nintendo was quite profitable with it. It has a lot of high quality titles for it. And, must amusingly, the first party work done for it carried most of the weight for it. Even if Sony sells a billion Playstations, Nintendo still has a loyal audience to play their games. Sega had that too, to a lesser degree. Sony does not. Sony and Microsoft could win the war in a particular generation of games, but they always risk getting ousted by a new guy. Nintendo can be very successful even when they aren't #1. I much prefer Nintendo's position than the other guys.
"Derp de derp."