Square Enix Announces Final Fantasy XII Delay

Thanks to GameSpot for their report that the eagerly-awaited Final Fantasy XII won't ship until at least April 2004 in Japan, according to Square Enix, who "updated its profit estimates for the full fiscal year, lowering that figure by almost 20 percent" as part of this news. The article points out that "two of [Square Enix's] major RPGs will [now] not be showing up until the company's next fiscal year", since Dragon Quest VIII [aka Dragon Warrior VIII] is already confirmed as shipping later in 2004, although a PlayStation 2 remake of Dragon Quest V has just been announced for this fiscal year in Japan. In more fortuitous news, the company also announced that "its TV toy game, Shinken Dragon Quest... [has] been selling beyond expectations in Japan."

Comments

Ideas: It's called FF for XBOX

[EastCoastLA]

With the success of SW:KOTOR and a real need for RPG for the box, Square is just shooting themselves in the foot for not bringing these games to xbox. Look at the cash cow Rockstar will create with the GTA/Vice package on the xbox. If I remember back in the day people said that GTA would never be on the xbox. It is now and it look great! Now if they could just port MANHUNT quickly, life would be good.

Re:Ideas: It's called FF for XBOX

[incubusnb]

and how, exactly, would this make it come out any sooner? i'm not against having FF go to X-Box, but think about it, the PS2's hardware is light years in difference from the X-Box's Hardware. your telling them to code it for X-Box? why, so it can be delayed another 6 months?

besides, haw can they be shooting themselves in the foot for pursuing a 50+ Million userbase as opposed to a 1+ Million userbase as the case may be. maybe look for FFXIII on X-box 2, but i have my own theories on who will have the upper hand in the next Console war anyways.

Re:Ideas: It's called FF for XBOX

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people who want to play GTA wouldve already got it on ps2 so who cares that its finally making its way to the xbox. and if you don't know the gta pack is coming out on ps2 too for the ones that havent got it yet.

Re:Ideas: It's called FF for XBOX

[AtaruMoroboshi]

Yeah, and, uh, how is Square going to make any money off of FF XII on xbox, when the Xbox is a total and utter failure in the Japanese market?

I suppose that FF XII being exclusive on the Xbox would cause an incredible number of Japanese to buy an Xbox solely to play it...

FF games tend to be in japan for a good 6 months at least before coming to America, simply because they take a lot of effort to translate. The amount of money spent on development of FF XII is probably huge as well. So I don't see FF on Xbox making any financial sense unless Microsoft gives Square an incredible amount of money.

.

Re:Ideas: It's called FF for XBOX

[Momomoto]

I suppose that FF XII being Exclusice on the Xbox would cause an incredible number of Japanese to buy an Xbox solely to play it...

It could definitely happen, because the release of Final Fantasy VII gave the PlayStation a huge surge in market share, simply because people bought PSXs in order to play it. I'm not sure if it will happen this time, though. The odds of Square-Enix licensing their star franchise to a non-Japanese hardware console are next to none. Think of the backlash there would be!

Re:Ideas: It's called FF for XBOX

[Haeleth]

Uh, yeah, of course everyone who has an xbox bought a PS2 just to play GTA. How silly of me to forget that only rich people play video games.

Re:Ideas: It's called FF for XBOX

[t0ny]

Considering FF is making games for the PS2, and FF:CC for the GC, throwing the other console into the mix would be spreading themselves too thin.

Add that to the fact that a small minority of people in Japan actually own XBoxes, and it is hardly them shooting themselves in the foot: in fact, it is a sound business decision.

One final note: the PS2 and GC are run by Japanese companies. The XBox is not. Square has nothing to gain by developing for a non-Japanese company, and everything to lose (they would most likely alienate Sony and Nintendo by doing so).

Re:Ideas: It's called FF for XBOX

[JExtine]

Yea... FF XII for the XBOX would be a huge success for Square. Every one in Japan with an XBOX would buy it, all thousand of em....

Re:Ideas: It's called FF for XBOX

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It is silly if you bought a Xbox just to wait for GTA which back then nobody even knew for sure would make its way to the Xbox. The stats will tell you that most Xbox owners (the ones that buy it to play games anyway) own a PS2 as well. The ones that own a xbox exclusively for playing games are in the minority. and it is they who will be making up the bulk of the xbox gta sales. Since this group is small to begin with, GTA on Xbox will hardly be a big seller* like the grandfather poster made it sound like it would be. PS2 GTA pack sales will still crush Xbox GTA pack sales because A. there are more people who own a ps2 exclusively and B. not all of them could afford the 2 GTAs when they first came out but will get it now at its 2 for 1 price.

*compared to GTA pack sales on the PS2.

Re:Ideas: It's called FF for XBOX

[Genom]

Considering how close the Xbox is to a "normal" PC, I'd think they could probably port FFXI without all THAT much trouble.

As for the others, you're probably right. It all depends on which direction Square decides to go in the future. We know they'll be releasing for PS2, and they're releasing at least *some* games for GCN (Crystal Chronicles being the big one at the moment)... It wouldn't be a long jump in logic for them to release something for the Xbox - but, given what they've shown with the GCN (all matters of Square vs. Nintendo history aside), it probably won't be one of the main FF "series" games, but a side-story game like CC. (XI, of course, aside)

Oh Well

[PaintyThePirate]

At least it will give Final Fantasy fans time to play more of the MMORPG, Final Fantasy XI. Since it's online and requires the use of a hard drive, there should be enough extra content to keep gamers happy until FF XII comes out in the US, probably in 2005.

Explains a lot

[Anonymous Coward]

This must be why those cheap bastards didn't setup new servers for the North American "launch" of FFXI.

Just an FYI, if you buy that game in North America you're going to get pushed onto a year old server with hundreds of maxxed out characters who don't speak english.

The reason

[Kyouryuu]

When asked for the reasoning, a Square exec replied:

"The fanboys kept demanding a longer Final Fantasy game, so we decided to give it to them. This one clocks in at 2,000 hours and the delay was due to the fact that we needed to beta test it."

Re:The reason

[GrumpyDog]

Lets see, 2,000 hours (83 1/3 days) with 1 walking combat encounter every 3 seconds equals about 2,440,000 invisible random walking encounters(minus FMV, of course).

If each one took 10 seconds to "x-button" thru, that comes to a mind numbing 6,777.78 hours (282 1/2 days) of random battles.

Gonna' have to get some maternity leave for this one.

Re:The reason

[generic-man]

1. Get a turbo controller.
2. Place a lead weight on top of the 'X' button.
3. Place another lead weight on top of the analog stick so that you're walking in circles.
4. Wait a few hours.
5. Return to find your characters maxed out.

Word on the street is that Final Fantasy XVIII will include a full-scale macro system, so you can have the game play itself for you!

Re:The reason

[GrumpyDog]

But you still didn't collect all the secret items and weapons for each character!

See, this is the difference between us and them..

[nifboy]

Developers in the good old US of A would undoubtedly rush both DQ and FFXII out in order to boost profits for the fiscal year and drive stock prices up. They certainly seem to do it often enough.

Neither surprising nor disappointing...

[Thedalek]

Provided Kingdom Hearts II, Chain of Memories, Front Mission III, Front Mission First and Final Fantasy X-2 are all still on schedule. Square only has so many employees, after all.

Sure, call me a fanboy, but I've never seen a Squaresoft game crash, lockup, or otherwise glitch-out. Poor camera angles, sure. Superflous gameplay elements, absolutely (although I'm one of the very few people who actually enjoyed making Gummi ships in Kingdom Hearts. Flying them, not so much, but making them was actually enjoyable), but never a full-fledged bugs. Very few other companies put quite as much craftsmanship into their games.

Of course, I can't speak for Final Fantasy XI, owing to my longstanding disapproval of MMORPGs.

Take longer. No problem. Use the time to make it a better game. There's plenty of other good games coming out to counterbalance it. It's not like it's the only game that matters.

FF + Rockstar + XBox = death for Sony

[ElleyKitten]

Dammit, why does XBox have to be made by Microsoft? =(

My 2 cents and response to xbox comments above

[wanderers_id]

I have so many other games to play right now, that I'm not bothered by a FF12 delay.

Seriously, I'm playing, FFTA, FFX-2, Sword of Mana, FF:CC, and somewhere in the middle of that (or after) I have FF11 to play. And those are just the SQUARE ENIX titles on my list.

Oh, and as for XBOX, I really don't see Square needing to develop for yet another platform. They develop for PS2, GC, and GBA. Do you think that japanise gamers will want to buy an Xbox just to get Square titles that could have released on another platform that they already own? As for US gamers, there are so many good PS2 titles, why not just get a PS2?

I bought my PS1, PS2, GBA, and GC all because of Square titles AND other titles. I don't have an Xbox. The only Xbox game I'm remotly interested in is KOTOR. I hope that Square ignores Xbox. I really don't want to have to own all of the current consoles.

Josh