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

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.

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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).

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.