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Final Fantasy Creator Sakaguchi Joins Microsoft
Anonymous Coward writes " Microsoft today announced that Hironobu Sakaguchi, video game legend and president of Mistwalker game studio, has joined with Microsoft(R) Game Studios to develop role-playing game (RPG) video games exclusively for the next- generation Xbox(R) video game platform. Sakaguchi is best known as the creator of the "Final Fantasy" franchise, which has sold more than 60 million units worldwide, and was executive vice president in charge of game development at Square Enix Co. Ltd. until February 2001."
1. He'd already left Square
2. Square still owns Final Fantasy
3. Yes, Microsoft is still evil.
- colin
Hmm... and Square has released pure crap since then too. Now I know correlation is not the same as causation, but...
At least now I think I understand it better...
Slapped in the face? Why?
Since right now you own neither a PS3 nor a Xbox2 (or whatever it will be called), why is it a slap in the face that a developer announced they are working on titles for Xbox2? Doesn't it merely inform a future purchasing decision?
EXCUSE ME! The peak was at 6 thank you very much.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
The series as a whole maybe, but that does not apply to the games themselves. Name one FF game that was simultaneously released for more than one system. Note that even the collections of old SNES games that were re-released were still only released for PS1.
this is 10 times worst than when RARE went to MS
This is not Square going to MS. This is just one guy, who was far from embodying the spirit of FF, except maybe in the first few games, where he was both planner and director. Anyway, this guy did have a hand in capturing the hearts of millions of Japanese gamers, and so MS's motivation is quite clear. You've got to hand to them, this is an extremely smart strategic move on their part. Just having Sakaguchi's name attached to MS could really help break the XBox into the Japanese market for real.
A lot of people here don't seem to understand that Sakaguchi left Square a while ago to form his own development company, Mistwalker. As Mistwalker is just a developer (not a publisher) all this means is that some Mistwalker-developed games are going to be published under Micrsoft Game Studios. This doesn't mean M$ is Mistwalker's only publisher.
This doesn't mean at all that a Final Fantasy game will appear on (another) Microsoft system (not counting Windows PC). More likely though is the Final Fantasy series jumping to Nintendo's Revolution if the PlayStation3's Cell processor Assembly code proves more trouble than its worth (Square already knows PowerPC Assembly well, which is what Gamecube games are coded in, and PPC ASM is not the same as Cell ASM).
Heck, even Nintendo published some of Square's developed games (Final Fantasy I/NES, Sword of Mana, Crystal Chronicles).
Interesting to note is that Nobuo Uematasu (the music composer for Final Fantasy's 1 - 10) is now working for Mistwalker. This means some diehard game music buffs are going to have to buy an Xbox Next when it comes out.