Slashdot Mirror
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."
Maybe MS should buy 3drealms, then Duke Nukem Forever might get released.
Yeah, offtopic, but no one else seems interested.
Wait a minute here. What is this I'm feeling? A love of the Final Fantasy series.... and yet, a pure disdain for Microsoft....
Head exploding in 5, 4, 3.....
(segmentation fault)
Don't take a knife to a gunfight, or even a knife to a knife fight. Take a gun to a knife fight.
1. He'd already left Square
2. Square still owns Final Fantasy
3. Yes, Microsoft is still evil.
- colin
This may help MS greatly in the Japanese market, where they have lagged behind both Nintendo and Sony. With a RPG industry veteran, they could make headway into the Japanese RPG market (extremely profitable). Good move on MS's part, a sign of brewing trouble for Sony, and an ever greater threat to Nintendo. In the battle for next-gen marketshare, it may all come down to exclusive deals and ease of developement. Nintendo does well in both areas, while Sony notably lacks in the second, MS has done well in the first (Halo etc.) and has done excellently in the second but never before had many genres in which their exclusive deals were of high quality and were seriously lacking in Japanese backing for the current Xbox.
http://chrono.posterous.com/
According to the article, Sakaguchi left in 2001. In that time period, FFXI, FF Crystal Chronicles, and FF:TA came out.
He's only the guy who created FF, he has no rights to anything that Square makes. What he's bringing to Microsoft is a totally different priginal RPG thing.
Whether or not that means he's totally abandoning his previously announced exclusive DS project, nobody knows.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
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.
RPG dream team? it already happened back with Chrono Trigger.
Akira Toriyama doing the characters, Yuji Horii of Dragon Quest doing the story, and Nobuo uematsu doing the music.