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Square Enix Supports Sony, But Not Too Much
Next-Gen reports that Square Enix is throwing just the right amount of support behind Sony. In some fairly non-humble statements, Square Enix senior VP Michihiro Sasaki talked about their positioning in the next generation market. "'We don't want the PlayStation 3 to be the overwhelming loser, so we want to support them,' he said. 'But we don't want them to be the overwhelming winner either, so we can't support them too much.' Sasaki's comments (which were pulled out of context and dropped into the WSJ article) don't exactly take the humble approach regarding Square Enix's heavy influence on the popularity of the PlayStation brand. The PS2-exclusive FFXII sold over 1.7 million units for a premium $80 equivalent price tag in the first four days after its Japan launch."
A final fantasy on the wii would be great. I think that the wii is the one system that might break square enix out of their drought and come up with something truly innovative.
To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion...
Sony has pretty much been carried by SQUENIX since the PS1. I think they're the most underestimated presence in the console market after IBM. The battlefield would be wholly different without them.
- the fact that Nintendo is still alive and well, and
- the fact that all of their non-RPGs were more or less panned (and even many of their non-FF RPGs weren't all that great, either), and
- the fact that Sprits Within bombed
Of course, I don't think the way Sony bent over backwards to get Final Fantasy exclusively onto the PlayStation really helped Squaresoft come back down to earth.Squaresoft always saw themselves as being on par with Nintendo or Sega, able to produce top-rate titles in any genre they choose to grace. They still haven't learned they aren't.
I still feel like Enix is the big loser with this merger. Enix was that good, Squaresoft just thought they were.
Nintendo, whose (Pokemon/Zelda/Mario/whatever) sold (some large number of copies) in (some short number of days), will be heavily supporting the Wii so they have already won the battle, and if they do not support Wii too much, then the Wii is surely doomed. I am as big a Square fan as anyone else, but if every unique person who bought a Square game bought a PS2 solely because of some Square game and Square never existed, then PS2's worldwide numbers would decrease no more than the # of unique Square fans that exist. This would make them go from what, 100 million PS2s to 90 million at best? The Playstation 2 dominance always rested on the quantity. There simply isn't enough games sold to per any company to explain why there are so many PS2s in the world. Will losing Square hurt? Sure, losing anything hurts. But I doubt Square is even responsible for 1/10th of the success of PS2. In fact I don't think any one company, including Sony themselves, is responsible for 1/10th of PS2's total sales.
Finally, we'll have a decent processor to render EQII on.
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
I meant on my GBA, not DS. Too many systems floating around my house.
You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different.
It won't require any link cables, because hey, guess what? The DS doesn't HAVE a link cable port. That gives the whole idea an immediate boost, along with the fact that using a wireless DS with the game is just flat out easier to do than a wired GBA. Add to this the smashing success and essential omnipresence of the DS, and you're looking at a game that might just be a hit, or at least won't suffer many of the downfalls Crystal Chronicles did.
No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring.
Funny how that echo rings. Ironically, PSP is the one getting the "spinoff franchise," with a sequal to the sequal of the sequal of Final Fantasy VII coming out. I'm not at all looking forward to it. Final Fantasy III on the DS? YES PLEASE.
You realize, of course, that there IS a confirmed Dragon Quest Game coming out for the Wii, and the 360 has not even the rumor of real Final Fantasy on it.
No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring.
ok... that first Road Rash game looks good, but
only one of the ridge racer links work - and a 960x540 screenshot with no fps counter doesn't strike me as impressive. Oh look, I have games running at 120FPS at 1280*1024.
Activision is the only one who said they'll be selling their games at $60, and they even say "expect" for that matter.
Best Buy are getting rid of XBox displays and replacing them with PS3 (oh and Wii). Strangely enough my local GameStation moved replaced the PS2 display with Xbox360 and Nintendo DS. Funny how that works isn't it, newer consoles getting better marketing spots.
Duh.
They're scared shitless of any one console manufacturer having has much power as Nintendo back in the Famicom days. Back then, Namco threatened a law suite and had to back down because they couldn't survive long enough as a company without a license to release Famicom titles.
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When the "FUD" comes from the company's own president, that's what I call great marketing!
it didn't feel like an FF game.
I Nintendo shoved a Mario name on a game with Sonic the Hedgehog's graphics, music, gameplay and what not would that be a Mario game?
Why not shove Tolkien's name on a movie like Labyrinth - would definitely be Middle Earth canon then.
I can see it happening already...
Nintendo has always been known for "kiddie" games. It don't get more kiddie than Disney. And if Square-Enix leaves Sony, well... where else are they gonna go? Microsoft?
Dual-Wielding Keyblades with two wiimotes? Hell, I'd be fine with the one.
My name would be Pi_r_[]ed, but this stupid thing wouldn't allow it. Well, at least now you know.
Square for all the great games they have made in the past has always been a fickle company, when the hype was behind the PS1 they dropped Nintendo like a hot potato and joined the Sony bandwagon, when the Xbox started gaining ground they suddenly gushed over Microsoft, now that the Wii has the buzz they are trying hard to kiss up to everyone so they can pick sides after the war has officially started.
The comments though sound like Sony's success depends on Square which if I was Sony would really piss me off...after all Square hasnt really been Square in years. The momentum of Final Fantasy is relying on past reputation and the ignorance of those that dont know that the main reasons for Final Fantasy's success have moved on to other development companies.
We'll support the PS3 but if, or when, the Wii becomes the dominate console don't expect us to keep the FF series exclusive to Sony. We gotta make the bucks(or yen) and supporting one console won't do it this time.
-Shawn "If the Name Don't Rhyme It Ain't Mine" Conn
I don't want a console to go back to the days where Nintendo was censor maximus. Nintendo also seems to have the most locked-down dev platform(Sony's is the most open because even though it uses a DRM format it runs on Linux and so homebrew can be done much more easily)
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
"only one of the ridge racer links work - and a 960x540 screenshot with no fps counter doesn't strike me as impressive. Oh look, I have games running at 120FPS at 1280*1024."
Whoever posted the screenshot didn't do a very good job then. Ridge Racer 7 was just demoed at the Tokyo Game Show running natively at 1080p(1920 × 1080) and locked at 60fps. Pretty amazing since it appears that the lighting and other graphic effects have been upgraded over the 360 version that was only able to run at 720p.
Last I checked Sony has around six or seven games running natively at 1080p for launch. It is scary to think what PS3 games are going to look like a year or two from now. After all the talk from developers hinting at just how much more powerful the PS3 is compared to the 360 we are starting to see why they have been bragging about the systems power.
These comments are in line with former rumors that if their games do well on Nintendo platforms, Enix will bring DQIX to Wii.
Considering SE considers Dragon Quest to be the "premier" title in their stable, mostly because they're Japan-centric and DQ owns pretty much the whole country, these statements would be consistent with supporting Sony (FF), but not too much (moving DQ).
Personally, I'd love that. I don't have the cash nor the inclination for a PS3, and although I will get FFXII soon, it will have been my first since IX (and my second since VII).
I remember Sony buying either 11% or 21%, the number definatley ended in 1, of Square after the first Final Fantasy bombed, that was before they merged with Enix though.
Honestly DQ8 was a great game, but this company has lost me. I played FFXII in Tokyo this past March and I could have sworn it was Xenosaga with a face lift. Story is great but when I drop $50 on a game I want to actually play!
I'm looking forward to Dawn of Mana and Children of Mana... after that I don't see much coming from SE that makes me want to swipe my debit card.
My old NES is still going strong, 18 years later :)
Also have a SNES, 64, GC, DC, and Saturn.. they all work fine (even the Saturn which sat outside for 6 months exposed to the elements.)
Only reason Sqeenix is really bothering with Sony at this point is due to Square saying, "give us money now" after FF the movie nearly tanked Square and Sony pretty much saying, "how much do you want?" It didn't save Square from needing to partner with Enix, but it kept them from going bankrupt. Writing that check was bout the last smart thing Sony has done.
You need not spend a lot of money on voice acting. Check out Baten Kaitos, for example.
:)
Or did you want good voice acting?
lol, the only game I actually STOPPED PLAYING due to terrible voice acting. And I've played Star Ocean 2, so that says A LOT! It also has the honor of being the only game I've ever sold back. What a game... what a fucking disaster! It didn't help that all the voices sounded like they were recorded inside a tin can. I know they were trying to get the effect that you were some spectoral being listening in from another plane... but couldn't they have figured out a better way of representing this than adding reverb that sounded like it came out of a casio keyboard? As an audio producer, it was offensive, as a someone who does a lot of voiceovers and voiceacting, it was also offensive, and as someone who simply appreciates dialog that doesn't sound like it was written by 3rd graders, it was offensive. When I heard, "Skies of Arcadia meets a card-based system" I really got my hopes up... God, what a disaster!
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Or, even worse, what if they put Mario's name on a lame Tetris clone! Nah, even Nintendo wouldn't do something that stupid...