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Final Fantasy XIII Is Coming To Xbox 360
An anonymous reader writes "In a stunning change, Square-Enix announced today at Microsoft's E3 press conference that its next iteration in the Final Fantasy series is also coming to Xbox 360." And I just rationalized the PS3 purchase by telling myself that the next FF will require it.
...but I can't think of any reasons to buy PS3 anymore. Metal gear solids seem to be the only one as I don't really have need for Blue ray now (if I have in a few years, they will propably be cheaper by that time anyways).
Fine print: I work in internet advertising.
I might be wrong, but given the trend of games, I am gonna be very skeptical if square-enix can keep the quality of the game up while making it cross-platform.
A good portion of the smoothness, graphically and gameplay wise, was from the fact that the developers knew their system and how to program with it. Odds are that goes out the window and it gets degraded to craptastic quality to meet the "crossplatformm" requirement.
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
And I just rationalized the PS3 purchase by telling myself that the next FF will require it.
No doubt. Sony! Give me a reason to buy the PS3 please, I want that blu-ray player.
I am a pretty big fan of the Final Fantasy series, but when I heard the first rumblings of Sony PS3, I decided I just wasn't going to follow. Some of the Final Fantasy styled artwork could be stunning on high-def screens so I do know what I'm missing out on. Blu-Ray just wasn't interesting to me and the platform is too expensive to be just for games. I won't buy anything Microsoft either. Too bad, but it's just a game, and there has been and will be more great games for the platform I did pick. It's not always about the pixel count.
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My console of choice has always been whichever one Final Fantasy is being developed for (Nintendo then Sony). Time to give Xbox a chance, I guess.
I don't care about blu-ray either. Digital downloads are the future.
And I just rationalized the PS3 purchase by telling myself that the next FF will require it.
They have clearly stated in previous releases that they won't keep the game exclusive to the PS3 (albeit that statement was done at the launch of the PS3, when they weren't being sold as good as was hoped).
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
That's okay. Nobody really knows how to program the PS3 anyway.
As you wish. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-uTnqYHZ-I
Really?
I seem to remember Final Fantasy games for the PC that were on PS, that seemed to sell rather well. Not sure if that's related or not, but it would seem to be.
Cross platform wouldn't be such a big deal if the companies were more open about their development methods/kits/etc....if PS3 and Xbox360 and wii worked together, there would be no issues. However end result is the PS3 would run games the best due to superior hardware basically, and everyone else would cry foul. Plus all of those anticompetitive "exclusivity" contracts like EA has launched, ensuring crappy games when they're on a single system. Of course squeenix makes pretty good games and always has, though.
FF13 was not being developed directly on the PS3 hardware. It was instead being written to run on the Crystal Engine, which was being programmed to run on the PS3. It is just now the Crystal Engine has been ported to the 360 so FF13 can follow.
Sounds like the PS3 will still be the system to play it on if one owns both.
...and all of you who already have a PS3 specifically because you wanted it for FFXII someday, please slap yourself. Especially if you bought your PS3 more than a year ago for a game that would happen "someday".
And it's not like Squeenix doesn't have 360 experience. There's a lot of folks using a 360 for FFXI.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I might be wrong...
Not just wrong, but delusional too!
Almost every game that is developed cross platform ends up way better quality wise then when developing for a specific platform. This is the reason why Blizzard ALWAYS releases cross platform. It's part of their strategy to maintain top notch quality.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
That's a pretty slim list Sony. Seriously, are you even trying?
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
I don't think they would split the user base like that. More likely would be releasing the game on multiple DVD's.
IMHO, one player games are dull as hell.
Been playing 'video games' since 1985 or so and one player RPG's have had their day.
I would much rather play a 2 player RPG or better yet, a 10 million player RPG.
It's your own fault for buying a console expecting certain games, and moreover longevity.
I hope not to come off as a troll, but seriously, get a decent gaming PC and upgrade your video card every 3-4 years and your processor every 5-7.
I don't see the point in buying console systems that will be outdated in 3-5 years at this point as the technology is rising as quickly as it has.
Pigeonhole yourself as you please, but it is your own fault.
Neither. Just get some other game that's less of a pain in the arse. It's only a bloody game. I'm not going to buy a whole new machine for it FFS!
what are you talking about? There is no blu-ray Xbox 360 coming.
FF games would have been the only thing to bring me to buy a PS3. Thank you Squenix for saving me $500. I can use that to buy a blu-ray add-on for my xbox if it is needed. Or, as Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey has proven, you can have multi-disc games on 360 without an issue. I only wish the 120GB HD for 360 didn't cost so freaking much. But then again, a PS2 mem card still costs around $20. I love my 360, even after 1 RRoD episode, only down for about 10 days. I have to say it is by far my favorite console to date, going all the way back to Atari 2600.
Source?
I've not heard anything except rumour and speculation on a blu-ray equipped 360.
A more logical assumption was that Square realised that there'd be a fucktonne more money to be made from going multi-platform. I don't think they ever cited the optical drive as a limitation, they just loved Sony (hence why FFXII never appeared on the Xbox for example), but even if that WAS their reasoning, I'd say Microsoft told them about the new game installs you can now do and they decided it'd be ok.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
However end result is the PS3 would run games the best due to superior hardware basically, and everyone else would cry foul.
Sadly, the type of "Superior" that PS3 has over the 360 is on paper only. Granted, its more expensive hardware, and on paper it's not just better, it's light years ahead of the 360, but in terms of final output... it has nothing at all over the 360. They are both "more than good enough".
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
I mean, CRPGs aren't great anymore, and the FF series hasn't for a long, LONG time. I guess I'll get Fallout 3 on the PS3, since I don't feel like upgrading my computer for a dumbed down game.
Would you feel better if they gave it a different name? The Final Fantasy games don't follow on from one another, they occasionally have similar themes or side-characters, but that's it.
Think of it more like a branding, like Ferrari or Ford.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
What? The blu-ray-360 has been rumored many times, AND shot down each and every time by Microsoft.
The inclusion of blu-ray in the 360 would easily drive the price up $150, which would make the 360 more expensive than even the 80GB PS3 at this moment. I don't see that happening until the prices on blu-ray hardware drops some more and by that time, it'll be time for the next Xbox to come out anyways. If we do see a blu-ray drive for the 360, it'll be like the HD-DVD add-on drive and will probably sell for about $200.
However, it's important to note that Microsoft has repeatedly and consistantly stated that 360 games will ONLY be on DVDs - not HD-DVD, not blu-ray. DVD only.
No doubt FFXIII will come on a handful of DVDs. My guess it'll be 6 or 7 discs. With an average FF title taking 50 or so hours to complete (and twice that if you're a completist) that's about 10 hours per disc which is reasonable.
Also, don't forget that 360 games will now be allowed to be installed to the hard drive. I have the feeling we'll see some various options here for FFXIII. The actual game itself probably wouldn't take up that much room, so maybe you could do something similar to Diablo2 - install the game to your hard drive, but leave the CD/DVD in your drive for the cinematic cutscenes.
A - There's no Blu-Ray 360 coming in the near future. People have fabricated "rumors" to that effect because they expect it eventually, but there's been no halfway decent information indicating it. If MS didn't announce it yesterday, it won't be coming before Xmas 08 and likely not before E3 09.
B - Did Square go PS2 exclusive because of the next generation's not yet conceived drive? FF XIII was assumed to be PS3 exclusive because the last several generations have either been PS exclusives or launched on the PS 6+ months before other consoles.
Microsoft has yet to confirm a Blu-Ray equipped 360...in fact they've denied it several times (which doesn't mean much). I would be willing to bet if they do start to use Blu-Ray, they would release an add-on drive as well as building it into a high-end model, so you wouldn't need a new console. Makes more sense for them that way, as putting it in a lower-end 360 would probably mean they have to sell them at a loss to be competitive.
You can get a lot of compressed content onto a double-layer DVD....long-arse install time to a hard drive would be required though, but I don't see why FFXIII would need more than that. They would need a TON of terrain and unique models to fill up the space, and unless they go in a new direction with the series, they won't need anywhere close to that.
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Exclusivity contracts.
Wanna play Halo 2? Get an XBOX. Wanna play Eternal Darkness? Get a gamecube. Wanna play Castlevania ? Get a PS2.
If only all game makers were following this example and began producing their games for ALL platforms... PC included.
Square Enix said in their press conference that they didn't know how many discs the 360 version would be. It's not depending on some rumored Blu Ray 360 at all. It'll just be multidisc the way games like FFVII were.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
Don't forget, a small yet common oversight in the console wars is the 360's GPU - it's actually FASTER than the PS3's, plus the 360 has a dedicated hardware scaling unit (which is why you can output at 1080p on the 360 with just about any game).
The CELL is a fantastic piece of kit and I'm glad I've got access to it, but right now a lot of it's power is being used to offset the slower GPU.
This is why nearly all multiplatform games perform just as good on one console over the other.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
It's been asked 11 hojillion times before, and the answer's always the same: it's a title, nothing else. Heck out of the last 6-7 installments only one of them has even been fantasy, the rest are borderline science fiction.
However, note in the statement that it won't be released in Japan on the Xbox 360. So purists who want the original japanese dialogue will still need a PS3. Happy!
I saw some article the other day called '10 reasons to own a PS3' or something like that, with ten games coming out in the next few months. I'd never heard of most of them, and they all looked terrible.
I've got one in my lounge. I call it the obelisk. It was last on in March.
the only reason I was planning on buying a PS3 at all is to get Final Fantasy XIII. I've been playing the FF series since FF3 (US) and it is by far my favorite RPG franchise. Now that it is coming to 360, I have no reason to buy a PS3, which I was planning on doing when XIII launched. I'm sure i'm not the only one who was planning this. 360 really has PS3 beat in its online system, which I'm more than willing to pay my 7.99 a month for because it's worth it for the quality. The only saving grace that the PS3 has is the built in Blu-Ray player. Sony may as well license it to Microsoft and say good night.
Of course, no mention of the Wii.
Another slap in the face to the company that *made* Squenix who they are today.
Sorry, Nintendo fans, guess you have to go and buy another 3D remake for the DS.
Life would be easier if I had the source code.
Cheer up, CmdrTaco!
The PS3 is still a worthwhile investment. It is the only next-generation console with a BluRay drive, and therefore the only console with the capacity to hold the 90 hours of cutscenes that will be in the next Metal Gear Solid game...!
Crystal Tools, originally White Engine, has been a multiplatform development tool. They announced last fall that it was multiplatorm. GDC '08 At the SE presser yesterday it was said that FF13 was being developed on PC, then ported over to both systems. This is SE, I seriously doubt it will be worse on either system. Though, I'm guessing the 360 version will be 3 or 4 discs.
In the realm of mature gamers (most of whom have the disposable income to purchase all or as many of the current generation of consoles as they like), fanboy platform wars have no real place. That being said, I see both major positives and negatives about this announcement.
On the plus side, any increase in the competition of two massive corporate juggernauts can only be good for consumers, and the game being multiplatform will help it reach a wider audience and boost sales (especially overseas). In this day and age, it seems like third party exclusive titles are becoming a thing of the past, being replaced by highly subsidized exclusive bonus content (which results in more money for the developers who MAKE the games we love).
However, one advantage consoles have always had is the uniformity of hardware, allowing developers to milk as much performance as possible out of the system, and resulting in better looking titles than on comparably equipped PC hardware (but PCs, being upgradable, often quickly strip that advantage away as hardware progresses). Today, multiplatform developers for Xbox 360 and PS3 often strive for graphical parity between the versions (e.g., GTA4, Assassin's Creed). And while I have no doubt both are powerful systems in their own respects, they are also radically different hardware architectures and I can't see how developers can realistically claim to be maxing out the performance on both systems, yet still have them come out looking virtually indistinguishable.
As an owner of both systems, I was looking forward to FF XIII as an incredible showcase of just how powerful the PS3 was as a system. I'm sure it will still be a fantastic game, but I wonder if this decision won't negatively impact the final product...
I still bought a PS3. Honestly, I don't really care about what games come out for it - well, maybe except for Resident Evil 5, that looks awesome - I got it for a Blu-Ray player. It's the best and cheapest Blu-Ray player you can get on the market, and probably will be for a while.
During the format wars, Sony updated the Blu-Ray version by adding new features; new features that made new Blu-Ray discs incompatible with older players. If Sony decides to add more features in the future, the PS3 is the most versatile player they have.
The PS3's Blu-Ray decoding is software-based, it can be updated and upgraded easily. And the PS3 already comes with a wireless card in it that makes it extraordinarily easy to update.
Also, additional content on many Blu-Ray titles was done in Java. (AvP for instance has a game on the Blu-Ray disc) Most stand-alone players grind to a halt when trying to run Java. The PS3 has computing power to spare and chew those Java apps up and spit them back out. And speaking of computing power, it's designed to have amazing graphics. When you apply that to 2D video, the colors and picture quality are on par with the best devices out there. I'm sure there are better players out there, but those top of the line, multiple-thousand dollar units. For 500 bucks (plus HD cables, plus 30 bucks for the remote), you'll be near top of the line for significantly less money.
The PS3 also will upconvert your old DVD's to 1080p. So, your library of DVD's isn't obsolete like VHS tapes were with DVD's. It'll make all your DVD's look better.
So, it's an amazing player. It displays the movies in crisp, clear graphics - comparable to higher end Blu-Ray players. It can easily update its firmware so it can play all current and future Blu-Ray titles. It has the capability to play all additional content that many other players are incapable of playing. It upconverts old DVDs. And to top it off, it's the cheapest Blu-Ray player out there (or it was when I bought mine). If you've got a 1080p capable TV and you buy movies, the PS3 is going to be the way to go. And, if you see a game worth playing, well, that's just icing on the cake.
Let me finish off by saying I've been a Nintendo Fanboy. I've bought every Nintendo console that's come out. I was pissed off by Sony's arrogance about their system. I was voting for HD-DVD to win. But they didn't. Blu-Ray won. And I'm a pragmatist. If I want to watch movies in 1080p (which I do) there's only one way to do. The president of Sony can go eat a dick. I don't like his business practices and arrogance, but my opinion isn't going to change that. And even though I don't particularly care for him or the way, I have to admit that Sony makes awesome stuff. The first thing I watched in 1080p was a Wall-E trailer I downloaded. Jesus F-ing Christ. If you have the opportunity to see what 1080p video looks like, take the chance.
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. But light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
I don't have an HD TV yet, but will probably get one next year (assuming I can convince the wife, even though there's "nothing wrong" with our 3 year old SD TV). Blu-Ray won the war, I can still play them on my SD TV with the PS3, and I don't want to be thinking "crap I could have got this DVD on Blu-Ray instead" when I do upgrade.
I can play videos remotely off MythTV/MythVideo, and any other upnp media servers.
I can play most of my PS2 games on it (80GB model) - only one didn't work, so I'm replacing a device rather than adding one.
Free online play.
The blu-ray player software is updated to make use of new features.
I agree. I played Final Fantasy VIII on the PC as my first Final Fantasy game. I had a PC gamepad to use which worked fine for the game, and the experience wasn't much different than a console (except that I was playing on a 17" computer monitor - still, that was decent sized and I had a nice tilting leather office chair, so it was comfortable). That prompted me to get FFVII for the PC and play through that. I bought FF IX for the Playstation when it came out (I actually played it on my roommate's PSX as I didn't have one yet :)) and it ran pretty similar to the computer titles that I'd played.
Overall, I think that Square-Enix has some pretty good programmers, and they can pull off a cross-platform title pretty easily.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I've played Ass Creed (i like many things about this game, but the over-repetitiveness of the story structure deserves the abbreviation) on both ps3 and 360 and it looks great and plays smoothly on both.
SONY IS EVIL! MICRO$OFT SUCKS! BOYCOTT..
ooh, shiny final fantasy! please bill^H^H^H^Hsteve and howard, take my money!
I have owned both a 360 and PS3 since their respective launches, and while they both have disappointed me in many ways, Sony is the worst as far as unfulfilled potential goes.
The 360 has no shortage of flaws (faulty hardware, dumb move of not making the hard drive standard, charging for Xbox Live, etc.), they have definitely stepped up to the plate in the one area where it REALLY counts: games.
Sony, by contrast has some really great hardware (very reliable, built in wifi, blu-ray player, hard drive standard, etc.), but when it comes to games they've been long on promises but short on delivery. So far, they've only had one decent exclusive (Metal Gear Solid 4), compared to the many decent exclusives on the 360. And, even when they get a multi-platform title, the 360 version always seems to be out ahead (either in release date or quality).
Xbox also OWNS the online play with Xbox Live. PSN still lags way behind. And while "Home" looked interesting, it got delayed and delayed (to the point where I suspect it's been scrapped).
I had high hopes for my PS3 when I bought it. But now, it's basically just a blu-ray player for me (and maybe that's good enough for Sony).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Naughty Dog and Insomniac would like to have a word with you.
I realise I am throwing myself into a pit of rabid fanboys here, but here goes.
I've played around on some of the FF games, and I can't say they've ever impressed me. I even bought on once (FF VII) and gave up playing it quite quickly because it just didn't grab me.
So where is the appeal of this series? The action is dull, the RPG elements are poorly conceived and don't make much sense. The pace is plodding. Why are these games so raved about? I just don't get it...
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
He's moded flamebait but he has a point. I've been MS free 6 years now. Nobody wants to compete with a company that has lost 4-5 billion dollars on XBox and keeps going. People will say "its profitable now", actually its not, they wrote off 1-2 billion of repairs last year that they're paying for now.
You know competetion is good so its better to have all 3 around. I don't think they'd be throwing features into these consoles if the competetion wasn't there.
Plus if you know ASIC designers you'll now MS is still looking to hire good ones for this version of the xbox and the next one. (Heat issues...)
I'll probably get a Wii this generation.
And I'm guessing that the PS3 version will probably require a HDD install, much like Devil May Cry 4, MGS4, etc.. and load 1-2 seconds faster.
An interesting sidenote, with the announcement that the 360 can install games to the HDD, but you have to have the disc in (for verification that you own the game), if they allowed a full game install of FFXIII, allowing the first disc to be the "verification" disc, the "LOL1l!! multiple disc" arguement would go away. Get on in MS, for those who don't like getting off the couch every 10 hours.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
Mature gamers...
I hate to tell you but mature gamers are buying the Wii. I would bet you that more and more people in their late 20s, 30's, and 40's are buying the Wii.
I think you better start using the term hard core gamers.
As to the news. I find it mildly interesting. It may really help Microsoft crack the Japanese market. As for me it just delays me buying a bit longer. My wife wants the PS3 for Singstar. Yes she loves Singstar. I have yet to see a game for the 360 or PS3 that I must have.
So we will keep playing with our Wii, PS2, XBox, and Dreamcast for now.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Didn't Sony have an exclusivity contract with Squeenix through FF15 that would keep the main series (at least at first release) on Sony consoles?
So FFXIII will be the fourth main FF game on MS system (note: system, not console). Perhaps Square-Enix love MS afterall.
(There were ports of FF7 and 8 to Windows 9X, thus counts as MS system)
You are, because this post is more final than yours.
Just one question: Will the 360 version be a bare bones, no-cutscenes version, or will it sport 5 discs, or more? I mean, taking MGS4 as an example, that game renders all cutscenes in-game, yet _still_ fills up a whole dual layer BD, meaning 50 GB of textures and sound (minus some GB of double content for better reading performance, I know).
I just hope this doesn't mean dumbing down both versions, technically.
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
As far as I am concerned they havent made a good FF game since the merger. I simply dont think they are capable of producing those games anymore.
Ohh spiteful one tell me who to smote and he shall be smolten!
Sounds like the PS3 will still be the system to play it on if one owns both.
Yeah, except that the XBox360 version will have achievements. What good is it to kill all the crazy optional bosses and whatever if I can't brag about it (with proof!) to my friends and family?
XBox 360 achievements really add depth to our games. I spent half an hour flying under every bridge in the city in GTAIV just to get that delicious green blip. It's like every game has a bunch of mini-games included.
I had a $100 bet riding on this, and I won! Woot!
It'll pay for FF13 *and* the FF6 remake on the DS! :-)
Thank you, Square-Enix!
Well if ms really does allow us to start playing games from the HD while only requiring the disk for validation it won't matter in the end. Unless MS keeps bending us over the table with the small and to damned expensive 360 drives.
You mad
True, true. I'm actually looking forward to HDD installs on the 360. I'm not hurting for space, using only 30 of 120gigs drive on my Elite.
The PS3 version will have Trophies, same thing.
Many people (myself included) pondered the question of "Xbox360 or PS3" based on the games they would want to play. I was sorely tempted to get a PS3 so that I could play FFXIII, but decided that a 360 was a better investment for the time being as I expected I could pick up a PS3 cheaper when the game actually came out.
Seems like I made the right buy, since now I won't need a PS3 at all, plus I'm enjoying "Lost Odyssey" and a bunch of other fun non-RPG's on the 360 at the moment. I just feel sorry for those that paid for a PS3 in expectation of this game, if I had done so I'd feel a bit gypped right now.
It's programmed? According to the launch time press material from Sony, the PS3 has sexy magical elf babes inside that weave the game in real time directly out of sunshine, the holy spirit and the smiles of kittens.
Doesn't Final Fantasy have FINAL in the title. Just how many sequels can this thing have and still be FINAL. And everytime there is another Final Fantasy made, there is a chance that no talent ass clown Uwe Boll will make a movie out of it.
Doesn't Never Ending Story have NEVER ENDING in the title? Shouldn't we have more sequels to this thing?
Any get one used? Or get a fast PC, and an emulator? I played through the PS1 version of FF9 entirely on an emulator, sometimes it ran nicer on the PC than the playstation (some glitches at times, but nothing that overly affected gameplay).
I haven't hit the emulation scene for awhile, but I'd imagine in a year or so they'll be chipping well away at the current consoles.
No one's ever asked me for proof that I've beat Super Mario Bro 1 let alone if I've found all the warp flutes to Level 8. Right now, XBOX 360 Achievements are an economy of the ego. Achievements don't get you anything tangible and aren't transferable.
Now if an achievement would earn me a free movie, a free coupon on a game, a free map, etc., now that would be cool and a reason to pay $50 a year for XBOX Live membership.
-516
It was the FINAL fantasy back then with the original game, they thought it was going to flop, they thought it was the end of square, but then... that didn't quite happen and they got a popular game, why ditch a popular name just because the game has "final" in it?
Final Fantasy was developed during Square's brush with bankruptcy in 1987. In a display of gallows humor, director Hironobu Sakaguchi declared that his "final" game would be a "fantasy" role-playing game, hence the title.[5]
source
I want FF XI on both my Nintendo DS and Wii. :p
It could be done for Wii with an external USB hard drive and USB keyboards are supported since the last firmware or so. If FF XI can run on the PS2 then surely it can run on the Wii. But that game is too old, so no luck there.
As for FF XI on the DS... Yeah now I'm just dreaming.
Is it true that FF XI (Windows) is more CPU-bound than GPU-bound? Anyone running FF XI on a Core 2 Duo with GMA 950 or similar? I'd like to build a mini-ITX system so I can dump that noisy Athlon XP/Radeon 9600XT wind generator.
The games sold well, but you could shit in a box and put "Final Fantasy" on it at this point, and it would sell. It was like that when those games came out for the PC, too.
Your second point is all over the place, and I don't honestly see any point that applies in this case. For one, the PS3 doesn't necessarily run games the "best", mainly due to the fact that too many of them require an installation of about 5GB just in order to run them; compare a game like, for example, Devil May Cry 4 for the PS3 and the 360, and though you get better loading times on the PS3, you really don't get anything else for the right of installing 5GB worth of data, eating up your proprietary and (I'm not sure about this part as I don't own the system) irreplaceable hard drive; you're burning gigs for no reason.
And I don't understand where EA's exclusivity contracts play into this point, as they're different altogether. EA bought licenses to make games for certain respective sports organizations; for example, they are the only ones that make NFL games. But since they'll whore their games on every system that will take them, that's much different than system exclusivity. You will always be able to buy Madden and NBA Live no matter what system you own; still have an original XBox? No problem! Just $50! But that's not the case with a game like Metal Gear Solid 4 or (until now) Final Fantasy XIII.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
What's the problem when you'll be able to install it straight onto the hard drive?
New system? No, don't forget that the most comparable game to FFXIII on the 360 - Lost Odyssey - took four discs. They'll likely do something similar. And Lost Odyssey looked amazing, at that.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
I think we should all sue under trade descriptions laws. How can the "Final Fantasy" game have sequals?
Not sure what your definitions of "quality" or "cross platform" are, but you come across as the delusional one to me.
Blizzard are multiplatform in the sense that there are both OSX and Windows versions of their games, but haven't made a console port since the PS1 (and even those I don't think were made internally). I haven't played WoW, so I'll give that the benefit of the doubt, but it seems to me its popularity is down to the ability to cause addiction in large groups of different types of people, rather than any inherent quality in the gameplay itself.
If you look at the games people tend to remember from recent years, it's almost all games exclusive to a particular format (PC or one console), or games that received a port as an afterthought: Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Katamari Damacy, Guitar Hero, Halo, Resident Evil 4, Half-Life 2 etc.
As for FFXIII, I'm hardly alone in the opinion that Square dropped the ball long ago, what with basically leaving gameplay unchanged since at least the mid-90s, improving just the graphics each time. XII was an attempt at stepping off the beaten path, and the man responsible for that got taken off the project before its completion and is no longer with Square-Enix. It's pretty safe to say it will sell in huge numbers while the quality is likely to be average, but the latter part has nothing to do with what platform it's released on.
The harddrive on the playstation, while proprietary, can be switched with any standard 2.5" laptop harddrive. Very very easy to upgrade to 200gb.
Last update to PS3 brings Trophies, similar to Achievements I guess, but shinier. Games can have a mix of bronze, silver, and gold, and one platinum trophy.
Also, with the trophies is a "level" system that works out kinda like an RPG of game play, after x number of trophies you go up a level, with the next level needing even more trophies.
This just came out so not many games support this as of right now, but many are adding it in. By this time next year all games will require trophy support.
MS had a good idea with the achievements, but it's no longer a distinguishing feature.
DEMETRIUS: Villain, what hast thou done?
AARON: Villain, I have done thy mother.
Shakespeare invents 'your mom'
I don't care about exclusive games particularly. I was waiting for UT3 for Linux, but it's looking like that might never happen, so I've got it for the PS3. With a wireless keyboard and mouse, it's pretty nice. (I'm too old to be anything but a convenient target, but it's fun.) "Resistance: Fall of Man" is an exclusive, and I'm slowly getting used to using the controller for an FPS... meh. The kids like playing "The Simpsons Game" with me, and I've got a PS2-to-USB adapter that lets us use a PS2 controller so we can double up. Bought "flOw" from the network, not bad. Worth $8, anyway. It's the 40GB model, so no PS2 games... but we have a PS2, so oh well.
The Blu-ray stuff is nice, but I'm not going out and re-buying my library. After the 45 minutes of updating the firmware to the latest version (Oy!), upconverted DVDs look good, and it's much more responsive changing menus than our old upconverting DVD player. (Given the CPU in there, it had better be.) Still, now that the format war is over, the PS3's the obvious choice over the Xbox 360, given that I'm not a big gamer worried about exclusives. It's the best Blu-ray player, and I can play some games with it. For 'drama' movies, DVD is fine, but for the occasional F/X-heavy blockbuster, I'll want Blu-ray. ("Iron Man" will probably be my first Blu-ray purchase.)
I'm going to set up MediaTomb on my downstairs box as soon as I update to Ubuntu 8.04, and then it'll be a nice way to watch videos and play music, too.
Sony made a risky play hitching the PS3 to Blu-ray, but it seems to have paid off. Nintendo made a different risky play eschewing raw horsepower for simple, social games... and that paid off, too. Microsoft didn't take too many risks with the 360, and that doesn't seem to have paid off so hot. (Well, except for the risks that backfired on them.)
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
They've done multi-disc releases before (VII, VIII, XI). I don't think they'll have any issues doing it again.
I think by virtue of them achieving an identical experience on both consoles you subject yourself to some technical compromise. It's not going to squeeze every last drop of processing power out of either system.
Still, if they're developing on a layer that runs on both platforms, it bodes well for consistency. And honestly, I'm not worried about it looking substandard on either console.
MGS4 looked amazing, but with a story like theirs, what does it matter anyway? The game turned out to be more of the same "blah blah" Koijima nonsense that newcomers to the series couldn't possibly fathom (and even kept the veterans scratching their heads). Final Fantasy's reboot per game keeps people coming back. Thirteen times, to approximate ;)
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
What? I have never, ever considered that true. What are the best quality games on Nintendo systems? Typically Nintendo only games. What have been the highest quality games on the 360? Again, exclusives (even though most got a PC release 6 to 12 months later).
I can think of very few games that were of really high quality and were released on multiple systems simultaneously. Beyond Good and Evil, Timesplitters 2, umm... that's honestly all I can think of without venturing into the sports world.
Put up some examples before you start calling people delusional.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
I noticed this in other comments too. I find it interesting; I had no idea that the PS3 was the one with the cheap graphics card....I thought that they had more than just the cell processor going for them, I guess I was wrong.
Are you? Also isn't it small? And doesn't some 360s lack hard drive? And doesn't the harddrive cost a lot? How big is it?
Earlier I used to belive the 360 would cost as much or more than the PS3 with the same equipment and during it's whole life.
Now I don't know because it's so very cheap, but I guess the PS3 have fallen in price as well and live gold still cost money.
Did you ever play the PC versions of the Final Fantasy Games? They were a travesty, they crashed all the time. The drivers and support were a joke. The video codecs they used to play some of the videos and cut scenes didn't come with the game.... And the PC games do not work for crap on current hardware. The PS games work in the backwards compatible PS3 and PS2.
If Oblivion can fit on one disc, why can't this?
That's what I thought as well, and if this game requires install how much of an install? Especially if this is a 5-10 disk DVD ordeal on the xbox people are going to get pissy about it. Because OMG I a lost a disk, OMG my disk 7 is scratched, OMG, my xbox drive died from all the disk swapping....
Yes, the drives in the xbox's do have issues.
If you thought that based on FFVIII, then you must've had a monster PC back then. Square's PC coders have always been 3rd rate. Simply being on the world map in FFVIII would cause most computers to beg for mercy, and it's not like the geometry was that complicated or that the poly count was high.
FFXI is a great example of how bad their PC developers are. For the longest time they claimed they wouldn't allow FFXI to be windowable because of "DirectX limitations". Meanwhile, two different third parties developed add-ons that windowed the application, in addition to adding interface improvements and the like.
Five years after the original release, Square finally adds its own windowed mode, which they claim they figured out how to do in DirectX 9. And you know what? It runs at like half the frame rate in windowed mode. The third-party windower? No problems at all. It's ridiculous.
Couple that with the fact that each update to FFXI routinely breaks code that is completely unrelated to the items they list as updated. The last patch caused one ability, Sneak Attack, to be useable from any angle on the target, whereas it's supposed to only be from behind. Nothing in that patch had anything to do with Sneak Attack, the Thief class, new monsters, or anything. So why did it break?
MGS4 pretty much explained everything that happened in the series, hell they practically held your hand while doing it. I could imagine that people who had never played a Metal Gear (Solid) game before, especially MGS1&2 might be a little confused, but I thought they did a very good job of explaining everything.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
Great, now I just need the announcement that God of War 3 will be ported to Xbox360. Seriously, are there any good exclusive titles left on the PS3? MGS4 I guess, but most of the top titles on the PS3 are availiable on Xbox360 as well.
Fear is the mind killer.
Its as if millions of PS3 fanboys cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
Umm?
Yes, I did, it was a flawless experience to me. I'll admit the codecs were crappy and there were issues with the video quality but overall it was a great experience, as I am one of those final fantasy gamers who enjoyed it. It sure beats having to run it via an emulator.
My hope would be that they make it even prettier than Oblivion ;)
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
I'm sure you've heard it a billion times, but correlation != causation, and this sounds like a particularly egregious example.
I doubt Blizzard releases cross-platform in order to make their games higher quality. More likely, companies like Blizzard who release high quality games have more leeway to do what they want (they may have more money, a more devoted fanbase, a more lenient publisher, or something else), and this also allows them to release the games on multiple platforms.
Flawless, then you complain about the video quality and codecs, sounds truly flawless to me.
Having your save files not save, having it crash in the middle of cut scenes or boss fights, due to a codec error or a memory dump trace error. Having the music lock up because the port was terrible, and have an annoying chirp play over and over until you can get to a place to save again and close and reopen the game to get it to quit.
Flawless!
I just put a 250 GB hard drive in mine. $89.
Don't Vote for Norm Dicks! http://www.nodicks2008.com Another nutless dirtbag that voted for the FISA bill!
How does this comment even make any damn sense?
Blizzard doesn't release multi-platform to somehow magically "improve" the quality of their games.
They do it to expand their market base and make more money!
And you can't compare quality between cross platform games and single platform games in the way you're suggesting because there's no way to *see* how releasing Gran Turismo for the Xbox systems would've improved the game for the playstation.
Now, if you're suggesting that a company that is spending the money and resources to develop cross platform has more at stake and due to this has an increased awareness regarding game "quality", you may have a point, but the fact that excellent single platform games exist makes your point completely moot and specious.
They just ported a PS2 game to the 360. And they did an awful job of it, what with the besieged crashes, the neverloading fences in promies, etc. That's not really boosting my confidence in their ability.
Doesn't Never Ending Story have NEVER ENDING in the title? Shouldn't we have more sequels to this thing?
By that definition, some of us should still be in the freakin' theater waiting for the credits.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
That is their stated reasoning, not mine.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
There's still much repeated data on a Blu-Ray game on PS3, to compensate for slower drives. That cuts a lot of fat, so perhaps a cut-scene heavy game will "only" take 4 discs :)
We could also hope they use the in-game engine for cut-scenes, but this is Squenix, who are way too pre-render happy.
I take the sexy magical elf babes thank you very much, you can have monkeyboy.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I have this gripping fear YOU made that on a new account and uploaded that yourself.
It's ok. It's not your fault.
Sure Oblivion is great but where is the story, the character development, the iron rails I can follow easily towards the end?
Same with games like Baldur's Gate/Planescape Torment. Choices? Choosing my own destiny? Moral questions? No thanks! FF has its story laid out in front of you, what happens has all been decided. It makes for a far smoother and polished experience.
FF you are playing a movie and some people like that. No, not me, but I also know lots of people don't like Bioware games either.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The warp flutes were from Super Mario Bros. 3, not 1.
Cynical Idealist
I find this to be horribly off base. Historically going cross platform has meant lesser quality because you have to devote part of your development team to translating everything for the other platform... which means that CREATION of other things goes down. Instead of having another new feature, you're product is cross-platform. That sounds like lesser quality to me. Maybe more quantity but less quality.
The difference between then and now is that the big name games are going cross-platform. Games like Final Fantasy and Grand Theft Auto which are known for their quality have gone cross-platform and have and will hopefully continue to maintain their high standards of quality even despite crossing over. And notice that you nodded your head to these games going cross platform... that means they didn't start out that way and yet they are big.
personally I get the feeling you're a blizzard fan boy more than a gamer. Not to say they don't have good games but I don't see where their cross platforming has ever happened. Their most known games are PC games. Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo... all computer games.
And as for Astral's comment on WoW... he's pretty much right on that. Very large number of things to collect and do... that are all slight variations of one another. If my little brother didn't play it, I would have left it in my discard pile. It runs like a dream, no bugs and it is quite charming. Once that gets boring, though, there isn't anything left to entertain you.
For the last ~24 hours I've been watching the greatest fanboy shitstorm unfold. It's fantastic.
I suggest GameFAQS. Never thought I'd say that.
For the record I don't really hold an allegiance to either, it's just fun watching people go insane.
Sex. Drugs, and Unix.
Just one question: Will the 360 version be a bare bones, no-cutscenes version, or will it sport 5 discs, or more? I mean, taking MGS4 as an example, that game renders all cutscenes in-game, yet _still_ fills up a whole dual layer BD, meaning 50 GB of textures and sound (minus some GB of double content for better reading performance, I know).
Not to pee in your cheerios, but Virtua Fighter 5 (initially touted as a PS3 exclusive, too) was released with fancier graphics and online multiplayer with exceptional netcode exclusively on the 360. Basically, I can sit here and play VF5 with friends in Japan from my sofa in the US with no perceived latency all evening while PS3 users are stuck playing only people in the same room with less detail and features on their "technically superior" console.
If the game turns out to require multiple discs, I'd assume there would be an option to copy game data to the HDD, as many 360 users have 120GB drives nowadays. Microsoft, although having had hurdles with hardware problems, tends to push for a great gaming experience on the 360.
It's probably going to be detrimental to my karma to suggest we wait and see instead of just assuming anything to do with the 360 is going to crap up the game or offer a lesser experience. It's entirely likely Microsoft will try to make another example out of any former Sony exclusive franchise.
An interesting sidenote, with the announcement that the 360 can install games to the HDD, but you have to have the disc in (for verification that you own the game), if they allowed a full game install of FFXIII, allowing the first disc to be the "verification" disc, the "LOL1l!! multiple disc" arguement would go away. Get on in MS, for those who don't like getting off the couch every 10 hours.
Making gamers get up of the couch every ten hours significantly increases the amount of exercise they take. This translates into a longer life expectancy and that translates into a shallower drop in the revenue vs time projection for the console.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
borderline science fiction.
I think you mean "steampunk" :)
Brilliant moderation. Just because a few other people replied in the time it took me to reply, I am now redndant (check the timestamps next time maybe?). Please mod this one down too. I personally like flaembait, although I have a big knotted club in my closet, so troll works too.
As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable Slashdot 2.0.
Let's see: 4.7 GB x 4 discs = 18.8 GB. Until recently, the standard HDD for the 360 was 20 GB, with only about 13-14 GB actually usable. While you could probably do a "core" install and leave most of the textures on disc, you're still going to need to swap out discs occasionally.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
Could you show me some places where they make this statement? I'm not challenging you, as I don't see why you'd have any reason to lie. I'd just like to see their wording for myself, so that I can see if I think they really mean what you say they mean.
Achievements are free. In fact Xbox Live Silver (The free version) does everything Xbox live Gold ($50 a year) except allow online multiplayer, voice chat, and Gold members are the first to see new content (like demos), Silver users get the rest for free.
FFVIII ran just fine on my not so very powerful computer when it was first released. As for FFXI, which I played for a little while, the performance is just absolutely pitiful on ALL platforms it was released on. On most reasonable systems, the game runs like a slide show when there are more than a few objects in view at the same time.
I think it was because Neverending Story II was really, really bad. So bad, in fact, that the Luck Dragon died after getting a whiff of the awful stench of people made physically ill after watching it in theatres. Without the Luck Dragon, there is no Neverending Story.
It is known that on Blueray, because it is so big, they have to repeat data several times across the tracks to reduce seek time. They have somewhat gotten around this by loading about 4gigs of the 9 onto the HD. Both of these items can be fixed by simply splitting the disks, which as other people have also stated, will probably be done if need be. Who even says it will be needed?
a bad reference, but the first one I found
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
It will have 18 hours of cutscenes.
Care to back that (in my eyes, blatantly wrong) claim with examples?
I think it's the exact opposite.
Compare GTA4 to "Uncharted: Drake's Territory".
Compare "Assassins Creed" to "Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction"
The visual quality and feel of the exclusive titles is _way_ smoother and better than the two cross platform titles.
Compare Crysis to Gears Of War for PC.
Gears of war feels like someone accidentally released a console game for PC without bothering to change a single comma, while Crysis feels like it's actually made for the machine you are playing it on.
I don't have an xbox 360, so I can't say how their exclusive titles compare, but on PS3 the exclusive titles are of remarkably higher quality than the cross platform ones.
It makes sense to me that focusing on a single machine, with all it's strengths and weaknesses, gives you the opportunity to avoid weak spots and exploit strengths fully, while cross platform releases will usually opt for the lowest common denominator for the consoles, and then maybe bolt on some half-assed platform specific features afterwards (like pretty much every cross platform titles use of SIXAXIS on PS3).
Give me liberty or give me kill -s 9
I got a 360 since it had more games that interested me. I figured I would get a PS3 once FF came out. Now, Sony won't get my money. I wonder how many other people feel the same.
I am betting each console will have exclusive content. That may lure some people, but not me. I'll be just fine missing out on a small part of the game and just play it on the 360.
I feel a bit bad for Sony, though. I want all the consoles to be successful to keep competition high and prices down. This is really going to hurt them in the NA markets. Then again, with how weak the dollar is, we may not be the market the world cares as much about now.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Having dealt with the "players" of those "10 million player RPGs" I'd rather slam my dick in a car door than play one.
"Toughslam" -- Progress from a Kia coupe to the cargo door of a C-130 military transport! Can your dick take being slammed between the unforgiving metal?
New this Fall from GeminiDomino Games!
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
Is that guy for real? I can't really tell.
Give me liberty or give me kill -s 9
They've done multi-disc releases before (VII, VIII, XI). I don't think they'll have any issues doing it again.
I think by virtue of them achieving an identical experience on both consoles you subject yourself to some technical compromise.
I wouldn't think that Squenix would have any issues doing that, either. Mind you, it might be just wishful thinking on my part, but SE just gave up the one major technical advantage the Blu-ray platform would have made possible: a non-linear gaming experience (maybe for the first time in the series?). Not that I think Square was actually planning to give us that (would depend on the story, anyway), but restricting themselves to traditional, linear gameplay just to be able to do a multi-platform release, might just not be the wisest of choices.
Finally, while I do see the point of selling to more than double (or, in next year's numbers, roughly double) the installed user base, Square/Enix clearly seems to have forgotten the meaning of the term 'system seller' (yet they do remember it for the Japanese market), and to what extent that always was synonymous with a new Final Fantasy franchise. In my case, personally, that means no pre-order, not a must-buy anymore. I'll wait for the in-depth reviews, and might just happily wait for the platinum version as well, if the game turns out to be sub-par compared to what it could have been.
What a shame if Square/Enix just found a second foot to stand on only to shoot themselves in the other.
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Apparently it was a bad experience for you, and I'm sorry for that. I'm not here for sympathy, I'm just saying my experience didn't match yours. As I said "overall it was a great experience". Did you never patch it or have some kind of other issues? I never recalled having that kind of crap occur. Just a little sluggish and not as good quality as on the PS was what I meant.
I think in your examples, there is a difference between a port and something that was developed to be cross platform.
Developing with the original intent to be cross platform requires some fundamental changes in how you design the system.
Porting something means things tend to be buggy, slower, and "foreign" feeling on the port system.
I think you see a big difference in quality between titles from companies that traditionally release cross platform games, and ones that either pay a porting house to do the work or decide to add a second platform as an afterthought.
Although you're definitely right that the guy's claim makes no sense.
Nonsense.. It's well known that developers shoehorning a title onto a different platform with different controllers and hardware doesn't make for a better game, it only means you have a single game which was written for the lowest common denominators of all platforms.
In PC software portability is a good thing just by itself, because it's more likely to run well on the vast numbers of different configurations. On consoles this isn't a problem.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
You do have a point. Who needs multiple discs if the pre-rendered cutscenes can be in SD and the texture quality stay of the same quality as in FF XII?
;)
In any other case, though, just wait and you'll see.
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
EVEN IF YOU HAVE A FIRST-GEN BLU-RAY PLAYER, YOU CAN PLAY *ANY* MOVIE, EVEN THOSE WITH ENHANCED FEATURES THAT YOUR PLAYER DOESN'T SUPPORT.
Got it?
Furthermore, content producers have (so far) made sure that 100% of the "Bonus View" content is viewable in 1080p full-screen on older players that are incapable of viewing the extras in an thumbnail.
I did read about a Samsung BD player for which Samsung had not released firmware updates to fix compatibility issues. These are the same types of issues that we saw with DVD when there were huge compatibility problems for the first few years. Early non-upgradeable DVD players costing $2,000 couldn't even play DL discs that were part of the original DVD spec. Early adopters were screwed. Even the earlier PS2 models had horrible compatibility as a DVD player. There continued to be numerous players that had compatibility issues with specific movies and were never addressed. This case of a Samsung BD player is different, because the player *is* firmware-upgradeable (as required by the BD spec), but the manufacturer isn't putting out an update and has not admitted to a flawed design.
With the flute thing, I question that you beat SMB 1 let alone played it. Can you show me some proof of said accomplishment?
Come on. You don't need this to rationalize the purchase of a PS3: it is (or was) the cheapest of Blu-Ray player on the market.
See I had the opposite side of the spectrum, I love the game, but it was a terrible botch job port.
Badly executed, in my experience.
I doubt they'll do a multi-disc approach. It may have been acceptable in the time of the Playstation but now it doesn't seem very vogue to not be able to fit all your content on one disc.
Also there's definitly no chance they'll forgo cutscenes alltogether.
I would assume they'll just dumb down the graphics.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/3402.html
More like Score 5: Funny!
Get off the couch every 10 hours?! Heavens forbid! Microsoft has screwed me again!
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
No, the argument would not go away. There are still plenty of xbox's out there with small harddrives or no harddrives at all. That was a great thing about the ps3, they were all guaranteed to have at least 20gig harddrives.
Hopefully they offer both, compress the movies and textures enough to fit the entire game on one disc. Then include as many other discs as necessary with the full quality content to be copied to the HD if you want to, then if its there the game uses it rather than the lower quality stuff. Very simple, and would decrease load times a bunch.
And we just want to remind our clients that none of our games will ever use intrusive copy protection. If your friends want to try slamming their dicks in car doors, by all means! If they like it, encourage them to buy a copy, so that we can continue to bring you great genital-mutilating games, like our up-and-coming "Toughslam 2 - Will it blend?"
A discussion of other reasons to buy a PS3 besides an exclusive game, specifically in reply to a comment discussing that, is offtopic? Uh, well, okay...
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
...Darth Vader on the PS3 version of Soul Calibur IV!
Sure, you get Yoda on the Xbox 360, but come on man, it's Darth Vader!
You bring up an interesting point, although unintentionally I think. 3-4 DVDs for one game is an awful lot of hard drive space. If we're talking dual layer (I have no idea how large the game actually is!) then you're looking at 20-35GB. Which isn't so bad, unless you realize MS requires proprietary HDDs. One thing I love about the PS3 (and this was a major selling point...) I can buy any off the shelf hard drive, and install it in minutes. For example, 320gb notebook SATA drives are around 100 bucks, and that kind of storage blows anything MS is selling out of the water. It's also a good bit cheaper.
That being said, I'm pretty happy with this announcement, if only for the fact that my Xbox friends can enjoy the same game. When this was announced, it was like a reverse Bioshock. Xbox owners acknowledged that the game does, in fact, look awesome ^.^
At the moment, "installs" on consoles are at the tech level of 1990 PC: No better than "xcopy * c:\mygame". As time goes on, they'll get better at it but at the moment its pathetically inflexible.
A difficulty I see is the restrictions based upon "supported SKU". The XBox 360 has a supported model with no hard drive. This forces most games to conform to always running from disk even if the hardware is available. The PS3 has 20GB version. This means no game can ever have an "install" that is that large (hence the goofiness you saw in MGS4).
There are ways to do seamless and diskless games. I expect they'll learn the lessons PC developers learned decades ago, probably the hard way, before they approach what is offered on Mac and PC.
*snicker*
:)
Let me know when GeminiDomino Games is hiring mo-cap models... I can think of some people I'd like to volunteer...
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
You forgot Mystic Quest (probably on purpose :-), the Final Fantasy Legend series (Awesome!) Final Fantasy Adventure, and a whole ton of other stuff I'm leaving out...
Say what you will about Square, but they sure know how to make (and sell) games.
OFFTOPIC. I have been away for awhile ... but this thread reminded me of value of /. Somehow, the reply filters and short posts, even if flame, convey more information than even Wikipedia can.
Good news for MS, and SE I suppose. And FF fans who already have a 360. But I just don't get the FF love. I know, I know, it's a matter of opinion. Last time I tried playing a FF demo I had to change dresses to gain powers and that was just about the most ridiculous gameplay element I'd ever experienced.
At yesterday's E3 announcement from Microsoft, the autumn update for the 360 was unveiled. One of the new features is the optional ability to install your games to the hard drive for fast loading times and no disc switching (if it's a multiple-disc game). You still need to insert the primary disc for the game, to prove you own it, but once it's verified the disc is in the drive it won't spin it up at all and will just read from the disk.
The 360 Elite comes with a 120GB drive. I presume (read: hope) Premium and Core consoles can be fitted with this drive too.
A block of code, sufficiently well-written, is indistinguishable from magick.
First WiiWare, now 360, next thing you know, Square Enix is gonna be developing iPod games.
Get on in MS, for those who don't like getting off the couch every 10 hours.
What about bathroom breaks? No, wait.... I'm not sure I want the answer to that
Does anyone else find themselves in the predicament of liking Japanese video games, especially the FF series, but are also nauseated by modern Japanese anime pop culture? From the ostentatious mega-tech, convoluted melodrama, ridiculous attitude, the young porcelain models, extreme and obvious lack of physics, to, worst of all, the god damn hairdos, I'm really sick of it! It wasn't too noticeable in 7, but by 8 the crap was here to stay. Maybe I stand alone here, but hipster sunglasses and cell phones are two things I would like to never again see in a FF game (or any modern 21st century dress style for that matter). This kind of pop culture worship really cheapens the promised "fantasy" for me.
I remember hearing that the combat in this game was supposed to be modeled after the action sequences in "Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children". Knowing this, they couldn't pay me to play it. It looks like they finally managed to rid the FF series of anything I ever liked about it with this one. I wonder if it's going to have another "garment grid". Maybe I'll pick them back up again if it ever looks like they're going to quit putting style over substance.
You may have modded me as a troll, but you know I am right. Try real sex and not just masturbation sometime, moderator - its great.
Where do you get 4.7gigs? Last I heard 360 DVDs had 7 gigs of usable space.
The only thing is I havnt seen anyone buiding super computers out of the 360s tri-cored PowerPC knock off chip; http://http//www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6440737610.html/SuperPS3 Seems like maybe there is plenty of power there?
Ohh spiteful one tell me who to smote and he shall be smolten!
Yes, but it is excess power that does not improve the quality of gameplay. As I said before: both are more than good enough.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
... you're a fanboy and ought to feel bad about it. This is good example of excellent business sense on the behalf of SquareEnix.
Very good, thank you. I would mod you up, but I think I can't because I've already commented on this article. I can see now how releasing cross-platform does result in higher-quality games (I'm not convinced that it's the best or most cost-effective way, but given that no one ever claimed it was, that doesn't matter).
This is not quite true. Seek times are reduced when you have more data in the same 12cm space. Although the CLV nature of the drive offsets that somewhat.
I'll just mention that 2 particular FF titles have started life on the PS [PS1, to be specific], and eventually got ported to the PC. The opposite of what you mentioned.
Those are games 7 and 8, for the record.
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
That was pretty vague with what you said. Did you intend to reply to me and/or can you clarify what part of what I said you were disputing?
Playstation is PS is PS1 is PSOne, although they weren't developed for the PS One. Playstation One, which is not what they were built on.
And don't forget that those 50GB Blu-Ray DVD's are going to be chalk-full of FMV. Pretty much everyone seems to be making their games and then, when they see room left on disc, filling it with FMV, or cut-scenes. So 360 owners will be both screwed and pissed when they open their 6 DVD thick game case...
The only reason I never liked multiple discs is because that's just more discs that could get lost or scratched.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Dear god no. No more linear crap like oblivion.
Seriously though, with the install to HD capabilities of the PS3, and the soon to be capabilities of the 360. Blu-Ray doesn't matter as to whether you can be linear or not.
Vermifax
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I was worried that I would need to buy a PS3 for this game alone. Since I don't know anyone who has bought a ps3 (they all have 360's and wii's) I was worried this would be the time to have to buy one.
This is great news for people who enjoy the FF games, but do not enjoy having to fork over so much money to play 1 or 2 games they might enjoy.
TruePunk | Games
Blu-ray is a limitation. It has far too much capacity for any practical use. It's one of the reasons why MPEG2 is one of the official BD video codecs in spite of MPEG4 - so the movie studios can waste space.
When the 360 FF13 is released expect it to need nowhere near 50GB. Maybe as little as two DVDs.
Your logic makes no sense. So what if you've got MORE space to deal with, how is that a bad thing? How is that a limitation? That's like saying faster processors are a bad thing because it makes programmers lazy.
It's read speeds are a limitation for games on the PS3, but you didn't even mention that.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Yay! Do I get new magical powers when I go up a level?
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Games designed to use a hard drive (like on the PS3) are quicker then games not designed to use a hard drive, and are simply copied to a hard drive for faster access time (360).
Consider Caching to be one example.
Ah, thanks for the info, I didn't doubted it would be impossible to put a game on the harddrive, but since Microsoft cheeped out / intelligently decided that the console couldn't cost too much and it lost harddrive and hd-dvd as default it's been hard to trust that that functionality will be there, sure "requires harddrive" are no more different than "requires 20 slots on memory card", but still system requirements on a console game is a little weird and if it was a piece which couldn't be upgraded many people would feel betrayed.
Ok, 120GB is an improvement, but still the dual layer BD-discs holds 50GB or what is it? Not many games of that size will fit in there .. All I knew was that the first disk was 20GB and that it cost 995 sek if I remember correctly, which is more than half the price of the 360 Arcade currently, ie very expensive for something not worth much at all and which should had been there from the beginning (just as Apples hardware options.)
Also I would assume many game developers feel it may be a bad move to require a harddrive if less consumers have it, or for HD-DVD if the optional drive would still be there.
But currently I can't say that 360 seems like a bad console, Arcade version cost 1900 sek where Wii costs 2400 sek and PS3 cost 3900. I don't know how the game situation looks nowadays but from what I've understood on others comments the PS3 don't offer much in the game world which the 360 lacks, so the 360 seems like the definite best value of the three.
Nintendo as always gets the most profit though, selling an overclocked gamecube with a new controller for 2400 sek instead of 700 sek as the gamecube was in the late days of it's life :)
(360 elite cost 3300 so not that price worthy longer, still a better value than a Wii but as the Nintendo fanboy/rescuer I am I know what I'd prefer... If only Wii did HD as well :))
If I was Sony I'd feel kind of betrayed and fooled by Microsoft into the "I can overspec you!"-race where they had to throw in a super expensive drive just to not lose the war and then Microsoft opted out for a much cheaper alternative, effectively putting a stopp to Sonys lead. (And since games are made for multiple platforms I doubt PS3 owners really get the best value/performance they can get since developers may think of the other platforms as well and try to make things similar on all platforms.)
Anyhow, sorry for spam and thanks for you information :)
It's likely FF13 will require a hefty amount of space for installation. Those with the 20GB Xbox 360s are in for a treat.
You have to give Sony props for the use of an easily upgradable HDD.
This word you keep using, "Final": I do not think it means what you think it does.
Actually, it won't play PAL DVDs. I'm talking about the US PS3, of course. Even "all region" DVDs, of which I have a decent collection, it will refuse to play if the format is PAL. It annoys the hell out of me.
Otherwise, it does make a good upscaler. It is far from completely replacing my regular DVD player, though.
N/T
I would be interested to know just how big the bribe it takes to win SquareEnix's biggest title.
Linear? Oblivion? Dear god man, I don't know that flavour crack you're smoking but there are very few games that are as open as the Elder Scrolls series. I should know - between the various games I've put in 6-700 hours of gameplay...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Could we get an "oxymoron" tag please?
To quote Lionel Hutz: "This is the biggest case of product misrepresentation since the Never Ending Story!"
Wooshhhhhh......
Either they should drop the price, or start including 4 games with each console, its getting stupid now that its on par 360 price.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
They're a good company with a few issues. They can stop their bad habits. any time they want.
I mean, taking MGS4 as an example, that game renders all cutscenes in-game, yet _still_ fills up a whole dual layer BD, meaning 50 GB of textures and sound (minus some GB of double content for better reading performance, I know).
The Japanese ISO is apparently 46.6GB, and it seems like 16GB of that is just padding. The MGS4 game data is 30GB, minus around 2.5GB for Metal Gear Online. It looks like the cutscenes take up around 12GB (I gathered that from the names of some of the files). There is a japanese site with a full folder listing of the files and their respective sizes. All I could find was this pic though: http://i32.tinypic.com/2b1574.jpg (1600 x 1000)
As someone has pointed out, the PS3 hard drive is in no way proprietary - you can switch it for any 2.5" SATA drive. It's the Xbox 360 that has an expensive, proprietary hard drive - they've taken some fairly impressive measures, including requiring digital signatures on the drives, to stop someone slipping in their own, cheaper, standard drive.
Except on the PS2 of course.
Someone appreciates me :P
Vermifax
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Oops. You guys are right. I initially wrote my post to include SMB3 but changed it to SMB1 and the whole whistle/flute thing doesn't work in SMB1 obviously...
-516
I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of Sony fanboys cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
DONT BE A XBL GAME! The previous Final Fantasy for Xbox was only Live and those kind of games take up too much time! I don't want to be playing the same damn game for more than two weeks. Sorry, but being addicted to the same game for years is fun in middle school and maybe highschool, but definitely not after the age of 20.