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Square Enix To Concentrate On Remaking Their Back Catalog
An anonymous reader writes: You may remember that at E3, the major announcement from Square Enix and Sony wasn't a new game, but rather that Square Enix would be remaking Final Fantasy VII in HD and releasing it for PS4 first. Square Enix's recent annual report indicates that they intend to make more HD remakes of old titles. Like many Japanese developers, they indicate in the report that they also intend to focus more on mobile platforms, including porting more of their back catalog to mobile devices. With the impending release of Final Fantasy XV, Square Enix knows a thing or two about rehashing old content, but Square Enix also owns the Dragon Quest, Deus Ex, and Tomb Raider series, giving them a fairly large library to give the HD treatment to.
And wish them well in confusing lots of teen boys and girls.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Essentially they've run out of ideas and need to get on with rehashing everything?
And here I though this might be limited to Hollywood, with their endless reboots because they lack anyone who can up with something new.
Because, really, we don't need to see the Spider Man origin story again.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Or better, a list of problems:
1. the population that they are targeting with nostalgic remakes is almost entirely through "the point of no more gaming" - that moment you no longer buy 1/5 the games you did because adulthood catches up
2. they don't really have that many games that can be salvaged in an economically efficient way. FF7 remake should be proof of that when the production costs come out - you can't reuse the most expensive stuff, which is basically source code, graphical assets and marketing initiatives
3. remakes might be easier to digest for critics (it's hard to see a game remake getting bad rep), but at the same time, the moment they get one instance of generalized REALLY BAD criticism on a remake (especially the first ones), every project you have on the pipeline with bucks spent is gonna suffer the consequences. This doesn't happen with a single very bad game.
4. I understand this being a financial decision by a gaming company , but this encumbers human development indirectly - newcomers purchasing these games are gonna face cultural clash with them, since they weren't made for this point of time, especially their stories, while their genres, even despite a rework, will be out of place (time*)
In any case, I hope for the best. I'm a big fan of anything Squeenix. But I would rather they pay the big bucks, purchase Mistwalker, and bring back old timer Sakaguchi, Uematsu et al, and just play on with the sure win match plan
yeah, but i will. Why? because it's fun. And I don't have to break out an older system and hook it up, and try to get it working.
It's not ideas video game companies have run out of. It's consumer trust.
Gamers are increasingly reluctant to shell out full price for even "AAA" software these days. We're now into, by my personal reckoning at least, at least 7 years of declining standards and/or patchy product quality from even the most trusted studios. 15 years ago Square released FFX which, despite its flaws, was leagues above anything they've done recently, in terms of value, design, and innovation. So, when faced with a choice of the newer dus, or the proven older titles, I think a lot of gamers are simply choosing to go with the classics they know are good, verses the new titles which are increasingly becoming a crap shoot.
It's the same for practically every major studio, declining game quality across the board. Konami with the MGS series, Ubisoft with Assassin's creed, EA with Battlefront, Bethesda with ES, ID with Doom 3 and Rage, EA with Mass Effect 3, the list goes on. Valve have basically stopped making games. Recent years have seen an increasing rate of high profile, high priced duds being released by top studios and gamers as consumers have become increasingly skeptical and wary of new and even existing IPs.
We're now seeing AAA games release with zero-day patches on consoles -- consoles. In 2006 on 6th gen you couldn't patch the game, but now consumers are routinely expected to not only pay for but in fact pre-order what may well be a public late beta. There are only so many times people can get burned before they become permanently skeptical and consequently over-cautious with their money, and I think the game industry past that point several years ago. Square is simply reaping the consequences of it's failure to maintain its brand reputation for quality and value over the last 10 years. So is the entire industry.
Granted, converting a PS2 game to a PS3 game was a significantly easier task since they were able to re-render all the environments and models for 1080P and recycle those, but they went above and beyond and recreated all the menus too. X was a beautiful game and it showed in the remake.
I also enjoyed the release of FFIII and FFIV on the DS. If they give the same care and attention to the other games they wish to remake, they'll do really well.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Hey. C'mere. There's these things called "emulators", and you don't have to hook up shit. You don't even have to buy anything.
What we really need is Einhänder 2 on modern consoles.
There are composite / S-Video to HDMI converters, have you tried those? Check on eBay, they're not too expensive.
Circumcision is child abuse.
If their Final Fantasy 7 "remake" is anything to go by, they'll be making liberal changes to the entire thing anyway. Final Fantasy 7 is getting action-focused combat instead of its excellent active time turn based system. It will be less of a strategic affair as a result. Very different from what veterans of the franchise are expecting, buy perhaps we're not the target audience. Maybe these changes are being made to appeal to a new generation of gamers. Be warned and temper expectations.
Twinstiq, game news
Though a gamepad is highly recommended, playing these oldies with a mouse and keyboard is...weird....
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
There was a time, back in the SNES and PSX era, that Squaresoft could do no wrong. That time has passed. Their new games are a mess, and they've realized that the only way they're going to stay in business is to remake their old ones. That being said, they're fixing to fuck up FF7 the same way they've fucked up their more recent offerings.
I think part of the problem may be that Squeenix doesn't have the slightest fucking clue about the American market. As far as I can tell, they're trying to go for the action gamer market and sell a gazillion copies the way the big third person action franchises do, but by and large, those people aren't really the ones who are interested in JRPGs. And in the process of *trying* to appeal to that market, they alienate their core audience (most of which has walked away by this point).
Now, it's entirely possible that the JRPG core audience just isn't big enough to support the development of AAA titles, but I judging by their surprise at how well Bravely Default did in the states, I have a feeling they're vastly underestimating how many people would be interested in a more classic JRPG feel.
Why not just say, "climactic"?
Or are you a little non-anti-unsmart?
Emphasis, although the same emphasis could be achieved with the phrase "truly climactic".
He effected a bored affect.