Well, here's my thoughts. There are quite a few people (even people here in the US that I know) that are buying the PS3 specifically for FF13. If FF13 comes out on more than one system, they no longer have an incentive to buy a PS3. However, the 360 does not market itself well to the Japanese, and it tends to leave a sour taste in their mouth. In "putting off" buying a PS3 for FF13, they may very well just eventually decide to skip over it. But you might be right, in that the Wii probably wouldn't benefit from this. However, I don't think it would hurt the Wii either, seeing as though no ever thought that FF13 was going to be on it.
The more I think about it, however, the more I think, "why not port it to the Wii?" Sure you'll get a resolution loss, but not much more than just the transition from HD to ED. I've actually been surprised at the number of PS3/360 games that were ported to the Wii and seem to do fairly well. When I think about it, even if the game was made for the measly GameCube, it would look far more advanced than on the PS2, where lack of anti-aliasing really really hurt the graphics.
For example, I'm playing Tales of the Abyss right now, for the PS2. The last installment, "Tales of Symphonia" was on the GameCube, and, unfortunately, this latest installment looks far inferior, and feels very graphically glitchy. And the Wii isn't just a GameCube either.
Seeings as though these games take quite a few years to do (FF12 took four, but that was because of some legistical nightmares), and the fact that we're already seeing game engine screen shots, I think they're probably coming down the home stretch. That does not mean that it would be difficult to port. In fact, the basic coding is probably one of the easiest steps in making a modern RPG, and since both the PS3 and the 360 support the white engine, it would take virtually no time at all (in comparison to the rest of the process). If you go to any RPG oriented site (RPGFan.com, even IGN and other major online gaming magazines), you'll see a number of screenshots, some pre-rendered, some game engine.
Bottom line is, fans already know what to expect, it's going to be difficult to convince them to back off of that.
Since neither FFVII nor FFVIII use much in the way of transparency, this solution would have been feasible for Square's use.
This is incorrect. In fact, FFVII was one of the first times I noted the use of 3D, polygonal transparancy on a console. Think about all the magic effects, like the starburst-light sources that emmenate out from characters before they cast spells. Those are all fairly advanced forms of 3D transparancy, using animated textures that had featered alpha channels. That's just one example; in fact, pretty much all the spell animations had heavy use of 3D transparancy. Some were 2D sprites, but many were fully polygonal. The Saturn would have not been able to handle these... and seeing that they were the 3D representation of the same kinds of sprite effects that had been used throughout the series, Square would have had no options on the Saturn.
I'm just curious... this is a blow that could potentially mean the end of a console line. Sure, it isn't official, but even the fact that it's in question is pretty big gaming news. Why is it not a full post?
I highly doubt it... although as an owner of a Wii and not of a 360, I would be very happy if that were the case.
No, FF13 requires really really high resolution graphics, and even I am not about to argue that the Wii could handle anywhere close to that. With the lavish graphics we've been seeing (even if the bulk of which are pre-rendered), downgrading to the Wii's graphical capabilities would piss a lot of people off, and Square's long-time success has come from making fans happy. Now, it's not completely unthinkable that S-E might make a lower-res version for the Wii, as well. In fact, that makes some sense, since this may mean the end of the PS3, which means that the Wii automatically dominates Japan. Even if FF13 were to go to the 360, it isn't a given that Japan would start buying up 360s overnight... but they sure as hell wouldn't buy PS3s.
We're witnessing 1996 all over again, here: consoles hanging in the balance with a Final Fantasy. The fact is, even if Final Fantasy games are NOT sone of the all-time best selling games (outside Japan), the fanbase is so dedicated that it WILL sell many many consoles. It, and Dragon Quest, are really the only 3rd party series that really has the ability to pull the strings like this.
I know one thing, if I were a JRPG developer right now like Namco-Banai, I'd shitting myself waiting for the shoe to drop (Namco would most likely go Nintendo, as they've done in the past, especially isn't most of their series aren't based around eye-candy).
Not in the slightest. Square would have no way or reason to go multi-platform until now. FFX came out before the GameCube and Xbox even launched... what would they have gone to... back to the N64? No way, that's the one they ditched in the first place. The PS1/N64/Saturn generation was no contest, either. The N64 didn't have the media they needed, and the Saturn didn't have the robust 3D graphics processing they needed, Square had no choice. FF4, in its infancy, was designed with a patched NES engine. The SNES gave Square everything they needed in hardware. I guess they could have gone Sega... but their relationship with Nintendo was at their absolute peak.
So no, there has never even been a choice, due to technical or marketing reasons, up until now. There would, therefor, be no reason for Square to "threaten" anyone to go multi, since noone would believe them.
I can just hear the interchanges:
Square: "Sony, give us a good deal on PS2 exclusivity" Sony: "or what? You're gonna go back to the N64?" Square: "...."
Square-Enix: "Sony, give us a good deal on PS3 exclusivity" Sony: "or what? You're going to move over to the 360" Square-Enix: "That's about right" Sony: "....."
I don't think "blow the pants off" is quite accurate. It does better, but Final Fantasy is still VERY popular, selling at least 80% of the DQ series. These are the #1 and #2 best selling series in Japan... being a strong #2 is not something to cry about.
Also, in worldwide sales, Final Fantasy does, here, "blow the pants off" of Dragon Quest. The 360 is also the dominant system outside Japan. Porting a series that's very popular in the US to a platform that is selling very well in the US (and Europe), just seems like a good business strategy.
But seriously, I'm not in the least bit surprised. In fact, I've been expecting FF13 to go cross-platform for quite some time now. Square has more reason to go cross-platform, now more than ever before. When they were with Nintendo, they were pretty tight, and were more intimately familliar with their hardware design. They switched to Sony only because Nintendo screwed them with the N64. FFX came out long before the XBox or GameCube, and even FF12 was in progress while those consoles were in their infancy. And up until now, there hasn't been any direct competition with Sony that revolved around the exact same user-base. That's changed... and we have two very similar consoles, with similar (or at least potentially similar) install bases. The fact that Square has already jumped ship on many other titles, makes me think they're not adverse to doing so with any... and it just seems the safest, and most ecconomical, to do so.
There's only one line of reasoning as to why they would be better off remaining exclusive. That is that if the PS3 were to fail, the resistance to the 360 in Japan may not simply go away over-night... meaning NO ONE would have a system capable of buying and playing FF13 on. If they were to port FF13 to the 360, the Japanese may simply ditch the series as well as the PS3, and go completely over to the Wii. Still, in the US, where Final Fantasy is the strongest, porting FF13 to the 360 would generate enormous sales, enough to counter any strange occurences that Japan might provide.
I gave FF13 a 75% chance of going over to the 360, back in November... this news raises that to about 90%.
It's going to go, let's just sit back and watch the fireworks.
You'd think that... but nope. FF12 was a huge success, wild acclaim, won many "game of the year" awards, and brought a lot of innovations to the genre. If you're not into JRPGs, it's kinda hard to understand, I know, but it's just the way things are.
I like to view video game sequels as more along the lines of albums by a band or composer [rather than like movie sequels]: some groups just keep getting better, some drop off, some come back again. I even know quite a few that, in their old age, release the most original stuff of their career (King Crimson, for example, whome are nearing their 40th anniversary). The Final Fantasy team(s) really have shown that they have what it takes. I expect them to continue making benchmark-worthy games for at least another decade. For one thing, they're not really sequels, in the traditional sense, as much as a mini-genre, since they have no connecting universe, story or characters, besides a few camios. So the developers can, and do, make huge changes from game to game... sometimes more than a whole genre will do in the same period of time.
Besides Dragon Quest, no single-player RPG has ever come close to the acclaim that the Final Fantasy series has. The "Tales" series is probably the next closest of the genre, which is getting more and more publicity in the US, but even that has a long way to go.
I don't really understand why the 360 has any connection to HD-DVD in the first place. None of the games are HD-DVD, and (hopefully) that will stay that way in order to maintain compatability. What's more is that the HD-DVD player is a separate unit. So, basically, if you buy an XBox 360, you can buy a separate HD-DVD player for only $200! (sounds like a silly infomercial). Let's not fool ourselves, the 360 is NOT an HD-DVD console. Obviously, the price is very nice, since you're not having to pay another $500 for a standalone HD-DVD player.
I just wish Microsoft had never attatched any concept of HD-DVD to their system, because it seems kinda rediculous to do so, when it really isn't. Adding an internal HD-DVD drive is going to be even more confusing, as people are going to start thinking that the games (which, come on, is 90% of why people buy one of these things) will be on HD-DVDs and their old models will be left in the dust.
I've heard the convenience arguement again and again, but it just doesn't seem worth it for the confusion it will cause the product line.
I just don't get Slashdot editors sometimes. A few months back, I sent in a submission that got posted, regarding the sale of Clear Channel. I had included a paragraph about some of my own experiences as a Clear Channel employee that I thought were insightful and relievant to the subject matter, but the whole paragraph (half the submission) was cut, and I was a bit upset. Here we have an example of someone spouting off stupid, uninformed bullshit that could have been answered with a "yes" or "no" question in about 2 minutes, and the editors keep it. What gives?
Eh, I think you sorta missed the point of what I was saying. I said that, specifically: quality and (low) price, have little to do with what people think of as status symbols, hence my Timex/Rolex analogy. A Timex (like a PS3) does it's job better, has more features, and is cheaper, yet the wealthy would NEVER buy one, because it defeats THEIR purpose of having a watch: as a status symbol. I've spent some time around the super-rich. I went to a private college, and quite a few of my friends were from fairly well-to-do famillies. Now, being young and tech minded, they didn't see technology as a status symbol, and had consoles, and home built computers, and whatnot. But when I would go to their familly's places for spring break, or whatever, it was very clear that their famillies thought of technology otherwise.
So I'll refresh you: A) Being cheap is going to hurt the "status symbol" image of the PS3 as a home theatre. B) It's outward appearence does not support the traditional image of being extremely classy and sophisticated. C) "games are for the unsophisticated, why should I support such a barbaric passtime?" D) Quality is one of the least important things to defining a status symbol.
Oh, for sure. For a console which has fairly unique design characteristics, like the DS or the Wii, the best games are always going to be those that are specifically designed with those consoles in mind. The control schemes for the DS and the Wii, while unique and provide for some new gameplay, aren't neccessarilly "better" than the older setups, they're just different, which means that they have the possibility of being pretty weak in emulating traditional control schemes (Mario 64 DS comes to mind). Both of these consoles are designed in such a way that most of the games HAVE to be exclusives, not because of contractual agreements, but because they must be designed specifically for that system, from the ground up. I think games created specifically with one console in mind are generally superior, although the 360 and the PS3 are close enough, from the user's standpoint, they can get away with it, to a certain point.
In any case, I don't see "strength of ported games" as a very good measure of a console's abilities; after all, we buy one console over another because they can play games that other consoles can't. The DS has that in spades... there are virtually no games originally designed for the DS that have been ported over to other systems, which can be attributed partially to the console's success.
I've been saying this for quite some time now. Out of this generation, the DS will likely be the console winner. I'm not just talking about raw sales, the GBA outsold the PS2 by a lot, but it was still thought of as being a very very different kind of machine. No, what I mean by "winner" is "winner" in the truist sense of the word: competing head to head with the 360, PS3 and Wii, as a console, not just as a handheld console.
Firstly, the DS has the ability to play the same kinds of games that the 360, PS3, and Wii (a little less so) can. For the first time in over a decade, we're seeing canonic games of major series (and not just "handheld spinoffs") coming onto a handheld. Not only that, but it doesn't really feel like "just a handheld" anymore. The DS has things, above and beyond portability, that no other system can do... so there are reasons for purchasing it and playing it, even if your not interested in the portability. No other handheld system can claim this, outside a few very minor exceptions.
When I play a DS, it feels more like I'm playing a TV-based console, then a GBA. It's got a solid, robust design, the screen is incredibly clear, and it has full 3D graphics, that, for the screen resolution, can sit right next to the GameCube.
Just watch, many series are going to jump ship from TV-consoles. We're already seeing it start to happen.
That's completely true. Yes, the "emotion engine" took a lot of flack from developers, but the system got off to a record-breaking launch, and it was clear that the populis really bought into the hype surrounding the system before its launch, so developers were eager to jump on board and get done with learning the new architecture. But, you're right, there were no alternatives back then. The DreamCast was already floundering, and the XBox and GameCube were almost 2 years away. We're in a completely different situation here.
Also, the magnitude of differences between the PS1->PS2, and PS2->PS3 is quite substantial. The emotion engine simply required the developers to embrace a new toolbox set, pretty much like learning any other new OS. But this is a completely different ARCHITECTURE, with coders having to relearn some of the very basics of coding to get it to work properly. Also, the PS1 was highly praised for being the most developer-friendly console ever made, which was probably the reasoning why the PS2 (which was of average-friendliness) took so much flack. Now, the PS3 is just an incredibly developer-unfriendly system.
Aslong as each of the 6 DVDs can be bootable, and it takes weeks to progress far enough to go to the next dvd, its a non issue. And as long as you dont need to go backwards either.
Bingo. No one cared, in the slightest, in Final Fantasy 7-9 about having to switch discs after every 15 hours of gameplay. The only game that was ever maddening because of this was Riven, in which you were required to switch between 5 CDs, one for each island (of which you could walk across in 30secs later on in the game). This was unfortunate.
However, I play, almost exclusively, progressive games: games in which follow a story or series of events (RPGs, Adventure games, etc.). But for sandbox games, or GTA-like games, which might have story elements and events come up at any point, our arguement about multi-disc switching falls apart. For the average length RPG, even 10 disc switching (once every 5 hours) could be just fine, but it would make free-for-all games unplayable. Still, as you said, this can be countered by more sophisticated and aggressive compression, tighter coding, and better use of the hardware.
Sony was unable to pick up on one very important point: home theatre systems are still, largely, a status symbol. There are two very different demographics for home theatre owners: wealthy baby boomers and people over 40, and younger tech-friendly YUPIs. The latter is a fairly new and up-and-coming market. Home Theatre systems largely came out of Beverly Hills, Bel Aire, upper-east-side NYC, etc. For this demographic, the mear thought of using a video game system (ie: childs toy) as a home theatre system is utterly out of the question, and completely destroys the status symbol aspect of Home Theatre systems. To this crowd, the person with the largest number of black boxes, remotes, and wires wins. They aren't looking for a way to hide a bunch of functions, conveniently, into one plastic case, they want it big, visible and intimidating. I may be exadurating, but you get my point.
It's the same as having a cheap Timex watch that keeps time just as well, and has about 10x the functions, as a $1000 Rolex. No matter how many features you pour into a Timex, a Bel Aire aristicrat still won't buy one.
I understand that 40+ age people are gaming more and more, but in that age group, it's largely a blue-collar affair. These are not going to be the kinds of people who will likely drop over half a thousand dollars on a home theatre/gaming system. The PS3 simply has no solid demographic. They tried to create one by pushing the mainstream into HD and talking up home theatre systems, but you can't CREATE a demographic, not easily and without a lot of ingenuity and amazing marketing (Apple).
Well, that isn't all of it. Many developers have gone on record saying that while the PS3 architecture is advanced, it's simply too complicated and not worth the effort. For the same amount of work, they could find practical workarounds for the 360 (which isn't far behind in power). These aren't lone voices either, there seems to be a general consensus that the PS3 is difficult to develop for. Obviously, if there were a huge market for PS3 titles, they'd jump on board in an instant, but since there isn't, it isn't as if developers are going to go out of their way to "help the PS3".
Fair enough. But consoles generally don't do amazingly for 2 years, and then plummit, for one reason: DEVELOPERS! (Balmer can say it another 25 times if he wants). If, after 2 years, the Wii is going strong, then everyone and their brother in the industry is going to jump on board, to the point where the investment is just too strong. There's a chance for one system to come from behind and begin to pick up the pace (as the XBox did, and the PS3 MIGHT do), but there are simply no instances of consoles going strong and dieing... it just doesn't happen. Failed consoles usually fail right out of the gate: their launch might be adiquate, but 2 months later, they're dead. The DreamCast did this, the Saturn did this, the GameCube did this (to a lesser degree). The PSP did this, but was able to make a bit of a comeback, even if it isn't looking come anywhere close to the sales of the DS.
Nintendo isn't the closed off "be weary of third parties" company it used to be. In fact, they attempted to appeal to 3rd parties with the GameCube, but most weren't really interested in what they had to offer, and were still a bit standoffish due to the N64 debacle. Through the GBA and the DS, however, Nintendo have really learned how to coperate with not just large 3rd parties, but smaller ones as well. They've got a lot of new friends in the industry now, and those are likely to only grow and develop.
This is a smart move. The huge advantage Microsoft has over Sony is that they can price their systems $200 lower by not including HD-DVD. If HD-DVD were to take off, 2 years down the line, and prices of high-frequency lasers drop, it would definitely be worth it. But for now, HD media is a novelty and it simply means that Microsoft can continue to kick Sony's ass in terms of price. Due to the fact that Microsoft has basically allowed the arguement of "The PS3 is more powerful, but $200 more expensive" to go on (which is not exactly true, both have their performance strengths), which means that a $600 360 would not be able to compete with a $600 PS3, head to head.
This isn't surprisingly that MS would not even give this question a second thought. I know that some of you out there are begging to get their hands on a HD-DVD or BluRay drive (I've now joined the ranks of HDTV owners, so I definitely wouldn't complain), and are fairly dissapointed, but you have to understand the logic behind this decision.
You're still thinking from a programmer/tech person's perspective, instead of a mass marketing perspective. Price has EVERYTHING to do with what the image of the product is in the public eye, in this case. Obviously, hardware is a little different, since there's huge manufacturing costs to consider (PS3 is around $900 to manufacture, for instance)... but for software, that amount is virtually nil, which means you have complete control over how to price the product to maximize sales. We're not talking "development costs" here... you can pretty much forget about those, because in this case it takes hardly any more money to design and develop a product that may eventually sell 1 unit, than 3mil. In that case, all you need to do is maximize your profits, of which are close to 100% of the sale price, and then spread them out amongst the development team, or however their contracts are written.
Also, the GC did see a bit of a surge, and then falloff... but we're talking magnitudes less than the Wii. Considering the fact that we're in the inevitable "post launch drought", and the system is still selling far faster than any other system to date... exactly 4 months after launch... you'd be pretty hard pressed to make a decent case for a substantial decline. We haven't even begun to see the big titles come out yet (most likely this fall), I think there's little doubt that the Wii is going to be very strong for at least a full year, and if it can make it that far, developers will just eat it up. You *say* you're optimistic, but I'm really seeing it. Frankly, you don't really have to be an optimist to predict the success of the Wii, you'd have to be blind to history, in order to think otherwise. Optimism is predicting an all-out success for the PS3, at this point.
Yes, but we're not talking about engines, we're talking about the actual vector data, plotted in by designers. The program used to make a poster will, obviously, be completely different from the engine that renders a realtime image in-game. But you can be sure that someone isn't having to replot all that data bit by bit, everytime they change media. That's just a complete waste of time. If you already have the vector data, why not use it? If you need more detail, add to it. If I remember, Final Fantasy X, the cut scenes (rendered out of time) were done with completely different models than the in-game engine. But with Final Fantasy XII, they used the in-game models as the basis for the cut scene models... which saved a lot of time and made for better continuity.
Yes, going higher def does have it's extra work, but not as much as everyone seems to be thinking about. The engines might be more complex, they may take longer to use, but you can still use the same basic vector data plots... I mean, why not? That's the beauty of vector data, it can be resized without any data loss. Sure, it's not quite that simple, but it's not as hard as, say, having to re-create a splash-screen bitmap from scratch at a higher resolution.
"Green" doesn't refer to the "amount of energy" required to do something, it refers to HOW that energy is produced. The energy used in production facilities is mainly electrical, which is provided, largely, by coal powerplants. Coal is far less polluting, much more abundant, and is created in a far shorter span of time. Aside from that, any mass production facility has the possibility of gradualing switching to solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, or wind based power, where-as vehicles rely on souly non-renuable resources. Even nuclear will soon become near-100% non-polluting, as scientists are discovering ways of "recycling" nuclear waste into the earth's core, to be broken down in lava pockets. Fossil fuels, one way or another, are a dead-end investment. All other sources of power are far more renuable, cleaner, and more abundant. Hybrids, Hydrogen-Fuel cells, biodesel... these are just intermediate steps in the chain of moving toward far more ecconomical forms of power.
So this is simply a bunch of BS. Hummers may require less "energy", but they still consume far more limited resources.
Generally, for games, sequels work very well... in fact, it's the sequels for video games that offer some of the greatest innovations. Many times, it's the originals that have to play it safe, since they can't afford to screw up. With sequels, game developers have more freedom to go nuts within the framework of the series. There's a typical progression: the first game is fairly solid, the second game is wild, and disjointed (as the developers get a bit TOO experimental), and then the third is probably the most refined, thoughtful, and solid. Very rarely are the first games of a series the most innovative, popular, and of the highest quality.
I think "series" of media have recently recieved a bad rap from the film industry. Traditionally: books, music, artwork, all had series that were regarded as some of the best works in their genre. Composers wrote highly acclaimed song-cycles, sets of etudes, series of operas... etc. Classic literature had many periods of highly episodic content, painters did studies of certain objects, ideas, forms, or people. Only recently, with the "cash cow" movie sequel, have media series gotten a bad name. Luckilly, I don't think games really have inherrited the same problems that movie sequals suffer from.
I think a game series is more akin to a musical groups' discography, than it is to movie sequels. Rarely is a group's first album considered the best, most innovative, and most popular... most known pop groups don't even get picked up until their 2nd or 3rd outting. It's a learning process, and the group becomes more and more refined and confident after they've done a few ablums. A group doesn't really get together with the intent on doing just one work and calling it quits, where-as a film crew is gathered together for specifically one project. Game development teams are somewhere in the middle... maybe more akin to a theatre troup, in which some members come and go, but the core remains relatively constant.
Movies, on the other hand, are produced from the ideas of a single, finished screenplay, and are almost always self-contained. The crew has to interpret that screenplay to the cinematic medium. This means that sequels take a very different development approach, as following screenplays are then written with specific directors, actors, and general impressions in mind, where-as the original wasn't. Games, on the other hand, are brainstormed by the group, recieving no outside, pre-composed ideas, and all sequels are done in relatively the same manner.
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Well, here's my thoughts. There are quite a few people (even people here in the US that I know) that are buying the PS3 specifically for FF13. If FF13 comes out on more than one system, they no longer have an incentive to buy a PS3. However, the 360 does not market itself well to the Japanese, and it tends to leave a sour taste in their mouth. In "putting off" buying a PS3 for FF13, they may very well just eventually decide to skip over it. But you might be right, in that the Wii probably wouldn't benefit from this. However, I don't think it would hurt the Wii either, seeing as though no ever thought that FF13 was going to be on it.
The more I think about it, however, the more I think, "why not port it to the Wii?" Sure you'll get a resolution loss, but not much more than just the transition from HD to ED. I've actually been surprised at the number of PS3/360 games that were ported to the Wii and seem to do fairly well. When I think about it, even if the game was made for the measly GameCube, it would look far more advanced than on the PS2, where lack of anti-aliasing really really hurt the graphics.
For example, I'm playing Tales of the Abyss right now, for the PS2. The last installment, "Tales of Symphonia" was on the GameCube, and, unfortunately, this latest installment looks far inferior, and feels very graphically glitchy. And the Wii isn't just a GameCube either.
Seeings as though these games take quite a few years to do (FF12 took four, but that was because of some legistical nightmares), and the fact that we're already seeing game engine screen shots, I think they're probably coming down the home stretch. That does not mean that it would be difficult to port. In fact, the basic coding is probably one of the easiest steps in making a modern RPG, and since both the PS3 and the 360 support the white engine, it would take virtually no time at all (in comparison to the rest of the process). If you go to any RPG oriented site (RPGFan.com, even IGN and other major online gaming magazines), you'll see a number of screenshots, some pre-rendered, some game engine.
Bottom line is, fans already know what to expect, it's going to be difficult to convince them to back off of that.
I'm just curious... this is a blow that could potentially mean the end of a console line. Sure, it isn't official, but even the fact that it's in question is pretty big gaming news. Why is it not a full post?
I highly doubt it... although as an owner of a Wii and not of a 360, I would be very happy if that were the case.
No, FF13 requires really really high resolution graphics, and even I am not about to argue that the Wii could handle anywhere close to that. With the lavish graphics we've been seeing (even if the bulk of which are pre-rendered), downgrading to the Wii's graphical capabilities would piss a lot of people off, and Square's long-time success has come from making fans happy. Now, it's not completely unthinkable that S-E might make a lower-res version for the Wii, as well. In fact, that makes some sense, since this may mean the end of the PS3, which means that the Wii automatically dominates Japan. Even if FF13 were to go to the 360, it isn't a given that Japan would start buying up 360s overnight... but they sure as hell wouldn't buy PS3s.
We're witnessing 1996 all over again, here: consoles hanging in the balance with a Final Fantasy. The fact is, even if Final Fantasy games are NOT sone of the all-time best selling games (outside Japan), the fanbase is so dedicated that it WILL sell many many consoles. It, and Dragon Quest, are really the only 3rd party series that really has the ability to pull the strings like this.
I know one thing, if I were a JRPG developer right now like Namco-Banai, I'd shitting myself waiting for the shoe to drop (Namco would most likely go Nintendo, as they've done in the past, especially isn't most of their series aren't based around eye-candy).
Not in the slightest. Square would have no way or reason to go multi-platform until now. FFX came out before the GameCube and Xbox even launched... what would they have gone to... back to the N64? No way, that's the one they ditched in the first place. The PS1/N64/Saturn generation was no contest, either. The N64 didn't have the media they needed, and the Saturn didn't have the robust 3D graphics processing they needed, Square had no choice. FF4, in its infancy, was designed with a patched NES engine. The SNES gave Square everything they needed in hardware. I guess they could have gone Sega... but their relationship with Nintendo was at their absolute peak.
So no, there has never even been a choice, due to technical or marketing reasons, up until now. There would, therefor, be no reason for Square to "threaten" anyone to go multi, since noone would believe them.
I can just hear the interchanges:
Square: "Sony, give us a good deal on PS2 exclusivity"
Sony: "or what? You're gonna go back to the N64?"
Square: "...."
Square-Enix: "Sony, give us a good deal on PS3 exclusivity"
Sony: "or what? You're going to move over to the 360"
Square-Enix: "That's about right"
Sony: "....."
I don't think "blow the pants off" is quite accurate. It does better, but Final Fantasy is still VERY popular, selling at least 80% of the DQ series. These are the #1 and #2 best selling series in Japan... being a strong #2 is not something to cry about.
Also, in worldwide sales, Final Fantasy does, here, "blow the pants off" of Dragon Quest. The 360 is also the dominant system outside Japan. Porting a series that's very popular in the US to a platform that is selling very well in the US (and Europe), just seems like a good business strategy.
...nope, that was Sony stock falling.
But seriously, I'm not in the least bit surprised. In fact, I've been expecting FF13 to go cross-platform for quite some time now. Square has more reason to go cross-platform, now more than ever before. When they were with Nintendo, they were pretty tight, and were more intimately familliar with their hardware design. They switched to Sony only because Nintendo screwed them with the N64. FFX came out long before the XBox or GameCube, and even FF12 was in progress while those consoles were in their infancy. And up until now, there hasn't been any direct competition with Sony that revolved around the exact same user-base. That's changed... and we have two very similar consoles, with similar (or at least potentially similar) install bases. The fact that Square has already jumped ship on many other titles, makes me think they're not adverse to doing so with any... and it just seems the safest, and most ecconomical, to do so.
There's only one line of reasoning as to why they would be better off remaining exclusive. That is that if the PS3 were to fail, the resistance to the 360 in Japan may not simply go away over-night... meaning NO ONE would have a system capable of buying and playing FF13 on. If they were to port FF13 to the 360, the Japanese may simply ditch the series as well as the PS3, and go completely over to the Wii. Still, in the US, where Final Fantasy is the strongest, porting FF13 to the 360 would generate enormous sales, enough to counter any strange occurences that Japan might provide.
I gave FF13 a 75% chance of going over to the 360, back in November... this news raises that to about 90%.
It's going to go, let's just sit back and watch the fireworks.
You'd think that... but nope. FF12 was a huge success, wild acclaim, won many "game of the year" awards, and brought a lot of innovations to the genre. If you're not into JRPGs, it's kinda hard to understand, I know, but it's just the way things are.
I like to view video game sequels as more along the lines of albums by a band or composer [rather than like movie sequels]: some groups just keep getting better, some drop off, some come back again. I even know quite a few that, in their old age, release the most original stuff of their career (King Crimson, for example, whome are nearing their 40th anniversary). The Final Fantasy team(s) really have shown that they have what it takes. I expect them to continue making benchmark-worthy games for at least another decade. For one thing, they're not really sequels, in the traditional sense, as much as a mini-genre, since they have no connecting universe, story or characters, besides a few camios. So the developers can, and do, make huge changes from game to game... sometimes more than a whole genre will do in the same period of time.
Besides Dragon Quest, no single-player RPG has ever come close to the acclaim that the Final Fantasy series has. The "Tales" series is probably the next closest of the genre, which is getting more and more publicity in the US, but even that has a long way to go.
I don't really understand why the 360 has any connection to HD-DVD in the first place. None of the games are HD-DVD, and (hopefully) that will stay that way in order to maintain compatability. What's more is that the HD-DVD player is a separate unit. So, basically, if you buy an XBox 360, you can buy a separate HD-DVD player for only $200! (sounds like a silly infomercial). Let's not fool ourselves, the 360 is NOT an HD-DVD console. Obviously, the price is very nice, since you're not having to pay another $500 for a standalone HD-DVD player.
I just wish Microsoft had never attatched any concept of HD-DVD to their system, because it seems kinda rediculous to do so, when it really isn't. Adding an internal HD-DVD drive is going to be even more confusing, as people are going to start thinking that the games (which, come on, is 90% of why people buy one of these things) will be on HD-DVDs and their old models will be left in the dust.
I've heard the convenience arguement again and again, but it just doesn't seem worth it for the confusion it will cause the product line.
I just don't get Slashdot editors sometimes. A few months back, I sent in a submission that got posted, regarding the sale of Clear Channel. I had included a paragraph about some of my own experiences as a Clear Channel employee that I thought were insightful and relievant to the subject matter, but the whole paragraph (half the submission) was cut, and I was a bit upset. Here we have an example of someone spouting off stupid, uninformed bullshit that could have been answered with a "yes" or "no" question in about 2 minutes, and the editors keep it. What gives?
Eh, I think you sorta missed the point of what I was saying. I said that, specifically: quality and (low) price, have little to do with what people think of as status symbols, hence my Timex/Rolex analogy. A Timex (like a PS3) does it's job better, has more features, and is cheaper, yet the wealthy would NEVER buy one, because it defeats THEIR purpose of having a watch: as a status symbol. I've spent some time around the super-rich. I went to a private college, and quite a few of my friends were from fairly well-to-do famillies. Now, being young and tech minded, they didn't see technology as a status symbol, and had consoles, and home built computers, and whatnot. But when I would go to their familly's places for spring break, or whatever, it was very clear that their famillies thought of technology otherwise.
So I'll refresh you:
A) Being cheap is going to hurt the "status symbol" image of the PS3 as a home theatre.
B) It's outward appearence does not support the traditional image of being extremely classy and sophisticated.
C) "games are for the unsophisticated, why should I support such a barbaric passtime?"
D) Quality is one of the least important things to defining a status symbol.
Oh, for sure. For a console which has fairly unique design characteristics, like the DS or the Wii, the best games are always going to be those that are specifically designed with those consoles in mind. The control schemes for the DS and the Wii, while unique and provide for some new gameplay, aren't neccessarilly "better" than the older setups, they're just different, which means that they have the possibility of being pretty weak in emulating traditional control schemes (Mario 64 DS comes to mind). Both of these consoles are designed in such a way that most of the games HAVE to be exclusives, not because of contractual agreements, but because they must be designed specifically for that system, from the ground up. I think games created specifically with one console in mind are generally superior, although the 360 and the PS3 are close enough, from the user's standpoint, they can get away with it, to a certain point.
In any case, I don't see "strength of ported games" as a very good measure of a console's abilities; after all, we buy one console over another because they can play games that other consoles can't. The DS has that in spades... there are virtually no games originally designed for the DS that have been ported over to other systems, which can be attributed partially to the console's success.
I've been saying this for quite some time now. Out of this generation, the DS will likely be the console winner. I'm not just talking about raw sales, the GBA outsold the PS2 by a lot, but it was still thought of as being a very very different kind of machine. No, what I mean by "winner" is "winner" in the truist sense of the word: competing head to head with the 360, PS3 and Wii, as a console, not just as a handheld console.
Firstly, the DS has the ability to play the same kinds of games that the 360, PS3, and Wii (a little less so) can. For the first time in over a decade, we're seeing canonic games of major series (and not just "handheld spinoffs") coming onto a handheld. Not only that, but it doesn't really feel like "just a handheld" anymore. The DS has things, above and beyond portability, that no other system can do... so there are reasons for purchasing it and playing it, even if your not interested in the portability. No other handheld system can claim this, outside a few very minor exceptions.
When I play a DS, it feels more like I'm playing a TV-based console, then a GBA. It's got a solid, robust design, the screen is incredibly clear, and it has full 3D graphics, that, for the screen resolution, can sit right next to the GameCube.
Just watch, many series are going to jump ship from TV-consoles. We're already seeing it start to happen.
That's completely true. Yes, the "emotion engine" took a lot of flack from developers, but the system got off to a record-breaking launch, and it was clear that the populis really bought into the hype surrounding the system before its launch, so developers were eager to jump on board and get done with learning the new architecture. But, you're right, there were no alternatives back then. The DreamCast was already floundering, and the XBox and GameCube were almost 2 years away. We're in a completely different situation here.
Also, the magnitude of differences between the PS1->PS2, and PS2->PS3 is quite substantial. The emotion engine simply required the developers to embrace a new toolbox set, pretty much like learning any other new OS. But this is a completely different ARCHITECTURE, with coders having to relearn some of the very basics of coding to get it to work properly. Also, the PS1 was highly praised for being the most developer-friendly console ever made, which was probably the reasoning why the PS2 (which was of average-friendliness) took so much flack. Now, the PS3 is just an incredibly developer-unfriendly system.
Bingo. No one cared, in the slightest, in Final Fantasy 7-9 about having to switch discs after every 15 hours of gameplay. The only game that was ever maddening because of this was Riven, in which you were required to switch between 5 CDs, one for each island (of which you could walk across in 30secs later on in the game). This was unfortunate.
However, I play, almost exclusively, progressive games: games in which follow a story or series of events (RPGs, Adventure games, etc.). But for sandbox games, or GTA-like games, which might have story elements and events come up at any point, our arguement about multi-disc switching falls apart. For the average length RPG, even 10 disc switching (once every 5 hours) could be just fine, but it would make free-for-all games unplayable. Still, as you said, this can be countered by more sophisticated and aggressive compression, tighter coding, and better use of the hardware.
Sony was unable to pick up on one very important point: home theatre systems are still, largely, a status symbol. There are two very different demographics for home theatre owners: wealthy baby boomers and people over 40, and younger tech-friendly YUPIs. The latter is a fairly new and up-and-coming market. Home Theatre systems largely came out of Beverly Hills, Bel Aire, upper-east-side NYC, etc. For this demographic, the mear thought of using a video game system (ie: childs toy) as a home theatre system is utterly out of the question, and completely destroys the status symbol aspect of Home Theatre systems. To this crowd, the person with the largest number of black boxes, remotes, and wires wins. They aren't looking for a way to hide a bunch of functions, conveniently, into one plastic case, they want it big, visible and intimidating. I may be exadurating, but you get my point.
It's the same as having a cheap Timex watch that keeps time just as well, and has about 10x the functions, as a $1000 Rolex. No matter how many features you pour into a Timex, a Bel Aire aristicrat still won't buy one.
I understand that 40+ age people are gaming more and more, but in that age group, it's largely a blue-collar affair. These are not going to be the kinds of people who will likely drop over half a thousand dollars on a home theatre/gaming system. The PS3 simply has no solid demographic. They tried to create one by pushing the mainstream into HD and talking up home theatre systems, but you can't CREATE a demographic, not easily and without a lot of ingenuity and amazing marketing (Apple).
Well, that isn't all of it. Many developers have gone on record saying that while the PS3 architecture is advanced, it's simply too complicated and not worth the effort. For the same amount of work, they could find practical workarounds for the 360 (which isn't far behind in power). These aren't lone voices either, there seems to be a general consensus that the PS3 is difficult to develop for. Obviously, if there were a huge market for PS3 titles, they'd jump on board in an instant, but since there isn't, it isn't as if developers are going to go out of their way to "help the PS3".
Fair enough. But consoles generally don't do amazingly for 2 years, and then plummit, for one reason: DEVELOPERS! (Balmer can say it another 25 times if he wants). If, after 2 years, the Wii is going strong, then everyone and their brother in the industry is going to jump on board, to the point where the investment is just too strong. There's a chance for one system to come from behind and begin to pick up the pace (as the XBox did, and the PS3 MIGHT do), but there are simply no instances of consoles going strong and dieing... it just doesn't happen. Failed consoles usually fail right out of the gate: their launch might be adiquate, but 2 months later, they're dead. The DreamCast did this, the Saturn did this, the GameCube did this (to a lesser degree). The PSP did this, but was able to make a bit of a comeback, even if it isn't looking come anywhere close to the sales of the DS.
Nintendo isn't the closed off "be weary of third parties" company it used to be. In fact, they attempted to appeal to 3rd parties with the GameCube, but most weren't really interested in what they had to offer, and were still a bit standoffish due to the N64 debacle. Through the GBA and the DS, however, Nintendo have really learned how to coperate with not just large 3rd parties, but smaller ones as well. They've got a lot of new friends in the industry now, and those are likely to only grow and develop.
This is a smart move. The huge advantage Microsoft has over Sony is that they can price their systems $200 lower by not including HD-DVD. If HD-DVD were to take off, 2 years down the line, and prices of high-frequency lasers drop, it would definitely be worth it. But for now, HD media is a novelty and it simply means that Microsoft can continue to kick Sony's ass in terms of price. Due to the fact that Microsoft has basically allowed the arguement of "The PS3 is more powerful, but $200 more expensive" to go on (which is not exactly true, both have their performance strengths), which means that a $600 360 would not be able to compete with a $600 PS3, head to head.
This isn't surprisingly that MS would not even give this question a second thought. I know that some of you out there are begging to get their hands on a HD-DVD or BluRay drive (I've now joined the ranks of HDTV owners, so I definitely wouldn't complain), and are fairly dissapointed, but you have to understand the logic behind this decision.
You're still thinking from a programmer/tech person's perspective, instead of a mass marketing perspective. Price has EVERYTHING to do with what the image of the product is in the public eye, in this case. Obviously, hardware is a little different, since there's huge manufacturing costs to consider (PS3 is around $900 to manufacture, for instance)... but for software, that amount is virtually nil, which means you have complete control over how to price the product to maximize sales. We're not talking "development costs" here... you can pretty much forget about those, because in this case it takes hardly any more money to design and develop a product that may eventually sell 1 unit, than 3mil. In that case, all you need to do is maximize your profits, of which are close to 100% of the sale price, and then spread them out amongst the development team, or however their contracts are written.
Also, the GC did see a bit of a surge, and then falloff... but we're talking magnitudes less than the Wii. Considering the fact that we're in the inevitable "post launch drought", and the system is still selling far faster than any other system to date... exactly 4 months after launch... you'd be pretty hard pressed to make a decent case for a substantial decline. We haven't even begun to see the big titles come out yet (most likely this fall), I think there's little doubt that the Wii is going to be very strong for at least a full year, and if it can make it that far, developers will just eat it up. You *say* you're optimistic, but I'm really seeing it. Frankly, you don't really have to be an optimist to predict the success of the Wii, you'd have to be blind to history, in order to think otherwise. Optimism is predicting an all-out success for the PS3, at this point.
Yes, but we're not talking about engines, we're talking about the actual vector data, plotted in by designers. The program used to make a poster will, obviously, be completely different from the engine that renders a realtime image in-game. But you can be sure that someone isn't having to replot all that data bit by bit, everytime they change media. That's just a complete waste of time. If you already have the vector data, why not use it? If you need more detail, add to it. If I remember, Final Fantasy X, the cut scenes (rendered out of time) were done with completely different models than the in-game engine. But with Final Fantasy XII, they used the in-game models as the basis for the cut scene models... which saved a lot of time and made for better continuity.
Yes, going higher def does have it's extra work, but not as much as everyone seems to be thinking about. The engines might be more complex, they may take longer to use, but you can still use the same basic vector data plots... I mean, why not? That's the beauty of vector data, it can be resized without any data loss. Sure, it's not quite that simple, but it's not as hard as, say, having to re-create a splash-screen bitmap from scratch at a higher resolution.
"Don't be evil."
"Green" doesn't refer to the "amount of energy" required to do something, it refers to HOW that energy is produced. The energy used in production facilities is mainly electrical, which is provided, largely, by coal powerplants. Coal is far less polluting, much more abundant, and is created in a far shorter span of time. Aside from that, any mass production facility has the possibility of gradualing switching to solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, or wind based power, where-as vehicles rely on souly non-renuable resources. Even nuclear will soon become near-100% non-polluting, as scientists are discovering ways of "recycling" nuclear waste into the earth's core, to be broken down in lava pockets. Fossil fuels, one way or another, are a dead-end investment. All other sources of power are far more renuable, cleaner, and more abundant. Hybrids, Hydrogen-Fuel cells, biodesel... these are just intermediate steps in the chain of moving toward far more ecconomical forms of power.
So this is simply a bunch of BS. Hummers may require less "energy", but they still consume far more limited resources.
Generally, for games, sequels work very well... in fact, it's the sequels for video games that offer some of the greatest innovations. Many times, it's the originals that have to play it safe, since they can't afford to screw up. With sequels, game developers have more freedom to go nuts within the framework of the series. There's a typical progression: the first game is fairly solid, the second game is wild, and disjointed (as the developers get a bit TOO experimental), and then the third is probably the most refined, thoughtful, and solid. Very rarely are the first games of a series the most innovative, popular, and of the highest quality.
I think "series" of media have recently recieved a bad rap from the film industry. Traditionally: books, music, artwork, all had series that were regarded as some of the best works in their genre. Composers wrote highly acclaimed song-cycles, sets of etudes, series of operas... etc. Classic literature had many periods of highly episodic content, painters did studies of certain objects, ideas, forms, or people. Only recently, with the "cash cow" movie sequel, have media series gotten a bad name. Luckilly, I don't think games really have inherrited the same problems that movie sequals suffer from.
I think a game series is more akin to a musical groups' discography, than it is to movie sequels. Rarely is a group's first album considered the best, most innovative, and most popular... most known pop groups don't even get picked up until their 2nd or 3rd outting. It's a learning process, and the group becomes more and more refined and confident after they've done a few ablums. A group doesn't really get together with the intent on doing just one work and calling it quits, where-as a film crew is gathered together for specifically one project. Game development teams are somewhere in the middle... maybe more akin to a theatre troup, in which some members come and go, but the core remains relatively constant.
Movies, on the other hand, are produced from the ideas of a single, finished screenplay, and are almost always self-contained. The crew has to interpret that screenplay to the cinematic medium. This means that sequels take a very different development approach, as following screenplays are then written with specific directors, actors, and general impressions in mind, where-as the original wasn't. Games, on the other hand, are brainstormed by the group, recieving no outside, pre-composed ideas, and all sequels are done in relatively the same manner.