Square Enix: Final Fantasy XIII on 360 not a “betrayal”

Are there really people stupid enough to consider a multi-platform title a “betrayal”? Then again, this *is* the internet…

It would have been really interesting to see the internet’s reaction to FFVII on the PSone if the internet had been as big a thing as it is now back in 1997.

Most of the complainers properly weren’t even out of diapers back then, to be honest.

(Fuck, that makes me feel old…)

All the people who really considered this a betrayal committed suicide on the night the announcement was made, didn’t they?

“All the people who really considered this a betrayal committed suicide on the night the announcement was made, didn’t they? ”

We can naught but dream, Blerk.

Mostly yes. But those who drew the short straw were forced to stick around and complain.

How about doing a 360 version of FFXIII:Versus to help mop up the few remaining emos who didn’t down a bottle of Domestos then, Squenix?

At least those who are whinging are unlikely to breed.

Haven’t played a FF since VII, and probably won’t, too flashy for me, now a remake of VII would be nice…
Does anyone know if VII plays ok on a PS3 (other than the grainy graphics) i started it again recently and i’m coming upto the end of disc one, just wondered if there was any issues with disc changes on the PS3? It’s filling me with dread…

I think VII is fine. VIII has problems, iirc.

Any Sony fanboy who thinks this is a betrayal needs to take a look at Final Fantasy 1-6… Nintendo exclusives when they came out. So if anybody has the right to whine, they do! At least you’ll still get FF on the PS3, what do Nintendo get now?

I’m not listening Square – you’re dead to me still.

“It’s not like we’re cancelling or delaying the PS3 version at all!”

But they are, the PS3 version is being held back for the US and PAL terriories till the 360 version is done…

“Square just shot themselves in the foot.

I don’t know how much the rest of you know about Japanese culture (I’m an expert), but honor and shame are huge parts of it. It’s not like it is in America where you can become successful by being an asshole. If you screw someone over in Japan, you bring shame to yourself, and the only way to get rid of that shame is repentance.

What this means is the japanese public, after hearing about this, is not going to want to purchase FFXIII for either system, nor will they purchase any of Square’s games. This is HUGE. You can laugh all you want, but Square has alienated an entire market with this move.

Square, publicly apologize and cancel FFXIII for 360 or you can kiss your business goodbye.”

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=11960243&postcount=1766

That has to be a parody. Please God let that be a parody.

Probaly why Square are releasing the PS3 version as soon as its done in Japan actualy.

Spiral, sadly the guy was dead serious… even going so far as to write more to back up his viewpoint: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=12326994&postcount=179

I recall a few similar posts on various message boards at the time.

Might I draw your attention to the articulate, rational souls at PlayStation Universe – http://www.psu.com/Square-Enix–FFXIII-on-360-is-not-a-+quot;betrayal+quot;-News–a0005531-p0.php#comments

Proof positive that humankind is descended from the Yorkshire Terrier.

On the subject of the “delay”, I think what Hashimoto means is that the PS3 version won’t be delayed relative to the 360 version. Not that you can really “delay” something when you haven’t announced a release date to begin with…

Turn based combat is rubbish.

Psycho: That guy must think Japan still lives in the 1800s. He’s probably also a raging otaku, and likes walks around his mother’s house in kimono whilst brandishing a blunt katana that couldn’t cut butter.

““It’s not like we’re cancelling or delaying the PS3 version at all!”

But they are, the PS3 version is being held back for the US and PAL terriories till the 360 version is done…”

Incorrect. They still need to translate and localise the PS3 version for the US and Europe. They’ll be optimising it for the 360 at the same time.

“Incorrect. They still need to translate and localise the PS3 version for the US and Europe. They’ll be optimising it for the 360 at the same time.”

No, not incorrect. It doesn’t take the same amount of time to make a “language localisation” as to make a “360 version code”.
So yes, the PS3 version of FFXIII in EU & US will be delayed by the 360 port.
Does it matter? No!

it matters to the FF fans that dont live in Japan… Thats atleast an extra 7 months wait.

If previous Final Fantasies are anything to go by, it’ll take longer to do the translation than to knock out the 360 version of the code.

“No, not incorrect. It doesn’t take the same amount of time to make a “language localisation” as to make a “360 version code”.”

“it matters to the FF fans that dont live in Japan… Thats atleast an extra 7 months wait.”

Are you both kidding? Most past Final Fantasies have taken upwards of nine months to reach the west. Long delays with a Final Fantasy is not a new things.

You can guarantee those “extra seven months” would exist with or without the 360 version.

There’s *nothing* to indicate that the game’s release is delayed in the west *because* of the 360 optimisation alone. And even if it was… so what? Everyone’s entitled to it.

“Any Sony fanboy who thinks this is a betrayal needs to take a look at Final Fantasy 1-6… Nintendo exclusives when they came out. So if anybody has the right to whine, they do!?”
not really, you can’t say this is the same anyway.

Square made a transition from SNES to PS1 because N64 cartridges made it impossible to release FF7 (let alone later ones) games. that’s the only reason actually.

Oh god Pat, please don’t let this place become like N4G.

Heh. The people will dictate the tone.

*hippy*

“BIAS!”

XD

@Gigahurtz
Attempting to control a party of 4+ people in real time is rubbish. Turn based combat is ace and I wish reviewers would stop dishing out low marks for JRPG’s because they don’t like it. It’s an intrinsic part of the genre for me and taking it out and trying to replace them with something else is like taking guns out of CoD.

“Square made a transition from SNES to PS1 because N64 cartridges made it impossible to release FF7 (let alone later ones) games. that’s the only reason actually.”

Of course, it had nothing to do with Sony owning large shares in Squaresoft at the time. And while you’re at explain why they couldn’t have released FFI – FFVI on Sega’s console.

It’s a matter of business.

They’re releasing Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360 because the consumer base on either console alone isn’t large enough for a single-platform release, and because the slow uptake of next-gen consoles in Japan means they need to focus on foreign profit more. So what your point?

They’re a business. If an option gives them the capacity to make more money, they’re going to take it.

I thought Sony only bought a load of shares in Square some time after FFVII.

If fact yes, it wasn’t until after the failure of FF The Spirits Within that Sony put some cash in for 19% of the company. The switch from Nintendo was more about money hats and possibly Nintendo’s greed / costs for development.

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/oct/10/business/fi-55454

“I thought Sony only bought a load of shares in Square some time after FFVII.”

You completely ignored the main point made BTW. FFVII wasn’t release on the PS1 “because it couldn’t be done on the N64″

Sony owned shares in Square long before that article you posted.

FFVII was made around the PS1′s capability. If the N64 had been the bonafide leading format at the time by a *long* mile ; PS3 and 360 are basically neck and neck right now.

You can guarantee they would have just made a game that suited the N64′s capabilities if it was the format that would have made them the most profit.

The N64 and PS1 were also extremely different consoles architecturally. While the PS3 and 360 have their differences, it’s a much smaller difference.

October 2001 was when Sony made their investment, about 19% of the company. That’s now worth significantly less since they merged with Enix, 8% or something iirc.

It’s pretty well known that Nintendo and Square had some sort of private falling-out which lead to Sony nipping in with a mutli-game deal to get them to defect, btw. Without that disagreement things could have turned out very different indeed.

Perhaps Sony shares made them choose Playstation instead of Saturn, but my point was that they moved from Nintendo to Sony because of the hardware, while making FFXIII multiplatform is absolutely a matter of business.

and Saturn would be a bad platform to choose. it was the worst console Sega ever made, weakest of the three (PS1, N64 and Saturn) and hardest to develop for.

“You can guarantee they would have just made a game that suited the N64’s capabilities if it was the format that would have made them the most profit.”

how? for starters, please explain how cgs would fit into it? 50 cartridges? or would they make another Super Mario RPG?

Square had talks with Nintendo back then, they’ve told them the games won’t be possible if N64 won’t have a CD-ROM. it was N own stubborness that lead to FF games appearing on another platform.

“how? for starters, please explain how cgs would fit into it? 50 cartridges?”

Obviously it would have been a completely different game.

You do realise we’re both arguing the same point, right? *laughs*

Think more FF: Crystal Chronicles than FFXII.

It was Nitendo’s own fault at the end of the day for jumping into the foray too late with an inherently backwards system.

so they would be developing Xenogears and Yoshi rpg at the same time? yeah, a great decision.

and anyway they weren’t such a big company back then, they didn’t have enough people.

I reckon the 360 version will be better than the PS3 version.

Discuss.

Oh morriss. Now you’ve probably summoned Shatner.

“Oh god Pat, please don’t let this place become like N4G.”
anyone remembers n4g when it was PS3Today? it’s news had 500-1000 comments.

N4G’s a shadow of its former self, really. Still fast, though.

It’s so dead today. Deader than dead. It’s, like, dead.

“If previous Final Fantasies are anything to go by, it’ll take longer to do the translation than to knock out the 360 version of the code”

Based on a post at another site… they went something like this:

FF: 2 years
FFIV: 4 years
FFV: 2 years
FFVI: 6 months
FFVII: 9 months
FFVIII: 9 months
FFIX: 6 months
FFX: 6 months
FFXI: 2 years
FFXII: 6 months

So the question is how good the are the Square coders, and how good is their multiplatform engine? Not to mention how many random contractors will MS throw at them… Could it be done in 6 months from the release of the game? Assuming they’re starting soon, and the game will release mid 2009 at the earliest… sure, I don’t see any reason it would be impossible.

Unlike morriss, I don’t reckon this will be better on the 360 though.

I was 100% serious.

Those are the translation times for the US versions, though. You’ve got to at least double them for the European release.

Ah. Thought they seemed a bit low. I’m betting Christmas 2009 for the US, Feb 2010 for us.

Blerk: Yeah, I have no idea on those tbh… I just remember them being a long time.

Probably long enough to get a good grasp of Japanese.

Good grasp of Japanese (reading and writing) takes a huge amount of time – even for kids.

Obviously PS3 owners will only have to wait for the US release rather than wait for the Euro one.

C’mon, it’s plain text they have to translate!
They don’t do voice recordings for the localisations. This only takes a few weeks, not more, for a hand full of workers. Weeks not months!

If they released the US/EU versions 6 months later (like they did in the past) it doesn’t mean it took them 6 months for the translations.

@Michael O’Connor
“Sony owned shares in Square long before that article you posted.”

Reference?

… sorry, I meant: They don’t do voice recordings for the localisations OTHER THAN ENGLISH.

DrDamn: As long as you could read / understand it, that would be fine. If you totalled up all that localisation time you’d be fluent.

Quiiick: So they delayed the US etc versions 6 months for the sake of it?