Final Fantasy 13 multi-disc interview

[Arwin]

Why would it be too late? The game doesn't come out until "Spring" for the Xbox 360. While that could come out at the beginning of March it may not be released until June. I'm hoping they use a solution like the one I mention above but since this game has lead on the PS3 I don't think PS3 owners have anything to worry about.

1. I think the pipeline for a game like this is too long to do anything significant in these terms in its last year of development, particularly with the game so close to release in Japan.
2. The game is, as far as I know, developed primarily on the PC and then the (White) engine is ported to the PS3 and 360. This is partly why I don't expect a dual harddisk/bluray streaming system to be in place in this game. So in those terms, I'd actually expect most graphics (just about everything except the cut-scenes) to look better on the 360.

 

[Dr. Nick]

I think they are going to do their best to make sure they look the same especially after the fanboy reaction of it going multiplatform.

Oh by the way, there has yet to be a Final Fantasy released in the US that contained both English and Japanese voice tracks. Why would people think that this was a required feature when Square-Enix had never released a game in the series with both. So far games this generation with both voices tracks are Blue Dragon, Lost Odessey, and Eternal Sonata. All released on the 360. Tales of Vespeira doesn't have this option but only comes on 1 DVD. VC might have it as well but there are more RPGs on the 360 that feature this option. None of them by Square and non of the games published by Square this gen have this option.

When Square was asked include this option this year they seemed shocked that westerners would want this considering the fact that they had never done it before. Why are people acting like this was a requirement instead of a feature they just wanted them to have? Why aren't people taking into consideration that they may have not planned on doing it before they were asked? That just including this feature, something that wouldn't be there otherwise , might require extra development and testing?

 

[SedentaryJourney]

Hope it's not too late to get the go ahead for dual audio on the PS3 version.

 

[Phil]

I thought disc space puts a limit on the amount of unique textures you can have. After that you can just use the same ones very where. Isn't that how games like Final Fantasy get made?

If multi platform game development can't exploit the strengths of each console, isn't it easier for Square Enix to limit themselves to less space then a DVD offers for textures, rather then exceed that amount and start locking down areas?

Maybe the problem is that FFXIII was indeed planned and drafted as a PS3 exclusive game and later changed to be multi-platform (X360/PS3). It probably was already too late to plan for DVD-size, so they'll split the game onto multiple dvds (X360) and lock out earlier parts of the game to achieve parity because they don't want X360 owners having to switch back to an earlier disc.

 

[LunchBox]

And what I'm saying is from what I gather, I've placed them chronologically in the proper order. It's a FUD fest to say the game looks worse now than it did last year because the Xbox is weaker by some measure, and it's probably nonsense. Just feels like one more rellic from the Fanbot Wars.

Sure we can argue that there's been a downgrade between the two because we're keeping parity across plaforms, instead of leveraging the individual hardwares, but does anyone honestly think it'd manifest itself this severely? Does anybody think a downgrade would require what appears to be almost a full generational backstep?

Ah! I see what you are saying like from the print screen i did:

What you are saying is that the pictures being reported as new and old are actually vice-versa to keep the FUD rolling.

 

[Nesh]

I kind of doubt it the screens are reversed since I remember clearly that when the original screens were released that I was impressed by Lightning's detailed hair, which looked like the picture above.

 

[Crono]

They are certainly not reversed.

 

[Phil]

Maybe the latter ones are from the Xb360 version? Given it's a port, would it be hard to believe that some complexity may be reduced? I don't picture Square being all that enthusiastic about making the worlds best and flawless port outthere and given that the userbase won't care one way or the other, why would they?!

I certainly won't be playing the game complaining about any thing graphics related for sure.

 

[ShadowRunner]

I believe the downgrade is primarily because the game was developed on PC and then ported to PS3, they simply may have just overestimated what they would be able to get out of the consoles. MGS4 had similar downgrades if i recall correctly and that is a PS3 exclusive, i doubt very much that it being multiplatform is the cause.

 

[nightshade]

Where is it stated the Crystal Tools works like Capcom's MT Frameworks ?
ie. made on PC then ported to consoles ?

 

[rabidrabbit]

Maybe the latter ones are from the Xb360 version? Given it's a port, would it be hard to believe that some complexity may be reduced? I don't picture Square being all that enthusiastic about making the worlds best and flawless port outthere and given that the userbase won't care one way or the other, why would they?!

If complexity had to be reduced for porting to xb360, then they would have done just that, not also change the art slightly as in those pictures.

 

[Dr. Nick]

Maybe the problem is that FFXIII was indeed planned and drafted as a PS3 exclusive game and later changed to be multi-platform (X360/PS3). It probably was already too late to plan for DVD-size, so they'll split the game onto multiple dvds (X360) and lock out earlier parts of the game to achieve parity because they don't want X360 owners having to switch back to an earlier disc.

While tri-Ace doesn't work directly under SE, SO:TLH makes you do it.

I'm hoping that if something like this ends up being the case, they should do something for people who have hard drives and can install the game. Gamers would still need to switch this when the times comes but once the 3rd disk is in with 2 or all disk installed, the gamer who has a hard drive wouldn't need to worry about switching disk anymore in order to go back to certain places while the gamer who doesn't have a hard drive would have to. It's just fair. tri-Ace should have seriously considered something like that. Seeing that Forza 3 will be doing something like this they should take this into consideration. Any one here who get a chance to interview them should ask them to consider this.

 

[Rurouni]

We can speculate whether the graphic quality suffer because the need to reach parity... but since this is about the multi-disc interview, I believe it's clear that one of the reason SE doesn't include Japanese voice is because the limitation of the Xbox360 DVD.
And unlike the previous FF where the media capacity is known beforehand, when developing FF13 I think they have in mind that they gonna have Bluray as their medium so they are going to design the content around that... now that it's going to Xbox360 surely they have to think about the size limitation of DVD and to design around that, especially from the interview they seems to after parity. They targeting 3 DVD, which I presume has a bit less usable capacity than a single layer BD... not to mention the need for duplicate content and data on each disc... I have a nagging feeling that no matter how many times SE told us that the content wouldn't suffer, I just can't believe that. But since I'm not a developer I don't really know how much this stuff would really affect the game.

So my question is this... Do you guys think that SE (or any developer) can make a game that targeted for PS3 with Blu-ray capacity in mind and make Xbox360 version out of it without suffering anything in terms of content and gameplay (not graphics...)?

Edit: Just to make it simpler, IIRC SE told us that they gonna finish the PS3 version first and worried about the Xbox360 version later. Can anyone have this approach (for this type of game) and still produce parity between those two consoles? how hard can it be?

 

[ShadowRunner]

Unless they were under contractual obligations to do so i cant see them going in an nefing one version just for parity. It hasnt ever happened for any other game as far as im aware so i dont know why this case would be any different.

If MGS4 was announced during development as multiplat the same comments would have been made.

 

[Dr. Nick]

Unless they were under contractual obligations to do so i cant see them going in an nefing one version just for parity. It hasnt ever happened for any other game as far as im aware so i dont know why this case would be any different.

If MGS4 was announced during development as multiplat the same comments would have been made.

The 360 would have been blamed for any technical issues found in that game, including lower polys on models, Sub-HD, and having to install multiple times.

 

[ShadowRunner]

The 360 would have been blamed for any technical issues found in that game, including lower polys on models, Sub-HD, and having to install multiple times.

Ofcourse, and nobody would ever know how wrong they were!

 

[Cornsnake]

So my question is this... Do you guys think that SE (or any developer) can make a game that targeted for PS3 with Blu-ray capacity in mind and make Xbox360 version out of it without suffering anything in terms of content and gameplay (not graphics...)?

Edit: Just to make it simpler, IIRC SE told us that they gonna finish the PS3 version first and worried about the Xbox360 version later. Can anyone have this approach (for this type of game) and still produce parity between those two consoles? how hard can it be?

I think they could do it with aggressive compression. The graphics will suffer, but it would reduce the disc space they need.

More likely, they could go with slight compression, that only effects the graphics a negligible amount, before they start locking down areas.

 

[obonicus]

What JRPGs on the 360 have been on a single disc? BD and LO were 3 and 4, respectively, and I know Star Ocean was multidisc (but I don't know how many). No idea about Last Remnant. Eternal Sonata?

Edit: Oh, wait, doh, Vesperia is a single disc.

 

[sunscar]

Ah! I see what you are saying like from the print screen i did:

What you are saying is that the pictures being reported as new and old are actually vice-versa to keep the FUD rolling.

Bingo - but after something like a month or two of this FUD-fest everyone already believes it. Frankly I don't see how they'd actually go about downgrading to this level anyway. Logistically, I don't even see it being possible. Square started on the Xbox 360 port what, a little less than a year ago? And had how much of the game basically finished on PS3? And now they have to scramble to rework all the models, textures, lighting, etcetera between the time multi-plat support was decided on and December 17th? So in around a years time they'd have to rebuild the entire game completely from scratch? See, none of that makes any sense.

It seems more likely to me that the reason the "newer" screens look like a severe downgrade, is because they're in fact older - Seems a LOT more likely than "Square rebuilt the game from scratch in about a year."

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Additionally with new rumors that the actual facial animations have been changed to match the English language track, it may have been a completely artistic consideration to leave out the Japanese voices.

One of complaints about English dubs is that they don't often match the lip movements of a Japanese speaker, and often the English dub will be changed from the original meaning in order to more closely lipsync.

Except in this case it would be the opposite. It would be like watching an American movie dubbed in Japanese where the lip movements have no corollation to the Japanese dialog.

I find it ridiculous that Square would leave out the Japanese language track on PS3 just because it would have taken up more space on the X360 version. What else are they going to do with the space? The other possibility of course, is that the BluRay disc is already packed full with just one language track. Although that could be problematic for the EU countries which would then need a seperate version for each country?

Which makes it even more ridiculous that they would leave out the track due to X360 space reasons, as won't the EU versions have to support multiple languages anyways? Unless, they are making a version specific to each country.

Either way none of it makes sense with regards to language track choices.

Regards,
SB