Final Fantasy XIII [PS3, X360]

For which they have created an inconsistent looking environment with a less than ideal balance of on screen contents. If you look at Oblivion, Far cry2 or Flashpoint, the out door scenery shown here is borderline MMO. Have to admit still, the nice art is saving some grace here.

 

As mean as it sounds I would take the artwork in a game like this over the technical advancements in any of the games you mentioned. It would be awesome to have both but for me artwork is more important.

 

Farcry 2 uses Alpha to Coverage I guess ?
They are already using A2C for Hair in FFXIII...Could'nt they use the same here for Grass ?

I say this cause FC2 foliage looked extremely good for a console game. [Flashpoint & Oblivion too looks good]

 

completely agree.

 

That's not right, sorry.

An XBox 360 (Elite) in Holland is €249. Take off the 19% sales tax and the actual console cost is €209, which is about $303.

Now, you may personally believe that $303 is a lot, but it's only $4 more than the US price.

 

At $100, why is it acceptable not to have both?

 

I don't know about you but I'm paying $60. Hey there are many games that do one or the other. Most people are paying for the full experience not just the graphics. If this game is anything like other JRPGs I'll likely put 100+ hours into it. I would say I'm getting my 60 bucks worth.

 

Actually, the US benefits from the mantra the richer your average consumers the less you can charge. This is because the richer your average citizen the more likely they will be consumers in any market. Last gen, Sony/Nintendo/MS were able to distribute roughly 80 million consoles (~50 mil PS2, ~16 mil Xbox and ~12 million GC) to a population of 300 million in the US while distributing ~70 million consoles (50 mil PS2, ~8 mil Xbox and ~8 million GC) to PAL markets of which ~80% went to Europe with a pop of 830 million (my numbers may be off because Im going totally off memory).

The homogenity of the US market is also a large benefit. Its cheaper and easier to market and advertise to those 300 million US citizens. There are dozens of different US print media that available and readily sold to all US citizens as well as 4 major networks that broadcast freely through out the US as well as dozens upon dozens of cable networks that are available nationally. Meaning you can produce one print ad or one comerical in one language and go through fewer channels to get 100% exposure to the market. Its also easier and cheaper to set up distribution to cover the US. You could get by with only three retailers (Walmart, BestBuy and GameStop) and get almost 100% coverage throughout the market. Very little of the consoles make their way through third party distributors channels in the US, most are directly distributed by the manufacturers, which helps negates additional costs to your bottom line.

Then there VAT versus sales tax. No one has to worry about sales tax in the US except the retailers and for most internet sales a lot of products aren't taxed at the point of sales. Under those circumstances, its up to the consumer to report their sales tax obligations. Sales tax aren't included in the retail prices because sales tax are typically levied by the local and state gov't so they vary from place to place (average of about 7%). VAT typically is double to triple the average US sales tax and included in the retail price and virtually everyone involved in profiting off the production, distribution and sales of the consoles is responsible from some fraction of VAT.

Most other countries tend to pay more because they don't have the breadth or demand of the US market. However, european countries benefit from being more closely linked (EU) and some have a big enough market to allow for direct distribution allowing them to rival US prices with the removal of VAT.

 

What I meant was that the US conversion shouldn't matter so much as what is considered the norm "value" in Japan.

 

I dont know about you guys but I am looking forward to Versus a lot more than this release.

 

Why?

 

From whatever little bit I have seen, the visuals were stunning. I prefer it more than this ultra colorful loud visuals in the first game being released.

Also if I remember right the guys who did FF 7 and 8 and so on are the people mainly working on Versus. I happen to love ff 7 and 8.

Seems a bit darker and more serious than the other one.

I dont know if this is going to affect the game any but that one will be a PS3 exclusive so hopefully they will have Japanese audio and all that.

The main character is a guy and he looks like an utter badass. I may come across as sexist but the last time I played a game and the main character was a chick and I had a lot of fun was Tomb Raider...

 

dobwal, thanks for the insight!
I never really understood the situation 'over there' , but it's more clear now.

About FF XIII versus. I'm also looking forward to it, and I hope I will make use of the hardware like KZ2 or U2 does, but somehow I doubt that

 

If I remember correctly, Final Fantasy X sold for about $75 at launch in Japan, although the price varied by store. I can't remember what I paid for Dissidia when that was launched, but media is usually quite a bit more expensive in Japan. Music CDs, for instance, run around $40 and Blu-ray/DVDs can cost $80 or more.

 

Heh, it's not that hard once you realize that vowel sounds in Japanese (and in many Polynesian languages) don't vary.

So the "i" sound always sounds the same whether it's Ni, Ki, etc. will always sound the same.

In this case Oniichan would be like O-Knee-chan. And Oneechan would like O-Nay-chan.

Once you get into the habit of not changing the way you pronounce vowels, Japanese gets very easy.

Regards,
SB

 

Also realize that since it is produced in Japan it is priced inline with Japanese games regardless of world exchange rates. Just as an example compared to last summer that same 8800 yen would have been roughtly 78 USD.

And 8800 yen, is about par for the course in Japan with prices ranging anywhere from 6800 yen on up to 9800 yen (at least for PC games). And have seen the rare one for over 10,000 yen.

Regards,
SB

 

That's true. I paid about 8500 yen for a PC game last year, back when the exchange rate was close to ￥100/$1.

 

Here are some videos taken from the demo at the Premiere party
possible spoilers

http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/211966/new-final-fantasy-xiii-gameplay/

 

1280x720 screenshots ;

http://www.andriasang.com/galleries/2009/09/08/ffxiii/2132390977_full.jpg
http://www.andriasang.com/galleries/2009/09/08/ffxiii/2132390978_full.jpg
http://www.andriasang.com/galleries/2009/09/08/ffxiii/2132390979_full.jpg
http://www.andriasang.com/galleries/2009/09/08/ffxiii/2132390980_full.jpg
http://www.andriasang.com/galleries/2009/09/08/ffxiii/2132390981_full.jpg

and impressions ; [ http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2009/09/09/ffxiii_impressions/ ].

 

Hands on:
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/25/tgs-2009-hands-on-final-fantasy-xiii/


Good news from my perspective. I tried the Advent Children demo but didn't complete it both times because I find the gameplay uninteresting.

According to Joystiq, the latest demo has more meat.