Kutaragi on delay and on sony

[London Geezer]

I'm not trying to come up with gloom and doom scenarios here. I'm just pointing out that it is possible.

Oh i agree, everything is possible! I just don't think PS3 will "fail" if Sony can keep certain games exclusive to them.

Then again, everyone seems to have different ideas of "failure" so...

Personally, if Sony can sell 50M PS3s at the price, i wouldn't say PS3 is a failure.

I would only consider PS3 a failure if MS can get certain franchises on 360, mainly the Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, MGS, Dragon Quest and other games that are exclusive to Sony at the moment. That will be the blow Sony might not be able to recover from in the long term.

 

[blakjedi]

As long as Sony has FF and MGS exclusive... it will be hard to beat them... those titles have fanatic followings worldwide... those two plus the playstation name and now God of War which really is a marquee title... they wont lose... draw maybe...

 

[TheChefO]

Oh i agree, everything is possible! I just don't think PS3 will "fail" if Sony can keep certain games exclusive to them.

Then again, everyone seems to have different ideas of "failure" so...

Personally, if Sony can sell 50M PS3s at the price, i wouldn't say PS3 is a failure.

I would only consider PS3 a failure if MS can get certain franchises on 360, mainly the Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, MGS, Dragon Quest and other games that are exclusive to Sony at the moment. That will be the blow Sony might not be able to recover from in the long term.

Agreed - I doubt ps3 will "flop" but regarding those key titles, I could see:
FF ps3, 360 (dev costs, roi)
KH ps3, Wii (demographic)
MGS ps3, 360 (dev costs, roi)
DQ ps3, Wii, 360 (doesn't seem to be a bleeding edge tech game)

Across the board devs will look to ensure their profit margins and being stuck to one horse this race isn't a safe bet.

 

[Sankari]

Agreed - I doubt ps3 will "flop" but regarding those key titles, I could see:
FF ps3, 360 (dev costs, roi)
KH ps3, Wii (demographic)
MGS ps3, 360 (dev costs, roi)
DQ ps3, Wii, 360 (doesn't seem to be a bleeding edge tech game)

Across the board devs will look to ensure their profit margins and being stuck to one horse this race isn't a safe bet.

I don't see FF or DQ hitting Xbox360 unless Microsoft whips out some serious cash, and what I mean with serious cash, hundreds of millions, probably in the billions. MGS might hit Xbox360 but then again, I doubt it.

As for kingdom hearts, I don't see any reason why they would put it on Wii, the fanbase is already in the playstation banwagon and by the time new KH hearts would somehow surface (the team is making FFXIII versus, no?) it would already be 2008~ when PS3 would be considerably lower price so the user base should be quite large, especially considering MGS4 and FF games will boost PS3 sales like mad.

This console race is close, but I have no doubt in my mind where I'm going with my main console, and that is PS3 with FF/MGS.

 

[expletive]

I don't see FF or DQ hitting Xbox360 unless Microsoft whips out some serious cash, and what I mean with serious cash, hundreds of millions, probably in the billions. MGS might hit Xbox360 but then again, I doubt it.

Hundreds of millions? Billions? The market cap for the whole company is around 2.5 billion USD.

 

[lefizz]

Oh and if you think $600 is bad try $803 (£425) which is what the PS£ will cost in the uk.
£425 is too much for a main stream console too much by about a half. For the vast majority of gamer i.e. casual gamers a £199 360 core will play all their crappy sport titles and look fine on there SD TV's.

Early adopters aside until the PS3 halves in price it simply wont attract enough gamers

 

[AW0L]

apple computer batterys have also been recalled, got the notice 3 weeks ago. since i own a cheap work dell and a powerbook found it funny that my laptops are both going in for the same problem. didnt realize till now both the batterys are from the same place.

 

[TheChefO]

Hundreds of millions? Billions? The market cap for the whole company is around 2.5 billion USD.

exactly - Might be more cost effective to just buy them outright. Right guys?

Seriously they aren't in business to be friends and loyal (see nintendo departure). They are in business to make money. If they can ensure better profit margins by porting their game(s) to an alternate system and do so relatively cheaply (good dev tools on 360point to this being the case) then I'd say it shouldn't surprise anyone if this happens, especially given the questionable status of ps3 sales/installed base.

It would cost MS a lot to secure exclusive rights to these games. It could cost SE to not bring their games to multiple platforms.

Money talks and ....

 

[Sankari]

Well tell you what, I'll be enjoying FF XIII when it comes out with my brand new PS3. I'll keep you guys in mind while you wait for Xbox360 version.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Seriously they aren't in business to be friends and loyal (see nintendo departure). They are in business to make money. If they can ensure better profit margins by porting their game(s) to an alternate system and do so relatively cheaply (good dev tools on 360point to this being the case) then I'd say it shouldn't surprise anyone if this happens, especially given the questionable status of ps3 sales/installed base.

It's not just about money though. Although these companies need to turn a profit, there is also a modicum of artistic integrity there that will make choices based on a vision rather than raw economics. Take FFVII. It was expected to continue on Nintendo's platforms, but didn't. This was because Square wanted to make a game of a grander experience than would fit onto N64. If all they cared about was economics, they would have produced a far smaller game that would fit onto N64 as well as PS. That would have entailed missing the artistic vision that the developers wanted to achieve though, and they weren't willing to make that sacrifice.

Money is not the be all and end all of decisions to develop for a platform. It's an important factor, but there's others too. If, for example, SE are determined to include lots of HD cinematics in FFXIII and feel a drop in quality isn't acceptable for their artistic vision, even if technically the game could make it to XB360 it might not, despite being contrary to economic sense. Similarly Kojima has said he won't port MGS to XB360 because he wants to target a machine specifically. Though he hasn't ruled out developing a game for XB360, MGS GotP is very unlikely to appear due to the developer's ideology, despite that ideology not fitting in with the economic choice others might make.

 

[TheChefO]

Well tell you what, I'll be enjoying FF XIII when it comes out with my brand new PS3. I'll keep you guys in mind while you wait for Xbox360 version.

So you're planning on waiting to purchase ps3 until FF is out? Good call as you might be able to save a bit if it launches same day on 360.

 

[standing ovation]

IN LIGHT of history, it isn't surprising that Kutaragi is so forthright. After all, he just fell from the pinnacle of Sony's food chain (where he was being groomed for coronation) back to his old job as the mere head of a subsidiary.

Of course when Howard Stringer stole the crown, he put the brakes on PlayStation's gravy train. And this left an already bitter Kutaragi with the impossible task of putting 'Humpty Dumpty back to together again'. (The multi-billion dollar PlayStation project is as ill-funded as it is underdeveloped.)

With career and dreams shattered, Kutaragi must now consider the inconceivable: make sweeping compromises or face utter defeat. :neutral:

 

[Darkon]

IN LIGHT of history, it isn't surprising that Kutaragi is so forthright. After all, he just fell from the pinnacle of Sony's food chain (where he was being groomed for coronation) back to his old job as the mere head of a subsidiary.

Of course when Howard Stringer stole the crown, he put the brakes on PlayStation's gravy train. And this left an already bitter Kutaragi with the impossible task of putting 'Humpty Dumpty back to together again'. (The multi-billion dollar PlayStation project is as ill-funded as it is underdeveloped.)

With career and dreams shattered, Kutaragi must now consider the inconceivable: make sweeping compromises or face utter defeat. :neutral:

what ?

 

[TheChefO]

It's not just about money though. Although these companies need to turn a profit, there is also a modicum of artistic integrity there that will make choices based on a vision rather than raw economics. Take FFVII. It was expected to continue on Nintendo's platforms, but didn't. This was because Square wanted to make a game of a grander experience than would fit onto N64. If all they cared about was economics, they would have produced a far smaller game that would fit onto N64 as well as PS. That would have entailed missing the artistic vision that the developers wanted to achieve though, and they weren't willing to make that sacrifice.

Money is not the be all and end all of decisions to develop for a platform. It's an important factor, but there's others too. If, for example, SE are determined to include lots of HD cinematics in FFXIII and feel a drop in quality isn't acceptable for their artistic vision, even if technically the game could make it to XB360 it might not, despite being contrary to economic sense. Similarly Kojima has said he won't port MGS to XB360 because he wants to target a machine specifically. Though he hasn't ruled out developing a game for XB360, MGS GotP is very unlikely to appear due to the developer's ideology, despite that ideology not fitting in with the economic choice others might make.

I think the cost of carts/nintendo royalties might have had something to do with it.

Look, I never said they would not or should not bring the game to ps3. Heck have it as the priority dev and go all out. Porting this same code (mostly) to 360 would cost them minimally and boost their bottom line while doing little to degrade the experience (480p cg and all). It's simple really.

Regarding ideology, true they'll probably do a special edition version bla bla bla, but will largely be the same game as the industry shifts a bit more toward paying attention to the bottom line.

Of course I could be wrong and the title(s) never make it but I wouldn't be surprised either way.

 

[Darkon]

I think the cost of carts/nintendo royalties might have had something to do with it.

your forgot one more thing , Nintendo was known back in those days to be over controlling bastard which pissed a lot of dev houses and made a few devs go under.

 

[standing ovation]

what ?

Before his demotion, Kutaragi managed to convince the company to subsidize radical technologies, which the PlayStation brand would jumpstart. From their inception, these programs were designed to operate from the top-down (limited bureaucracy) with budgets that were considerably larger than they are today.

But after his fall, Kutaragi finds himself working from the bottom-up (through layers of red tape) with limited funds.

 

[Serenity Painted Death]

Jesus fucking christ.

You will not see FFXIII (or subsequent mainline games) on the 360. The games have never and likely will never be mutliplatform (until inevitable ports/remakes on handhelds). Even with industry-busting budgets, they see profit on day 1 sales in Japan alone. Where 360 is completely dead and gone. They've already spent an incredible amount of effort on the White Engine, which is obviously optimized to run on the PS3. Wii isn't an option, either, for FF at least, as their stated goal with the games (FFXIII at least) is to basically match their CGI. Stop living in a fantasy world.

 

[scooby_dooby]

to basically match their CGI. Stop living in a fantasy world.

LOL. What a great couple of sentences. You seem to believe they will match their top quality CGI ingame, and then tell people they're living in a fantasy world?

Pot, meet Kettle....

 

[Crayon]

ot ot ot sorry sorry sorry

What makes the FF games a huge goldmine is the well known quality of the product. The no-holding back attitude. I buy a (main series) Final Fantasy without blinking because I can be reasonably sure that it's going to be one of, if not the, best products of the year. Alot of people bank on this.

Square made to move to Sony because they were one of the first to have the resources to take advantage of a high capacity format. They needed that to continue top achievable quality in the series. As long as they can maintain that quality, they have a chart topping blockbuster legendary series on their hands.

There's alot of debate about wheather blu ray capacity is neccessary (oh god, I'm so sorry, I promise I will not reply to any conversation taht may begin on that point in this thread) , but I think it's likely that withing Square, there is no debate. FF13 is filling up a blu ray disc and it's not going back to DVD. Nor is 14. Nor will 15.

 

[hongcho]

However sad to say this, I think we'll see FF on Wii before on 360, if ever...

Hong.