Square Enix Confirms FFXIII SERIES (!) Is Not Exclusive for PS3 *Read post #12

[dobwal]

I don't think the success of games like Kotor, Fable or oblivion can tell you anything about how the western-dominated market of the Xbox360 will respond to SE's much more easternised RPG offerings.. The style of games are vastly different and cater to very seperate tastes on the whole..
Granted FF is a massive IP globally and would probably sell well on the platform but well enough to warrant a port of SE's biggest franchise in the core offering?

Big franchises are the easiest to port and have financial success especially global IPs such as Final Fantasy.

There are alot of variables and SE have a history of being extra catious with respect to where they deploy the biggest franchise they have which represents the heart and soul of their company.. And besides, I doubt there relationship with Sony would benefit from losing FFXIII's exclusivity since what would that say about SE's confidence in the PS3 especially in Japan when the Xbox360 market is practically ignorable..?

SE wasn't cautious when it dropped Nintendo and went to PS1 it did so out of financial and technological reasons. SE main motivation is to generate profits. 92% of shareholders are not going to let the remaining 8% stifle profits to serve the self interest of that 8%.

I highly expect SE to go the route they have so successfully followed in the past with regards "testing the waters" by building an original IP for the Xbox360 over porting the core FF, possibly (no... probably) within the Fabula Nova Crystallis universe.. Or they may decide to port the FF Versus XIII title over which they have already stated would be much more real-time-action-orientated (I assume it will be similar to the Kingdom Hearts series, especially since it's been done by the same team) which, as an RPG staple, seems to go over much more favourably with the western markets....

What original IP did Square release prior to releasing FFVII on the PS1? How is the popularity of an unknown IP going to help you guage the the popularity of your biggest franchise on a new platform. Name a company or games that have used such tactics.

 

[Nesh]

How so?

Taking the art from the optimized PS3 game and moving to an non optimized engine should still be cheaper than creating all new art. Explain how recycling art content can be more expensive than creating new content?

I dont think its feasible to "copy paste" art from a platform optimized game to a non-optimzed platform without major downgrades unless its rewritten again for the other platform. Which is costy.

On the other hand the other non-optimized game was going to exist anyways. So why not port it to various platforms since its easier to put it in all?

 

[Nesh]

SE has a completely stereotypical, outdated view of the Xbox fanbase that doesn't reflect reality.

In other words, the actually DO believe FF13 would bomb on 360.

The guy said it himeslf:

They actually believe that! This was in response to a question concerning 360 and PS3 only, not Wii or DS.

I dont think its just that. Its more like faith I believe to their Japanese partner since they might know the possible impacts on Sony and the competition in case Sony loses this exclusivity. Which I dont think its necessarilly a bad thing

Japanese businesses usually have closer relationships than what is expected by us Europeans and Americans

 

[Cheezdoodles]

It seems unlikely, but perhaps the White Engine is very optimized for PS3 and a port would need substantial work, whereas for future XB360 titles SE will use UE3? The cost of porting could be substantial, in time as much as anything. Using UE3 negates that, allows for cross-platform sharing of art assets, but comes too late for FFXIII.

Porting an engine is dirt cheap. It's a matter of having a dozen programmers rewriting code. How much does a good programmer earn these days ? $100k a year?

Porting a game that is already a success on another platform is most likely a safe bet for extra income, unless you completely **** up the port.

 

[dobwal]

I dont think its feasible to "copy paste" art from a platform optimized game to a non-optimzed platform without major downgrades unless its rewritten again for the other platform. Which is costy.

On the other hand the other non-optimized game was going to exist anyways. So why not port it to various platforms since its easier to put it in all?

I didn't know things like textures, 3D models, audio or storyline were engine specific and so expensive to port that modeling new characters, creating new textures, paying for new actors and developing new storylines are cheaper.

Im at awe that EA, UbiSoft and just about any big name publishers that use a multiplatform model to spread cost across projects are really wasting money because its cheaper to produce new IPs for each console. Or maybe, they just have an artist create the same model 3 different time one for each console, record an actor lines 3 different time under three different platform specific formats and generate that same textures three different occasions.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I dont think its feasible to "copy paste" art from a platform optimized game to a non-optimzed platform without major downgrades unless its rewritten again for the other platform. Which is costy.

Im sorry but WHAT on earth are you basing this on?

Re-using art is one of the oldest tricks in the book of developing games.

 

[Nesh]

I didn't know things like textures, 3D models, audio or storyline were engine specific and so expensive to port that modeling new characters, creating new textures, paying for new actors and developing new storylines are cheaper.

Im at awe that EA, UbiSoft and just about any big name publishers that use a multiplatform model to spread cost across projects are really wasting money because its cheaper to produce new IPs for each console. Or maybe, they just have an artist create the same model 3 different time one for each console, record an actor lines 3 different time under three different platform specific formats and generate that same textures three different occasions.

Im sorry but WHAT on earth are you basing this on?

Re-using art is one of the oldest tricks in the book of developing games.

I didnt mean art can not be re-used or has to be re-written. I was refering to the White Engine itself.
I thought SE stated that White Engine is developed for PS3's architecture in mind. Which I assume it more refers to Cell's specific architecture.

I do expect a FF13 port to be feasible. What I dont expect is an easy port that will look just as good. Ofcourse the easy port will be "cheap". Ok assets are re-used. Then what? That doesnt mean a faitful, and identical in quality port.

Even the simplest games like EA's, Ubisoft's etc ports suffered downgrades moving from one platform to the next. It was "cheap" to do, art assets were reused, even the same engine which didnt target specifically a platform's architecture. Still differences were visible. Imagine a title that is more specific to a platform's hardware. I doubt an easy port like the simpler examples (COD, NFS, AC, SC) will be enough to showcase a just as good looking port.

We also have heard recent claims of some developers saying that in order to get the most out of the PS3 is to reconsider their code and target Cell's architecture from the start. I expect that this is what SE did.

I expect SE to be really putting some thought on their development on PS3's specific architecture.
Games that are heavilly optimized specifically for one console from the start I am sure would be hard to port well on the other without some extensive work atleast. Gears of War should be an example of such a game. I doubt it would have been easilly ported on a PS3 perfectly or atleast without putting some extensive work in optimization since it was heavilly based on 360's specific architecture.

 

[TheChefO]

Gears of War should be an example of such a game. I doubt it would have been easilly ported on a PS3 perfectly or atleast without putting some extensive work in optimization since it was heavilly based on 360's specific architecture.

Gears would only need to have the engine optimized and textures adjusted to fit and it would eaasily run on ps3. By all accounts ps3 to xb360 ports sould be relatively simple. Certainly much better than xb360 to ps3 ports.

This decision has zero to do with tech difficulty. (BR => multiple dvd)

Politics.

 

[woundingchaney]

Gears would only need to have the engine optimized and textures adjusted to fit and it would eaasily run on ps3. By all accounts ps3 to xb360 ports sould be relatively simple. Certainly much better than xb360 to ps3 ports.

This decision has zero to do with tech difficulty. (BR => multiple dvd)

Politics.

Are you speaking on the Lair devs statements as I have seen little other confirmation of this.

 

[Nesh]

Gears would only need to have the engine optimized and textures adjusted to fit and it would eaasily run on ps3. By all accounts ps3 to xb360 ports sould be relatively simple. Certainly much better than xb360 to ps3 ports.

This decision has zero to do with tech difficulty. (BR => multiple dvd)

Politics.

Relatively simple?the majority of interviews point to the opposite AFAIK. Developers are finding a hard time figuring out how to divide efficiently what should be going to each SPU when they port a game over the PS3.

Also I implied nothing about BR

 

[rounin]

Gears would only need to have the engine optimized and textures adjusted to fit and it would eaasily run on ps3. By all accounts ps3 to xb360 ports sould be relatively simple. Certainly much better than xb360 to ps3 ports.

This decision has zero to do with tech difficulty. (BR => multiple dvd)

Politics.

I don't think there enough PS3 to Xbox360 ports to support your statement. In terms of statistics, I think there are still too many exceptions for the number of titles that have been ported.

 

[V3]

Wouldn't it be funny if SE cancel the PS3 FF13 and put it on Wii instead. Just like what happend with FF7.

 

[archangelmorph]

Wouldn't it be funny if SE cancel the PS3 FF13 and put it on Wii instead. Just like what happend with FF7.

No.

 

[DieH@rd]

Square Enix changes it's business model, Final Fantasy VII more likey


Huge news today in Japan as Square Enix announced it reformed business model, and a significant rise in the likelihood of a Final Fantasy VII remake.

Late Wednesday night, on their Japanese web site, Square Enix announced that it will be working under a new business model, focused more on re-releasing existing titles and creating sequels to older games.

This change is no doubt due to the overwhelming success of its latest projects, which have all be remakes of Final Fantasy games for the Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance platforms. These remakes have done surprisingly well and have prompted Square Enix to look into the remade games further and for other systems as well. As a result, the company has decided that remakes and sequels will do well enough to keep the company in the green for quite some time.

This news will no doubt start an uproar in Final Fantasy VII remake rumors that have slowly lost their credibility since E3 of 2005. But even more exciting news to some is the possibility of other Square Enix franchises being dug up from the grave and re-released on next gen platforms.

http://www.n4g.com/ps3/News-35935.aspx

Damn, it would be sweet to play ff6 & ff8 in White Engine [or UT3]

 

[Nesh]

Damn, it would be sweet to play ff6 & ff8 in White Engine [or UT3]

OMG OMG OMG PLEASE BE REAL!!

 

[DuckThor Evil]

OMG!!

While I agree that it would be super awesome to play FF8 with updated visuals, I'm slightly worried about this change of direction as I rather take something new instead of old, atleast when talking about stories and such. I can see this being a huge financial success though, kind off like what Nintendo is doing. In essence keeping the development costs low and still selling bucket loads of software.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Porting an engine is dirt cheap. It's a matter of having a dozen programmers rewriting code.

You can't just rewrite engine code that uses 6 SPE's efficiently to run on XB360. You could need a grass-roots redesign on how to implement the different features, depending on what the SPE's are doing. IF they're just handling triangle setup etc. which Xenos can handle, a port isn't such a big deal. If they're doing something very fancy, a straight port of the code isn't an option. Then if the art assets have been optimized for a particular way of doing things on PS3, they'd need to be restructed again. Finally if the port isn't as polished as the original, as often happens with ports, SE might be unwilling to release a lower quality product, especially of their flagship title. If the XB360 isn't of the same quality as the PS3 version, a release likely wouldn't happen. And without knowing the ins and outs of the White Engine and it's implementation, we can't safely say a port of the engine is cheap and effective. Obviously SE have decided the cost to port isn't worth the returns. Either the costs are low but they rate the market as negligable, or the costs are significant and they don't feel the XB360 market viable to cover those costs. I think the latter is perhaps more accurate, especially seeing as SE have bought in UE3.

 

[Jesus2006]

Finally if the port isn't as polished as the original, as often happens with ports, SE might be unwilling to release a lower quality product, especially of their flagship title.

And what about Microsoft? I doubt they'd be willing to get a title that looks significantly worse on their console that makes it easy to spot the weaknesses of their system (for the competition and negative advertising).

I guess tha wouldn't get through MS's Q&A.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Since when have any console companies refused 'crappy' ports?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Since when have any console companies refused 'crappy' ports?

Yeah or crappy Final Fantasy ports :smile: I'm sure MS would be more than happy to receive FF13 port even if it was inferior to PS3 version.