Square on ff x1 and the xbox 360

[jvd]

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/630/630782p1.html

Yamamoto states that development on the 360 version of FFXI started two or three months prior to E3 -- at around February or March of this year. The game was ported over from the Windows version smoothly, and at the time of E3, development was far enough that players could log into a server and move around.

Meanwhile, programmer Yasuhiro Yamamoto reveals that development on the game is at 55%, with all graphics work finished.

It's known that Square Enix originally had plans to bring FFXI to the original Xbox. According to Tanaka, development on the game's Xbox version began a year or so after the Xbox launched. Had development continued, Square Enix could have launched the game at the start of the Xbox Live service.

very interesting that they started porting the game , wonder what happened that talks fell through perhaps the hardrive wasn't big enough ?

 

[Titanio]

I think it probably had more to do with MS's networking model..if that were the case, I'm surprised MS wouldn't have tried to accomodate them at the time, though they seem to have come round now.

 

[jvd]

whats nice is thier comments about 2-3 months to get it ready for e3 and that its 55% done . Looks like you can port a pc game to the x360 in 6 months and this is on alpha kits . When final kits come around the time should shrink. Good news for those who like pc games but can't afford a top of the line rig

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm not sure porting to final hardware would be easier than porting to Alpha kits. Alpha kits have a conventional GPU and hoofy GP processors. What runs well on Alpha kits won't necessarily run well on XeCPU without a major rethink of how to handlt the different architecture. GPU may not be an issue - a port isn't doing anything clever and they'll just use the same DirectX interface, though it will be severely underusing the hardware's capabilites. But I think rewriting for XeCPU isn't a straightforward process; at last if your going to use more than one core. Again a straight PC port might get away with not using more than that. Hardware requirements for FFXI are only an 800 MHz PIII so I can see multithreading not being considered.

I hope the next-gen consoles manage more than being cheap hardware to run PC ports though

 

[jvd]

I would imagine that ms was focusing on the waternoose cpu in regards to xna and that is what its highly tweaked for . The work on the g5s was most likely a quick job and had no where near the same amount of work done to it . Esp since its a dead end now and i'm sure that ms was aware of apples choice or knew that was what apple was heavly considering .

So i dunno .


Anyway as for ports . People seem to get upset about them but i never see why ? A good game is a good game . Who cares if it was on the pc before a console ? My friend has been wanting to play half life 2 but can't afford a decent pc right now but he has an xbox and now he will get to play it , the same with doom3.

Personaly i like that my friend can get the movies and play like i can , or hopefully he can get spore and we can talk about it together .

 

[one]

Anyway as for ports . People seem to get upset about them but i never see why ? A good game is a good game . Who cares if it was on the pc before a console ? My friend has been wanting to play half life 2 but can't afford a decent pc right now but he has an xbox and now he will get to play it , the same with doom3.

Well, the PC version of FFXI is not exactly a graphically cutting-edge title now as opposed to when it's first released with its own benchmark program in late 2002.

 

[jvd]

Anyway as for ports . People seem to get upset about them but i never see why ? A good game is a good game . Who cares if it was on the pc before a console ? My friend has been wanting to play half life 2 but can't afford a decent pc right now but he has an xbox and now he will get to play it , the same with doom3.

Well, the PC version of FFXI is not exactly a graphically cutting-edge title now as opposed to when it's first released with its own benchmark program in late 2002.

even in 2002 it wasn't graphicly impessive , its a mmorpg , i don't expect much

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Anyway as for ports . People seem to get upset about them but i never see why ?

I'm not fussed per se, only if all we get are ports the new consoles won't be being pushed at all. I'd rather games be rewritten for the hardware more then copied over (including art assets etc.). Wishful thinking and not economically viable, true.

 

[Andy]

I've been tempted to get the PC version FFXI for a while, because the HDD for PS2 never came out here (Australia). However I am wondering about waiting and getting the X360 version instead, I'm not really that fussy about the graphics, I'm just unsure whether I'm gonna like playing a Final Fantasy game with a Keyboard and Mouse rather than with a controller.

Yes I could get a controller or controller adapter for the PC but I'm just a lasy bastard at heart.

 

[one]

its a mmorpg , i don't expect much

Oh really? Everyone seems to have a hard time to run EQ2 in its full glory.

 

[jvd]

its a mmorpg , i don't expect much

Oh really? Everyone seems to have a hard time to run EQ2 in its full glory.

I love eq2 ( before the messed with my class ) But 1) its not even a year old yet and 2 ) While it does push graphics cards to the limits there is alot of crappy code that could be used to make the game faster and look better (like a sm2.0 path )

Lineage 2 pushed graphics cards to the limits . I have a 400/360 9700pro (the best out was a 9800xt ) and that game would kill my graphics card but it was only a unreal 2 engine game .

Its because of the amount of chars on screen at once. I went to a raid that had over 2k people in one area at the same time fighting an ant queen and my fps were 1