SquareEnix explains why FFXIII is PS3 exclusive - DVD9 not enough

[Serenity Painted Death]

I don't think Gears of War has the possiblity of doing several million in all three territories.

 

[Rodéric]

More then likely, DVD9 isn't enough. Take a look at Squenix's history and overall they tend to lean towards non linear titles for their main RPGs(all told you have fourteen of their nineteen main series beign non linear) and they tend to not rely on reused assets very much as BethSoft did for Oblivion. The 360 was never a viable option at all, I don't know why anyone would think it would be. The other two systems that had a chance at landing the title, the PS2 and Wii, were both also DVD9 limited. From a business perspective in the time frame that the game will come out it makes by far the most sense to release it on the PS2, their sales would likely be much higher then they would be on either of the other two options, but it wouldn't allow them to release the game in the way that they want to do it.

What ?!
All FF since PS1 are multi disk games, arguing that they can't fit the game on a single disk is the reason for not releasing it on a given platform is just a ridiculous lie.

I don't think this is a slam in the least on the 360. The 360 sold 0.4% of what the DS sold this week- it is not a viable platform for the Japanese market. MS made their choices, and of those choices was the choice to go with DVD9 which everyone knew was going to be an issue if they wanted to land certain JRPG series on their systems(FF being the highest profile in the US). They decided to focus their hardware on the US and European market and so far that seems to be going the way they want it to(they have Gears of War which will likely sell better then FF in either of the two territories they are focusing on).

I don't say it makes sense for them to port/make FFXIII on the 360, I certainly see a lot of reasons not to, but using the DVD9 is not big enough excuse is pure bullshit.
I don't care what platform they make FF for, I just don't like people using lame excuses to back themselves up.

There's no technical reason they couldn't make FFXIII on the 360, they just didn't want to for whatever other reason, period.
(That's my strong opinion.)

 

[3roxor]

What ?!
All FF since PS1 are multi disk games, arguing that they can't fit the game on a single disk is the reason for not releasing it on a given platform is just a ridiculous lie.


There's no technical reason they couldn't make FFXIII on the 360, they just didn't want to for whatever other reason, period.
(That's my strong opinion.)

But they now have a choice to release the game on a single disk..
It's perfectly acceptable when a game company says they want their game to be realeased on the most capable system. I also wouldn't want my game to consist of 3/4 DVD's.

 

[Arwin]

There's no technical reason they couldn't make FFXIII on the 360, they just didn't want to for whatever other reason, period.
(That's my strong opinion.)

I'm only going to say this one last time. The FFXIII team explained their reasons for moving the game from PS2 to PS3. The game was originally slated to be released on the PS2, not on the Xbox, and after experimenting with the PS3 version, they really didn't want to go back to the PS2 - they just liked working with the PS3 too much. This move affects, say, 50.000.000 PS2 gamers, and so they were required to explain the reasons to do so. In this interview, that is what they were defending - moving from PS2 to PS3.

The 360 was never a factor in this decision. Don't let the fact that the PS2 and the Xbox 360 both use DVD9 as their game distribution media confuse you.

 

[scooby_dooby]

FFI, FFII, FFIII, FFIV, FFV, FFVI and FFXI

LMAO. Captain Obvious is in the house, how many NES or SNES games had FMV? Don't you think that really goes without saying? FF11 is an mmo, it's not a typical FF game.

 

[pakotlar]

I'm only going to say this one last time. The FFXIII team explained their reasons for moving the game from PS2 to PS3. The game was originally slated to be released on the PS2, not on the Xbox, and after experimenting with the PS3 version, they really didn't want to go back to the PS2 - they just liked working with the PS3 too much. This move affects, say, 50.000.000 PS2 gamers, and so they were required to explain the reasons to do so. In this interview, that is what they were defending - moving from PS2 to PS3.

The 360 was never a factor in this decision. Don't let the fact that the PS2 and the Xbox 360 both use DVD9 as their game distribution media confuse you.

quoted for the summary of all logical arguments in this thread. there isn't a whole lot to discuss. even if the 360 had holographic storage, and the ps3 had dvd9, square enix would not release a numbered FF title on the 360. The 360 could have 10x the graphics capability, and then FF team would say, "nah, there was too much processing power...the ps3 had just enough). Occam's Razor works well here. What is more likely, that Square Enix was concerned about the size of the 360's disk, or about the fact that the 360 sells about 1 unit a month in Japan, their most important market? Hmm....

edit: To make another bloated analogy, even if PS3 cost 1k for the base model, it would have a fair shot at selling 2-3x more than the 360 in Japan. As it stands the 360 has no chance at all.

 

[Arwin]

I agree with most of what you said. Some cruxes:

Sorry I didn't see your reply sooner ...

According to Dean Takahashi's X360 book, HD-DVD was never planned for the X360 because it was decided that the benefits of including it would not be the best decision based on their market interpretation. The launch window was not the only factor.

Perhaps, perhaps not. But how reliable is this information?

I am a little bit insulted that you take my industry comment as nonsense, and that assesment is narrow in interpretation. Financial analysts are skeptical of Sony's inclusion of Blu-Ray, and argue that in the end the benefits of including Blu-Ray at this stage of the game are at best uncertain. Sony is taking big risks on both cost and market acceptance of the standard. HD-DVD is not going away any time soon.

The problem is that many financial analysts know even less about consoles than my girlfriend. This is why I am typically skeptical of their comments. I have followed the industry for 20 years and have seen financial analysts come and go together with many consoles. If HD-DVD really isn't going to go away anytime soon, isn't that all the more reason for Sony to include BluRay?

Industry does not only include developers who have the funds make enough content to fill out Blu-Ray discs. Read some developer comments about the cost of next-gen content. Space is not the main issue. That is creating enough assets to make their games graphically divergent from previous generation software.

This problem however is being solved on the other end of the market - the digital distribution networks that Microsoft already has in place and Sony is preparing for PS3s launch. And while creating enough assets is an issue, it is something advanced game development environments like Unreal Engine 3, and middleware products like SpeedTree are taking care of. Also, many art is created in much higher resolutions and then downscaled, so at least a part of that shouldn't be a big problem.

And Blu-Ray is not 54GB's; dual-layer discs will not be used for some time, just like DVD9 was not standard until sometime after DVD. And the 200GB disc is nonsense just like Toshiba's 8 layer HD-DVD disc. You will not see this capacity for consumer use anytime soon.

True but it will come soon, while DVD9 isn't going anywhere. The 200Gb disc isn't nonsense, the only question is how easy it would be for a standard blu-ray laser to read it, and if they can create a standard for it before the PS3 is launched. I suspect that the PS3s BluRay player won't go beyond DoubleLayer, but who knows?

Sorry for taking this thread so OT. Here is what is certain to me: Blu-Ray will enable FFXIII to be a single disc game. Thanks for reading my posts.

Thanks, you too. Your posts are quite a level up from some other posts here.

 

[TheChefO]

They decided to focus their hardware on the US and European market

What? I understand your comment that Japanese developers want large media to store fmv's, but I hardly think that had anything to do with their choice of dvd9 over hd-dvd or bluray. Cost, standard wars, and availability(timeframe) probably had a bit more to do with it.

 

[BenSkywalker]

What ?!
All FF since PS1 are multi disk games, arguing that they can't fit the game on a single disk is the reason for not releasing it on a given platform is just a ridiculous lie.

I must be missing my disks for FFX then, it seems I only ever got the one DVD.

I don't say it makes sense for them to port/make FFXIII on the 360, I certainly see a lot of reasons not to, but using the DVD9 is not big enough excuse is pure bullshit.
I don't care what platform they make FF for, I just don't like people using lame excuses to back themselves up.

There's no technical reason they couldn't make FFXIII on the 360, they just didn't want to for whatever other reason, period.
(That's my strong opinion.)

It is you oppinion that the game is realistic on a DVD9 platform. Let's look at this from another angle, shall we?

NES carts peaked around 4MBit IIRC, and it had 256KB RAM IIRC(can't recall exactly, but somewhere around there) so its storage mediem peaked somewhere around 400% of its system memory.

SNES carts peaked @32MBit with 1MB system RAM(both off the top of my head).

N64 carts peaked @256MBit with 4MB system RAM. I may be off on these but the general point is that the relative ratio when looking at storage mediums to sytem RAM cart based systems were relatively in same general league. The CD based systems changed that in a staggering fashion, offering orders of magnitude more storage then RAM- the DVD systems kept this going offering at least 100x the amount of storage compared to system RAM. Now we have the 360 which has a ~15:1 storage to RAM ratio. It is close to moving back to carts in terms of progress.

BTW- I would be extremely shocked to see any major non Nin JRPGs on the Wii- it is far too limited with its tiny media.

 

[one]

BTW- I would be extremely shocked to see any major non Nin JRPGs on the Wii- it is far too limited with its tiny media.

Isn't Wii disc DVD9? It won't be a problem in SD. A sequel to Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles was already announced for Wii.

 

[rabidrabbit]

BTW- I would be extremely shocked to see any major non Nin JRPGs on the Wii- it is far too limited with its tiny media.

It's a full-size DVD, as is xbox360, right?
It'll have Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles sequel, at least, and possibly some Dragon Quest spinoff.
But you're correct, these are more spinoffs than "major" rpg's.
Edit: one beat me to it

 

[TheChefO]

N64 carts peaked @256MBit with 4MB system RAM. I may be off on these but the general point is that the relative ratio when looking at storage mediums to sytem RAM cart based systems were relatively in same general league. The CD based systems changed that in a staggering fashion, offering orders of magnitude more storage then RAM- the DVD systems kept this going offering at least 100x the amount of storage compared to system RAM. Now we have the 360 which has a ~15:1 storage to RAM ratio. It is close to moving back to carts in terms of progress.

What media will they use for ps4 then? If we must keep this >100:1 ram to storage ratio what media will be suitable for these 4gb systems of next gen? Or will we simply be stuck in the dark ages if we dont have anything beyond bluray/hd-dvd at that point and we'll be back to the cart days in terms of progress?

 

[ban25]

NES carts peaked around 4MBit IIRC, and it had 256KB RAM IIRC(can't recall exactly, but somewhere around there) so its storage mediem peaked somewhere around 400% of its system memory.

SNES carts peaked @32MBit with 1MB system RAM(both off the top of my head).

N64 carts peaked @256MBit with 4MB system RAM. I may be off on these but the general point is that the relative ratio when looking at storage mediums to sytem RAM cart based systems were relatively in same general league. The CD based systems changed that in a staggering fashion, offering orders of magnitude more storage then RAM- the DVD systems kept this going offering at least 100x the amount of storage compared to system RAM. Now we have the 360 which has a ~15:1 storage to RAM ratio. It is close to moving back to carts in terms of progress.

NES ROMs probably weren't that big, aside from RAM in the cartridge, the NES probably had 2 to 4 KB. The SNES had 128 KB.

 

[Ventresca]

The only reason they need more space is for put in more hd movies.

 

[PeterT]

What media will they use for ps4 then? If we must keep this >100:1 ram to storage ratio what media will be suitable for these 4gb systems of next gen?

Holographic Versatile Discs?

Anyway, I believe that everyone talking about how SE only need the increased disc capacity to store movies is underestimating their ability to produce content . Also comparisons to Oblivion are totally meaningless. Oblivion has about 2 types of cities, 4 types of dungeons and exactly 2 (two) different body meshes for all humanoid creatures. Hardly exemplary of a game needing a lot of storage space.

 

[TheChefO]

Holographic Versatile Discs?

"a single disc currently costs approximately US$120, and by 2010, will cost about US$100."

I don't think these discs will be aimed at the consumer space in time for ps4 or x720. Again I ask, If it is so important to maintain this >100:1 storage:ram ratio, then what will we do 5 years from now? Will you guys ream Sony for sticking to the established format or will it be ok because it's Sony who is choosing bluray again and not MS/Nintendo "holding us back"?

 

[PeterT]

I think the prices you quote are for the >1TB versions, not the ~300GB versions. Be that as it may, I never said anything about needing to maintain a 100:1 ratio - in fact I believe that doing so is not at all necessary.

But this thread is about FFXIII and how it - according to the developer - needs more than 7GB of space, an idea that I find very reasonable. It is not about anyone "reaming Sony" or "holding back the industry".

 

[TheChefO]

I think the prices you quote are for the >1TB versions, not the ~300GB versions. Be that as it may, I never said anything about needing to maintain a 100:1 ratio - in fact I believe that doing so is not at all necessary.

But this thread is about FFXIII and how it - according to the developer - needs more than 7GB of space, an idea that I find very reasonable. It is not about anyone "reaming Sony" or "holding back the industry".

I was originally replying to Benskywalker as he drew an analogy to the cartridge days and the "need" for this storage ratio. But you are correct, this is vering off-topic.

Ontopic - as has been said before, this decision to put FF on ps3 only, is 100% political - not technical.

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

I was originally replying to Benskywalker as he drew an analogy to the cartridge days and the "need" for this storage ratio. But you are correct, this is vering off-topic.

Ontopic - as has been said before, this decision to put FF on ps3 only, is 100% political - not technical.

I'd say it's the opposite as the reason it's on the PS3 is that the developers liked it so much more than the PS2.

 

[TheChefO]

I'd say it's the opposite as the reason it's on the PS3 is that the developers liked it so much more than the PS2.

So your saying as a publisher they wouldn't want to sell to the existing 6 million 360 user base (potential 10million by the end of the year and who knows what it would be by the time they finish with this game)?

They are in business to make money. To offset these potential sales, (which would lead to a LOT more sales of this type game on their competitors system) Sony must make up for this exclusivity.