| Galvanizer said: In the same interview, Ito aso said that he would like to evolve the ATB system beyond what he did with FFXII but current gen harware (PS3/360) is not powerful enough to do what he wants to do. I guess that may be a hint that he will return to the FF series with PS4/720. Also, Ito is a good writer. He co-wrote FFIX with Hironobu Sakaguchi. However, I do agree that it would be good to have Hiroshi Minagawa and the Tactics Ogre PSP team to hep him with the writing. |
Well I don't want to give anyone flase hope, but if we look at FF12 that game went through development problems and to the best of my knowledge spent a lot longer in development than it should have.
That meant that FF13 which was already in development for the PS2 at the time was postponed to the PS3. That meant FF13 lost one year in development (which they admitted) and the difficulty in programming for the PS3 architecture meant the game took a very long time to develop. Then they had to port the game to the Xbox which was no easy task because the platforms featured very different architectures. Between the time it was announced (E3 2006) and its release date, it took about 4 years for them to release that title.
Since FF13 however Yochi Wada has been getting these FF games out every two years. FF13-2, now Lightning Returns and I expect FF13 Versus will be coming out in the near future. Granted I'm basing that on the fact it has spent 7 years in development. Anyway my point is I very much doubt Wada wants to release FF15 halfway through the console cycle in the same way FF13 was released.
Thus based on what we can see from Sqaure Enix, they have learned to get these games out much faster than before. We know that FF15 (well we think theres good evidence) will be announced this E3. Based on the accessibility of developing for the platforms this time I think the next main FF will be released within 3 years.
Then theres taking into account how long they've had to work with Luminous, personally I think theres a good chance the game has already been in development a while. I know Hashimoto said 'We are preparing for development...". Then that could mean game has already gone through the pre-production phase, and they are beginning development now. Lightning Returns hasn't been released yet and we don't know the release date. I think its unlikely Kitase and Toriyama will have time to work on Lightning Returns and have something to show for FF15 at E3.
I'm not sure what Wada has planned with Ito, whether its more mobile games or whatnot. From what I've heard Guardian Cross was financially very successful. Anyway, I think the staff (hopefully) for FF15 will be Hiroshi Minagawa and his Zodiac Brave team. I have faith they will bring the series back.
