After a little research of the situation I have come across a few things that bother me. Many have bombarded the interwebs with their opinion on the matter. What I have found is.... Have the Fanboys Gone Crazy? Why are They so MAD? http://www.psu.com/FFXIII-and-Versus-to-Fully-Utilize-PS3-Specs-News--a1911-p0.php http://kotaku.com/gaming/rumor-smash/square-closed-mega-theater-confirms-ff-xiii-ps3-only-302669.php http://kotaku.com/gaming/this-page-intentionally-left-blank/no-final-fantasy-for-you-xbox-266191.php -Firstly, it is articles like these that have fans of Sony and FF alike enraged about the whole situation. Sony and FF have been joined at the hip for a very long time. This is why the fans think of them together in such a way(Die Hards at least). A loss of an exclusive is one less thing that validates one's purchase. I mean if Halo or Mario went multiplat after u purchased a system for it wouldn't you be mad. As A sony fan I believe the game is best on its system, to put it elsewhere is nothing but a slap in Sony's face. If all titles were available on all systems, the winner is predominantly gonna be the cheapest of them, as many only see a price tag. Halo was enough to validate many ppl's purchase of a 360 on RELEASE! FFXIII was that game for many on PS3. Many benchwarmers and 360 owners alike said "Phew! now I DONT have to buy a PS3 for it! YAY!" Which emplies the original plan TO purchase one. It is completely feasable to be angry when many fan's pride and joy franchise lies to them TWICE in one statement.
Fishie! Fishie! I really don't know what you're implying with the 'fishie fishie' theme. Are you alluding to shady dealings? Oh, wait, no, MS is probably just doing what they've always done, use their money to get people to publish on their system (Unlike sony, which doesn't do anything to secure exclusives) How Do We Know It would look any different? http://www.psu.com/Final-Fantasy-Versus-XIII-in-game-shots-revealed-News--a2523-p0.php This is what a EXCLUSIVE FF game looks like. And yes, that is said to be INGAME graphics! OH man! In Game! Awesome. It's even better than those Killzone 2 shots we saw from E3 '05. Oh, wait, it turned out those weren't really in game at all. My personal belief is that if a developer claims it's in game, then they're probably lying. They're not releasing the game for another ~15 months! And those screenshots are from january! How is the engine that polished already! http://kotaku.com/gaming/bff/final-fantasys-nomura-digging-that-ps3-304647.php This also gives thought to what was FFXIII's true purpose at the begining. Fishie! Fishie! SE just wants to make everything even this time right? Wrong! This was prooven to be invalid once FFXIII went multiplat. There is nothing "EVEN" about them now.
If they wanted to be fair why did they not hold Last Remnant's release as they did FFXIII(a much bigger franchise which ppl have been waiting for for a looooooooooong time). Or for that matter, Why is yet another franchise synonomous with playstation,SO4, 360 exclusive? Why would Square choose a system that has an abismal fanbase for RPGs for some of there new titles(no JRPG on 360 has sold more than a mil yet)? You seem to be missing the point. SE just wants money. Neither of the HD consoles have the population or fanbase to give them tons of money on their own. They don't want to sell games that cost 50M$ to develop to only 500K people. In fact, MS 'moneyhatting' is probably the only reason these games are being published at all. Oh, and I agree that no JRPG has sold more than a million copies. But has any PS3 JRPG sold that mythical number? Doesn't the PS3 have, like, 1 JRPG? Why the sudden change with SquareEnix Now? Now this one is a toughy but I will try to answer. Firstly it makes little sense for SE to just decide to do this now. This is the kind of decision a company makes when a product is not selling as expected. But the PS3 is! Wha? Dont believe me, check the front page. The PS3 has been outselling the 360 every month since christmas with the burning potential to constantly do better. If they were having doubts, why not just say that from the get go. It is ludacris to change plans now this late in development, when the stakes were at their highest for Sony and SE. Saying 'The PS3 is selling better than the 360' is a stupid thing to say. That's like saying 'I'm faster than a man with no legs.' Both systems are selling at around Gamecube levels. The PS3 isn't selling like expected. All the analysts expected the PS3 to sell like the Wii, netting 30 million consoles worldwide and a majority of the marketshare. It has half that, maybe. Microsoft says they did not Pay for it? Right? Not quite what they said. I believe they were a tad decieptful in their presentation. observe http://finalfantasy-xiii.net/2008/07/18/sony-microsoft-bought-final-fantasy-xiii.html if you look closely Tretton makes a passing remark about MS and their infamous dumptrucks of cash. This is known as MS's trademark already. We KNOW they have done it in the past to get games to go exclusive/timed exclusive for their system(Bioshock, Oblivion,Lost Planet, Eternal Sonata, etc). Why is it so difficult to believe they have done it for a title that holds more berring than all those stated titles combined? So MS will pay for the small fry but not the big cahuna(SP?)? http://360.kombo.com/article.php?artid=13863 Here is a rep from MS talking about the so called "Rumors". If you pay attention to this guys words, he never actually denies that they paid for it. He simply pushes the conversation into a different direction to steer clear of the topic even though he brought it up(Nice move if I do say so myself). If Sony says they did, they didn't deny it, and Sony has stock in SE meaning they know where their income is coming from, than all roads point to moneyhatting. The evidence is there. Then why didnt sony do something about it you ask? Well SE says the deal was recent, but how recent? Sony has access to SE's financials. MS has not even sent the dev kits for the port yet even now. Do we really think Sony would just stand by and let their BIGGEST exclusive slip by? I think not! My geuss is MS strategically planned the timing just right. Maybe even DAYS before the E3 conference this deal was put into motion. This gave no time for Sony to react after hearing the news (maybe the day before the conf.) Fishie! Fishie! Sony has said time and again (saying 'time and again' is a nice trick to get out of finding a source) that they don't pay for exclusives. They are still stuck in the heyday of the PS1/2 when they were the best selling console and it was stupid not to develop for them. How do they expect to keep their 'core franchises' when they aren't paying and they are the least sold system? (in terms of total sales, not month by month, yes, I know there was a several month period where sony was beating MS) JUMP SHIP! PS3 is goin DOWN! not really. PS3 is still selling on par with 360 and only can improve. See my previous comments about comparing yourself to things that are doing poorly. Furthermore, why can it 'only improve'? IMHO, another big scandal or a 3rd party releasing a cheaper Blu-Ray player or more lost exclusives or a significant price drop for the 360 could all seriously hurt the PS3. People don't realize that the PS3 can sell withough even having the huge catolog of games the 360 has and being way more exspensive than its competition. The 360 is moving in on the sweet spot(the price range area where a system's sales peak the most) The Wii started out there and sold accordingly. What do you think will happen once the PS3 reaches it? It is gonna blow your mind. Actually, it's gonna blow Sony's pocketbook. The 'sweetspot' is 200-250$ at most. Do you really think the technology is gonna exist to sell all the technology in the PS3 for under 350$ before 2010? If sony wants to hit the sweet spot it's going to cost them hundred dollars per PS3 sold and it won't be for a while. Sony has said they want to focus on profits right now, so they aren't going to be cutting willy-nilly as long as they're still selling. Many tend to say, why get a PS3 when most of the games I like are on the opposite system. This is true, but it works both ways. And the PS3 may cost more, but carries more in the box features that the competition lack or must buy seperately (standard rechargable controller anyone?). The features of the PS3 only sell the system if people want them. Blu-Ray is only a system seller if people want blu-ray, and most people aren't going to have a HD-TV before 2010. Standard Rechargable Controllers? So what. You can buy a battery charger for like 10 bucks. Furthermore the reason people buy consoles is because they want to play games, not because they like owning boxes with hi tech doo-dads. I hear many going "NOw its a matter of time before we get FFVXIII now!lol!" This is more feasable now than ever in the light of the FFXIII thing but think about this. FFXIII is made by a dif director. Nomura is in charge of versus and everyone knows him to be a bit of a PS3 fanboy. Nomura has already shown his disgust with the multiplat deal. He does not believe in multiplat games(rightfully so) and simply would not do it. FF Versus 13 doesn't matter. Ordinary people buy the core series game for name value and don't beat them. They don't say 'where can I get me more of that exposition!'. Besides, what's to say that SE doesn't make a new FF13 spinoff just for the 360? They have over a year to develop it. So what is to learn from all of this? WHAT REALLY HAPPENED? Simple, MS used their calling card AGAIN. We can argue the basics of moneyhatting's ethics but it leads to the same conclusion. Now I believe, this is an opinion so dont flame me for it, that MS intention was not even to boost 360 sales with this anouncement. On the contrary, it was to simply hinder PS3 sales as much as possible. The PS3 had been gaining plenty of momentum over the last yr. With the success of MGS4 and the promise of FFXIII on its way soon MS had to act fast if they wanted to stay in the lime light. PS3 lost a valuable exclusive and the 360 went for a price cut at the same time. And most of 360's conference was spent on blatent rip offs of Sony's franchises as well as Nintendo's. This has slightly boosted 360 sales in the last couple of weeks. And it has also caused the PS3 sales to fall just below 360's. But my qeustion is, why go for PS3 sales instead of fucusing on your own? Do you see it as a threat? Or do you simply care less of making a serious profit but more on stomping competition into the ground? Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiishhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee! The reason the XBox franchise exists is because MS got pissed off that sony was saying 'Hey, our PS2 is so awesome to play games on, but we're thinking of expanding it so it's a living room computer! Who needs stupid Microsoft Windows when you can have a Sony Playstation Living Room Computer!'. This made MS mad because windows is where they make their billions, so they started the XBox to give the PS2 (and eventually the PS3) a credible threat so they couldn't do what they want. The reason the XBox exists is to hurt PS3 sales numbers. That's it.
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My comments are in Red
Wii has more 20 million sellers than PS3 has 5 million sellers.
Acolyte of Disruption
