Borkachev on 30 July 2007
It's interesting that people are dismissing FFXI as a real FF game when talking about why FFXIV won't come out this generation, because there's a pretty good chance FFXIV is going to be an MMORPG as well, the direct successor to FFXI.
Square themselves claim they are going to build off the XIII universe for 10 years (which i'm sure is just as true as the PS3's 10 year life cycle), but it does show that they don't have any intention of making a new primary FF game this generation.
How do you figure? They've been milking the FFVII universe for 10 years, and it sure hasn't stopped the main-series games from coming out. It would be an utterly ridiculous business move to stop production on one of the most hyped and profitable franchises in the world to focus on a bunch of quick-buck spinoffs.
Whatever form XIV takes, I consider it a given that it will be out this generation. SE is a large company, and they're always going to be frantically working on the next entry in the series. Without a doubt, FFXIV is in the planning stages, and probably has been since before XIII was even announced. With the rise in development costs and times, there might not be three games this generation, but I've still got a hunch they'll pull that off, too.
For the original topic, I don't see the FF main series ever ending up on Wii, unless there was some disaster that completely collapsed both PS3 and 360. The reason is simply that FF is Square's flagship franchise, and it's the one they use to constantly push the technical limits of what's possible. No, it's not always on the most powerful platform, but there's a huge difference between the PS2-XBOX gap and the Wii-PS3 gap -- especially when going to Wii would mean a huge technical step backward from what had already been achieved with XIII. I really don't think they'd consider that.
So where will it end up? If it's another MMORPG, it's pretty certain that it'll be spread over PS3, 360, and PC again. If it's a single-player, it's too early to call. My bet is that it'll go wherever XIII goes in the end, meaning that if they find it necessary to eventually port XIII to 360/PC, they're sure to do that with XIV as well (barring some sort of new exclusivity deal with Sony). Otherwise it'll be PS3 exclusive.
KH seems like a toss-up. I could see it ending up on any of the consoles. If statements from SE are to be believed, it probably isn't in development for PS3 right now. The people predicting a split into several different KH games for different consoles might be onto something.
DQ I don't know or care enough about to predict. Wii seems to be a no-brainer.
