| gog85 said:
it's more about the perception that accompanies the support. sure there are promising titles without Square-Enix but when Square-Enix says "here's our support" the focus suddenly moves towards that console. consumers start to perceive that console as an RPG powerhouse. take a look at 360. there were plenty of promising titles already. then S-E announces more support and it suddenly gets talked up as this generation's console for RPGs.
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The marketing (meaning moronic and wrong) view that XB360 was this generation's console for RPG was there before that announcement. This fantasy that SE decides on which console people focus is a hardcore's pipe dream.
And I was one of those that witnessed the landslide win of FFVII. But SE is not the same anymore, not when its best composer and a good director are gone. If SE were the same, they wouldn't have needed to make FFXIII multiplatform, as the focus would have shifted on the PS3.
And if I felt that a long time ago, it was pretty sure they knew it for even longer.
The fact is that even announcing FFXIII exclusive for PS3 wasn't enough to push sales of PS3. Actually, I'm firmly in the little camp of those that believe SE, or at least the Square part, is falling into irrelevance. Only DQ will save them now, that's my opinion. Since the merger, FF stayed the lead franchise and DQ was put behind. I made a long essay (in french) about the situation, and for now, everything is going as I thought. DQ was put behind, the fact that they put a quick cash-in on the Wii is enough evidence to me. But now, with it going to the DS, I'm sure they didn't even realised they were putting it forward. They thought they put FFXIII forward when they put it on PS3.
I cringe everytime I read that SE big franchises are graphical powerhouse. That's just not true, like at all.
FF never were graphical powerhouses. They started being cinematic with FFVI, but never were graphical powerhouses. To start with, they weren't even on the most powerful consoles, having to push the hardware sometimes, but clearly not programming prowess. People are fooled by cinematic. That just proves that a SD movie will look better than a HD game to most people, that doesn't prove anything else.
Most people read that testres thread as a concern for Nintendo. I see that same thread as a concern for SE, that is becoming more and more true with each day that passes: SE are becoming irrelevant fast, and it's better seen by their FF franchise.
BTW, I'll never consider FFCC like good support. FFCC are poor ARPG for Nintendo, that have nothing to do with the mainline FF which is turn based. This FFCC thing just have no good game in it, no wonder they don't sell a lot. Those that believe that good graphics make a good game won't understand, I'm sure. This FFCC trailer they showed doesn't look interesting either.
I'm sure SE will be fine in the end, but I think they will lose all of their past glory, and become one of those small developers without any influence on the industry like they used to. They have started already.
People keep going to SE games because of the name, but there are less and less people who do that.
