Hiku said:
The game released on Steam in 2013 with “Eyes on Me” intact, based on the original PC version. And the game is still sold on the PS3 PSN store, etc. The idea that it’s a copyright issue seems baseless. When liscenses expire, games get pulled from the stores. Regardless of whether they are the original versions or remasters. Capcom for ex were not allowed to even sell the original Marvel vs Capcom 3 in any online store once their liscense expired, so it was removed from all stores. I did not think it was strange for FF8 to not get a Remastered version yet because there hasn’t been a consistent pattern with which game Square chose to remaster/remake. But they have been releasing them fairly consistently, even if the order of which games they’ve remasterd have been somewhat jumbled. It’s not yet clear to me that they’ve been avoiding FFVIII, but it’s getting close to that point now, as FF9 got an HD release last year, and FF12 got an HD Remaster this year. As for whether or not they have the source code for the game, I’m not sure. But I hear they usually don’t for older games. And you can re-release them based on just the ROM. But whatever they did to give FF9 the HD treatment, they should be able to do with FF8. Even if it’s reverse engineering a ROM of the game like they did with Kingdom Hearts. |
The steam version is essentially the same version with some adjustments on the same platform PC, the PSN versions are redistributed emulated PS1 titles these aren't new ports on new platforms they're repackaging of the same initial release, this is the debate on the legal issue because the copyright belongs to another entity possibly EMI, the agreement they had for the song may allow the initial release to be redistributed but in order to do other versions they'd likely have to renegotiate with the copyright owners and the owners likely would want a good chunk of the pie.
