That just goes to show the power of the playstation...

If its so hard to make towns in hd, maybe its time to make the Final Fantasy 7 remake for the Wii!! That would probably piss off a few people!!

Like I was saying to Soriku above:

If they try to make FFVII like it was before - polygonal models with pre-rendered backgrounds and fixed cameras put at different points in the environment - then they'd have to make very high resolution art assets to go along with that, right? Much, much more detailed than what the PS1 game had?

The thing is that while costs for 3-D models come down with complexity, the costs of high-quality static art assets don't. That shit is (I think) all hand drawn, and hand drawn art is just as expensive now as it was back when FFVII was originally made. Even if it wasn't hand drawn, they still have to recreate all of those assets from scratch to be much more detailed, and that does innvolve hand-drawn assets, which is still going to be "Holy Shit" expensive.

The only feasible way to cut back costs on that front would be to abandon pre-rendered background altogether and try to make them like the SNES or PS2 Final Fantasies, but the PS1 Final Fantasies were made unique by that use of perspective and high-res art. If they change that, they fundamentally change the way the game looks, feels, and plays, and they know that old fans won't accept that and new fans might be brutally disappointed.

They are in a pickle.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII will be MASSIVE! Don't let this dwindle your hype!

Assassin's Creed, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 have had no problems making towns and turning a profit while doing so.  I don't see why it would be that damn hard to do the towns in Final Fantasy VII.  Not saying that it'll be a good idea, but the Japanese developers this generation have done a lot of whing about how hard it's to develop for PS3 instead of embracing the power of it.  (Kojima made similar remarks in the making of MGS 4 companion disc).

In other words, if we are too lazy to make towns in our games, then remaking an old game with towns would require ya know...work.... And anyone whose ever played The Last Remnant would know we don't like to work at all!

I don't think you guys are thinking this subject through very hard. It's not difficult to imagine what he means by this.

That's just what I'm thinking is meant by his comment. The environments were important to the game, and all of them relied on that particular perspective trick that necessitated pre-rendered backgrounds to really pop.

I could be wrong, of course, but I think this is what he means.