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Forums - Gaming - Why does S.E. have such long dev cycles for their games?

darkknightkryta on 21 January 2011
A203D said:
darkknightkryta said:
ssj12 said:
darkknightkryta said:

They're spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to lessen their dev times instead of actually making games.  In Final Fantasy's case it took about 3.5 years of them trying to make the game, and 1.5 years actually making the game.


alot of issues revolving around 13 was that it was supposed to be on the PS2. It was actually, according to industry sources, waiting announcement at the next E3 but then Sony told devs about the PS3 and Square basically said f**k and made a CG trailer.

Yes and that's why I said 5 years instead of 6.

I dont disagree with that though, it wouldve come out after FF12, which was at the edge of the PS2 lifecycle, and it wouldve have less sales.

the problem was that they decided to develop a brand new game engine for the PS3; Crystal Tools. which took up a lot of time, it also took a lot of time to do the motion capture for the cutscenes in FF13, which were a huge 6 hours. and Crystal Tools was the biggest problem, and thats why FF13, and Versus take so long.

FF12, was messed up because Sakaguchi left Sqaure, and there was no one with his level of skill to co-ordinate the development, and the director had to leave the projects for health issues, although rumours suggest there is more to this than the offical word.

other than FF, i think SE are steady with releases, like Star Ocean, Kingdom Hearts, etc.

6 hours isn't huge when you consider Metal Gear Solid 4 had 9 hours and came out earlier, and is nothing compared to what came before it.  And that development on the engine was as I said; they spent probably 3 years wasting time on the engine instead of making the game concurrently.  I mean it's not like the previous games didn't have their engines written from scratch and they got their games out within 3 year cycles.  Hell Final Fantasy X was done in 2 and a half years and their first game on PS2.  So I think they're spending too much time trying to cut their game developments, but that time should be spent on the games.  Doesn't help that Square's on a trend of making barebone games with missions (Crisis Core, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Final Fantasy XIII), which makes me question their current development models.  But I agree there's big management problems going on with Square right now; we'll see what they can do with Final Fantasy XIII-2, if it's another barebone game or not.