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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Nintendo banned Square from their offices for 10 years after FFVII went to PlayStation. EDIT: japanese business model is akin to Yakuza

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What do you think

Nintendo is God they never make a mistake 7 26.92%
 
Square the ones who to be blame 8 30.77%
 
I dont why i just hate Sony 2 7.69%
 
I 9 34.62%
 
Total:26
DonFerrari on 13 April 2020

Well we don't really need more info on how Nintendo was bad for 3rd parties, arrogant, etc. It isn't that other companies hate them, but they didn't threat them well.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

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RaptorChrist on 13 April 2020

Seems kind of clickbaity, as there was never a gap of 10 years where Square didn't work with Ninty. It was 1996 when Squaresoft announced they were developing on Sony platforms, and Crystal Chronicles was released on Gamecube in 2003, so that's a 7 year gap maximum. There may have been games before FFCC on the GBA, but it was probably within a year or so. But I imagine there was at least a year prior to FFCC's release when it was in development and the relationship began being repaired.

Anyways, crazy time. Squaresoft was rock solid in the 90s and I don't know that Sony would have managed without them.



DonFerrari on 13 April 2020
padib said:
HollyGamer said:

Actually Nintendo was bad at that time and 99% developer and game publisher agree . This article not picking any side just stating a real fact. Even Nintendo employee agree and another prove isNintendo has changed a lot since then, which great. 

This happen on N64 and FF7 decisison , before that (SNES) it's  diffrent story. 

Nintendo had a different relationship with Squaresoft than it did with Capcom and Konami. They funded their games, and also lent them their Mario IP (Super Mario RPG), which was very rare with Nintendo. Their relationship with Square was very unique and their departure from Nintendo was seen as a severe betrayal, especially becoming exclusive to the Playstation and Sony giving them the 1st party treatment, luring them away from Nintendo was a huge betrayal and a very sneaky move by Sony. Such moneyhatting was a new practice at the time, and Sony knew that they were trying to steal the apple of Nintendo's eye. That's why they bent so far backwards to attract them, to give them support and funding, and even celebrated hard with them when FFVII succeeded. All is fair in love and war, but Sony's move was a threat to Nintendo and Nintendo took it as a threat and an insult, and they were right to do it in my point of view.

Also, the N64 didn't release yet when all of this happened, the SNES was still in its lifecycle when Square departed from Nintendo. Square decided to make the jump at the urgency of its engineers and esp. of Sakaguchi, who felt like he couldn't realize his vision on the N64 dev kits vs Playstation dev kits, due to less polygon counts and limited media space. So this is from the SNES time, the N64 was not yet released. All this is described in the article you linked to.

Also, bad is very relative. Nintendo being "bad" is what allowed it to actually resurrect the video game market in America. How was Nintendo bad? It's simple: they limited the amount of games each developer could make to 5 titles per year. They also required exclusive development to their console and put severe pressure on developers to produce games only for Nintendo. They also charged high royalty fees. However all this is what led to Nintendo's platform being viable in the US and even in Japan, due to the overall quality of their games library.

However times were changing and devs needed more freedom and flexibility. Also, the N64 was limiting the creative freedom of the developers. So, what Sony offered was very welcome by developers, even those who had a very strong partnership with Nintendo. In the end, some developers were very angry at Nintendo for their business practices, but history shows that what Nintendo did was not really bad at all. Actually without it you probably wouldn't be a console gamer today.

I agree that Nintendo became a much better company today, mostly thanks to Satoru Iwata's agreeable mentality, and they have a much better relationship with 3rd parties today for sure. But what happened with Square was very much a mistake on Square and on Sony's part. Also, notice that Sony had not played nice with Nintendo when they partnered with them to make the Nintendo Playstation. The history of betrayal is not new between them, there was a pattern, and for some inconspicuous reason, Sony was always involved in the cases of major betrayal. It begs the question, was Sony looking for its own greatness since the begining? We will never really know, but one thing is for sure: when Sony tried to steal royalties and licensing authority from Nintendo on the Nintendo Playstation, and tried to subvert Nintendo, they learned one big lesson, that Nintendo is a king and you don't try to subvert a king. They also started a cycle of betrayal. Thankfully Nintendo being true to its pedigree, was able to survive the devastation that Sony Playstation caused their brand. Not only that, they pushed back Sony in the Portable space, while everyone was predicting Nintendo's extinction. With almost no 3rd party support, Nintendo trudged through the gamecube and game boy eras. This threatened their very existence. Yet with all that, articles and posts like these try to show Nintendo as the enemy, when the moves that Sony did almost brought Nintendo's ruin. But Nintendo was stronger than people thought, and reinvented itself, and rebranded itself, and took the world by storm, a few times. And now they are what they are today due to their awesome resilience.

It makes you see this story from another light I hope.

Yes everything Nintendo did was right, nothing was wrong...

Must be the reason most 3rd parties left Nintendo for gens and no other company had similar practices at the time or after, not even Nintendo have those practices anymore.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

RaptorChrist on 13 April 2020
DonFerrari said:
padib said:

Nintendo had a different relationship with Squaresoft than it did with Capcom and Konami. They funded their games, and also lent them their Mario IP (Super Mario RPG), which was very rare with Nintendo. Their relationship with Square was very unique and their departure from Nintendo was seen as a severe betrayal, especially becoming exclusive to the Playstation and Sony giving them the 1st party treatment, luring them away from Nintendo was a huge betrayal and a very sneaky move by Sony. Such moneyhatting was a new practice at the time, and Sony knew that they were trying to steal the apple of Nintendo's eye. That's why they bent so far backwards to attract them, to give them support and funding, and even celebrated hard with them when FFVII succeeded. All is fair in love and war, but Sony's move was a threat to Nintendo and Nintendo took it as a threat and an insult, and they were right to do it in my point of view.

Also, the N64 didn't release yet when all of this happened, the SNES was still in its lifecycle when Square departed from Nintendo. Square decided to make the jump at the urgency of its engineers and esp. of Sakaguchi, who felt like he couldn't realize his vision on the N64 dev kits vs Playstation dev kits, due to less polygon counts and limited media space. So this is from the SNES time, the N64 was not yet released. All this is described in the article you linked to.

Also, bad is very relative. Nintendo being "bad" is what allowed it to actually resurrect the video game market in America. How was Nintendo bad? It's simple: they limited the amount of games each developer could make to 5 titles per year. They also required exclusive development to their console and put severe pressure on developers to produce games only for Nintendo. They also charged high royalty fees. However all this is what led to Nintendo's platform being viable in the US and even in Japan, due to the overall quality of their games library.

However times were changing and devs needed more freedom and flexibility. Also, the N64 was limiting the creative freedom of the developers. So, what Sony offered was very welcome by developers, even those who had a very strong partnership with Nintendo. In the end, some developers were very angry at Nintendo for their business practices, but history shows that what Nintendo did was not really bad at all. Actually without it you probably wouldn't be a console gamer today.

I agree that Nintendo became a much better company today, mostly thanks to Satoru Iwata's agreeable mentality, and they have a much better relationship with 3rd parties today for sure. But what happened with Square was very much a mistake on Square and on Sony's part. Also, notice that Sony had not played nice with Nintendo when they partnered with them to make the Nintendo Playstation. The history of betrayal is not new between them, there was a pattern, and for some inconspicuous reason, Sony was always involved in the cases of major betrayal. It begs the question, was Sony looking for its own greatness since the begining? We will never really know, but one thing is for sure: when Sony tried to steal royalties and licensing authority from Nintendo on the Nintendo Playstation, and tried to subvert Nintendo, they learned one big lesson, that Nintendo is a king and you don't try to subvert a king. They also started a cycle of betrayal. Thankfully Nintendo being true to its pedigree, was able to survive the devastation that Sony Playstation caused their brand. Not only that, they pushed back Sony in the Portable space, while everyone was predicting Nintendo's extinction. With almost no 3rd party support, Nintendo trudged through the gamecube and game boy eras. This threatened their very existence. Yet with all that, articles and posts like these try to show Nintendo as the enemy, when the moves that Sony did almost brought Nintendo's ruin. But Nintendo was stronger than people thought, and reinvented itself, and rebranded itself, and took the world by storm, a few times. And now they are what they are today due to their awesome resilience.

It makes you see this story from another light I hope.

Yes everything Nintendo did was right, nothing was wrong...

Must be the reason most 3rd parties left Nintendo for gens and no other company had similar practices at the time or after, not even Nintendo have those practices anymore.

B-b-but Don, I thought he explained this. A large part of padibs post was explaining how Nintendo's strict rules and expensive licensing fees made them "bad" in the eyes of the devs. Your understanding of his post was that Nintendo has never made a mistake? Sure, he clearly gave his own opinions and has a liking for Nintendo, but... your reply doesn't even make sense, and then you piggy-backed off of your own misinformation to (I assume) try and make padib feel bad.

Is your liking of Sony so strong that you have a tendency to project negative feelings onto people who post their own thoughts and opinions that differ from yours? Disagreeing with someone is one thing.

You're scaring me, Don. But you're still my favorite. <3



TheBraveGallade on 13 April 2020
RaptorChrist said:
Seems kind of clickbaity, as there was never a gap of 10 years where Square didn't work with Ninty. It was 1996 when Squaresoft announced they were developing on Sony platforms, and Crystal Chronicles was released on Gamecube in 2003, so that's a 7 year gap maximum. There may have been games before FFCC on the GBA, but it was probably within a year or so. But I imagine there was at least a year prior to FFCC's release when it was in development and the relationship began being repaired.

Anyways, crazy time. Squaresoft was rock solid in the 90s and I don't know that Sony would have managed without them.

thats probably more due to enix (which has always had good relations with nintendo) then square (which, aside from the name, effectivly dissapeard after the merger)



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Azzanation on 13 April 2020

Imagine stabbing Nintendo in the back, than expect to walk into thier offices.. i dont get the point.

Last edited by Azzanation - on 13 April 2020

Metallox on 13 April 2020

Leynos said:
SanAndreasX said:

Yamauchi did extend an olive branch to Square in the mid 00s by investing money in a Square shell corporation, Game Designer Studio, which got FF Crystal Chronicles released on the Gamecube, published by Nintendo. Pretty sure the Square Enix merger helped too. Nintendo always had a better relationship with Enix than Square. Even now, Nintendo tends to favor Dragon Quest over Final Fantasy. 

Square, meanwhile, built the PS1 and then collapsed under its own weight in a few short years, especially after their disastrous foray into movie-making. :(

Which they never gave up on. Advent Children and Kingsglaive. Sakaguchi was gone soon after and FF has not reached those heights again in quality. Tho I liked 12. 13 sucked. XV is blah. Kinda funny Tak and Guchi leave Square and IMO since made better RPGs than any FF game since that time. Lost Odyssey. The Last Story. Xenoblade. Then again Taks vision of Final Fantasy VII eventually got spun into its own IP. Xenogears which is easily one of the best RPGs on PS1.

They gave up on it, those movies are just part of the afterthought. Though in fairness, their CGI has always been among the best in the business, if not the very best. Real time graphics too. FFXIII was crazy in its day, XV as well, and the jump between the latter and VII Remake is insane. 



My bet with The_Liquid_Laser: I think the Switch won't surpass the PS2 as the best selling system of all time. If it does, I'll play a game of a list that The_Liquid_Laser will provide, I will have to play it for 50 hours or complete it, whatever comes first. 

hunter_alien on 13 April 2020

Sure turned out well for Nintendo. They dominated the 5th and 6th generation of home consoles....
In all honesty, I noticed that all 3 companies when through a period of extreme arrogance and then a well-learned (hopefully) humbleness. Nintendo did this in the late 90's, Sony a decade later and MS a decade afterwards.... it seems that this is needed for every console manufacturer who stayed in business.



Vote the Mayor for Mayor!

HoangNhatAnh on 13 April 2020
Ka-pi96 said:
padib said:

But what happened with Square was very much a mistake on Square and on Sony's part.

You can argue about who to blame and what not, but that's not even remotely true.

It was a resounding success for Sony in every regard. Absolutely not a mistake in any way, shape or form.

It was a massive success for Square too. If you change business partners and the end result is you rolling in money... how on earth is that a mistake?

So, Square did that by their own will, blame on Nintendo alone? OK

Xxain said:
padib said:

@Ka-pi96, it should be patently obvious that I'm talking about business ethics, not popularity or marketshare.

Yes we know. Nintendo's was terrible back in the day.

Terrible to 3rd parties, not to their fans, look at NES and SNES. Also, that is over 20 years ago, and now, the most present exam is how Sony treat their vita fan base after summer 2014 till now.



Drakrami on 13 April 2020

Just business decisions, no need to be bitter. Sony never went full aggro when FF13 went multiplat with XboX. And Square returns the favor/sentiment by having FF7 Remake ps timed exclusive. Some respect right there.