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Forums - Nintendo - Square-Enix using Nintendo to pay for Final Fantasy 13 etc?

Impulsivity on 13 July 2008

The RPGs cater to the demos of the different systems and the power of the systems. You're never going to get a AAA title like FF's main series on a Nintendo since they are so far behind the graphics curve and the FF series has been billed as the premier graphics showcase RPG for over a decade now (since FFVII hit the PS1). I even remember OLD Square adds that mocked Nintendo openly. One for FFVII said something like "if this was on N64 it would take 700 cartridges". Unless you're Nintendo, the Wii (and other Nintendo systems) is where you put your spinoffs, casual games and the like. AAA titles are usually considered AAA based on their presentation, and its near impossible to get a modern looking game out of the Wii. I doubt most Wii owners bought it for games like Metal Gear or Final Fantasy (the main series) anyway, they bought it for the games Nintendo systems have always had; casual friendly games that many would call "old school".

Also for those talking about things like Infinite Undiscovery and Star Ocean for the 360 that is NOT Square. It's from the Enix days. Enix always had a tiny dev studio and mainly worked as a publisher. Both Star Ocean and Infinite Undiscovery come not from Square-Enix but from Tri Ace, one of the devs that Enix published for regularly. Project Silpheed and other games like that are the same type, they're not mainline Square games developed in house, they're little games from other studios that Square-Enix publishes. Sony owns a nearly 10% stake in Square-Enix (3rd biggest shareholder) so I doubt they would accept the premier RPG series, FF, going anywhere else.

The only real wildcard is Kingdom Hearts, the Wii matches its demographics but it seems like a game Sony would want to use to expand its reach to more casuals and Kids. Maybe Sony would need to buy more shares or something to get a guarantee on it.




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Impulsivity on 13 July 2008
Oyvoyvoyv said:
CrazzyMan said:
FFXIII will sell over 10 mln. and will be BEST selling FF game for now... =)

 

 Let me see if I understand you correctly.

You expect the following.

- Final Fantasy XIII will sell 10M. That is to be the best selling FF ever.

You expect this even though

- Final Fantasy XIII is on the console that is likely to be the second worst (perhaps worst) selling console a main FF has ever been on.

- Final Fantasy XIII is on a console that is strongest in the region Final Fantasy is weakest in.

 

     First off Final Fantasy sales are BEST when its the first FF on a new console.  FFX, which was released BEFORE there was a large install base for the PS2, is the best selling FF game of all time.  Before that FFVII was handily the best selling one.  It's not a stretch to think that FFXIII will be the new best seller.  I think there's a REALLY good chance it will be bundled in Japan as well just like the FFVII PSP game was.  I am 99.9% sure that within a few weeks of FFXIII's release, if its good, Square could move over a million console/game bundles in Japan alone.  In 2001, not long after the PS2's initial release, FFX moved over 2 million copies in a few days in Japan alone.  Given that metal Gear Solid 4, which is not nearly as popular a series in FF in Japan did very well, Final Fantasy XIII has a very good shot at hitting nearly 10 million worldwide and becoming the best selling RPG/FF game ever.  The only thing I think is likely to stop that is it being somehow a huge stinker like FFIX was, but I doubt that will be the case.

 

   They just need to get the damn thing out, preferably before December.

 




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Kasz216 on 13 July 2008
Leetgeek said:
Kasz216 said:
Onyxmeth said:
Kasz216 said:
Onyxmeth said:

Let me ask the real question here. If Square had made Final Fantasy XIII on the DS instead of PS3, would it match sales? If it could then ask yourself the difference in profit it could make. Me personally, I think if FF XIII were developed for the DS, it would outsell the PS3 version by a healthy margin and would have been highly profitable. Much more profitable than the PS3 FF XIII will be. Square is aware of this and have shifted a lot of resources over to the little handheld that could.

I dunno. Graphics is about all Final Fantasy has left as far as quality goes.

 

That's simply not true. I will not argue that Final Fantasy is at it's best, because it's not, but each game has been polished and has tried new ideas in gameplay, for better or for worse. Not to mention that there is no one FF team. Square can utilize any number of it's designers to head the next Final Fantasy, so each one can speak for itself. Who's to say if Final Fantasy XIV finds it's way onto the DS that The World Ends With You team won't be the one to handle it? This also applies to any console FF lands on, but I wanted to tie it into my position.

If you truly think FF would only sell because of improving graphics, you're sorely mistaken. The brand sells, and the main series sells just because it's THE Final Fantasy. I have no doubts in my mind that Final Fantasy XIV could sell oodles on the DS. I would predict no less than 7 million copies. Gamers want their RPGs on the DS. They've been selling well there and Final Fantasy is still a very healthy brand name in gaming.

Problem is, the Final Fantay team hasn't told a good story since the SNES days. (Unless 9 had a good story, haven't played it.) They've tried new ideas in gameplay, which... have mostly been minor, and generally for the worse as well.

The brand sells as well, however a large part of the brand identity relies on the cutting edge visuals. With it's more realistic art style a backwords step in graphics would be much more noticable then the cartoonish Dragon Quest series.

What was it that put FF7 on the map? Huge marketing hype and cutscenes that had some pretty amazing graphics at the time. Since then the focus has been on cinematic gaming in the final fantasy series.

At one point Final Fantasy games were known to be the pinnacle of RPGs in terms of story and gameplay...

Now it's known mostly for it's graphics, and it's hype as "the" RPG franchise. (Or that's how it's seen in the west anyway.) That's all it has left really to keep it on top of the mountain.

Take away the better graphics... and all that's left is the hype vs other RPGs... and pure hype can't sustain by itself in my opinion. It would start to fall and lose casual RPG fan marketshare to some other franchise.

FF7 was a good game don't hate like a lot of people do just because it's popular.

 


I've played it when it first came out.  It's why I bought a PS1.  It was horrible.  Luckily the PS1 made it up to me with a number of much better RPGs and SRPGs.



Kasz216 on 13 July 2008
Oyvoyvoyv said:

Square Enix isn't what they were. Don't try to pretend anything else (not directed at Leetgeek only).

April 1st 2003, Square and Enix merged.

Before this time, Square had released 35 games (that we have sales info for), and half of them made a million.

Enix had made roughly 25 games (which we have sales info for), and roughly half of them made a million sales.

Square Enix has, over roughly 1 generation, now made over 60 games, and less than 1/4 of those have sold a million.

 

Square Enix makes almost triple as many games as they did before, but still ends up with less sales.

It's puzzling too considering how awesome Enix was as a developer before the merger too.  They were the more successful company overall.

Me I blame Wada.

 



Impulsivity on 13 July 2008

Anyone remember awesome games like Parasite Eve and Vagrant Story? They sold a ton and were quality on the mainline console of the time. Those games just don't exist anymore as Square and Enix put out more 2nd rate crap like bad spin offs and shoddy rehashes. They put out a lot of quantity but quality has been sorely lacking. I used to love at least 2 or 3 square games a year. Now I'm really hard pressed to find more then one Square Enix game a year I can even stand.

I have to say they were not at all equal, I can think of dozens of great square games, there's only a small handful of Enix games I remember fondly. The best Enix game I can think of (Star Ocean 3) is behind at least 20 Square games I can think of listed below in no particular order
Parasite Eve 1,2
Final Fantasy 1, 4, 6, 7, 10, 12:
Front Mission 3:
Secret of Mana/evermore:
Vagrant Story:
Xenogears:
Xenogears (so awesome it deserves 2 mentions, miles above Xenosaga):
Chrono Trigger/Cross:
Saga Frontier 2:
Kingdom Hearts 1, 2:
Super Mario RPG)

I knew it was a bad idea when they merged, I hate it when a not as good company merges with a great company and the result is closer to the crap partner. Enix was never much of a developer, they were more of a publisher of other peoples games (like Tri Ace who made the Star Ocean games).




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Mint on 13 July 2008

They are milking the games, which is kinda sad seeing Final Fantasy go down like this.
They need some new series, new IPs, something. When people think of SE they think of Final Fantasy.
When someone thinks of Nintendo, they might think of Mario, Link, Samus, ect.
But with SE now its just... Final Fantasy. I liked Square better before they merged, Final Fantasy 4, and all the other SNES FFs were amazing...
I don't mind the remakes, just the ports.
They're 25 FF games in America since the merge, a few Dragon Quest, Chrono's Trigger, and some non-FF games that some people never heard of.



 

I own all of lastgen systems as of October 2008. (Finally got a Dreamcast)

I own every currentgen system except PS3.

Kasz216 on 13 July 2008

Square and Enix while merged impulsivity... have been kept split development wise.

Those Square teams still exist, those Enix teams still exist.

The only blame can be placed on either Square's teams, or Square-Enix's leader. Wada.

You can name more good Square games because Square made way more games period then Enix did.

They released more games then Enix even published.  Which they did more the create their own.  Though they brought out just as many awesome games when you count the ones they've published.

There was a good reason why the company was worth more then Square during the merger despite releasing less games.

 

 



Relias on 13 July 2008

Okay.... I haven't played Chrono Trigger on the DS so I'm not sure about it. But I would say Front Mission on the DS is pretty much my Definition of Shovel Ware as well as Final Fantasy Origins on the PS. But I honestly believe that S-E is doing some of the best games on the DS and the production values or whatever are pretty high (Well for a DS game anyway) I mean really Dragon Quest Monsters is one of the best looking games on the DS as is The World Ends With You(These are also two of the best RPG's for the DS) Those are not Shovel Ware games. However I do agree that they are probably using some profits for FF 13.



Boycotting the following:

1. Yoshi: He ate my car and spit out a toaster.

2. Igglybuff: Totally false advertisement. You can have as many as you like they don't buff nothing.

3. the Terms Hardcore/Softcore... We're talking Video Games. Not Porn.

4. The term Casual as relates to Gamers: We make them sound like outsider's that happen to play games.  If that were the case they'd own a PS3.

5. Donuts.... Beacause I drink Beer...... and the biggest fan of Donuts hates Beer.

6. Boycotts: Their so lame.

 

 

Kasz216 on 13 July 2008

Well when it comes to DQ and Star Ocean. It's said the Square half of the company controls all decisions on Square legacy games, while the Enix half cotnrols all Enix legacy games.

So if you bought into the "Square feels like they owe Sony something" angle, DQ and Star Ocean wouldn't matter because they are part of the Enix branch.

Which is kind of stupid though since Sony now owns as much stock of the Enix side as the Square side and it would have to actually be some sort of irrational love via an executive or two to keep things on Sony.



the_bloodwalker on 13 July 2008
Soriku said:
the_bloodwalker said:
Bored4life said:

Crystal Tools was never supposed to multiplatform as they later claimed.Some study of SE during Nov07 to Jan08 shows pretty good evidence that Wada wanted to shift FF13 to Wii despite the enormous costs already put in.

Crystal Tools had 2 purposes for being on Wii.

1)Port over FF13.There is evidence to show that this was the main motivation to the port.But it seems that that fell through since most likely Iwata didn't moneyhat them like they wanted.They weren't too sure if rpgs would do well and wanted money as insurance.

2)Push Wii gaphics and have it to start putting out well made rpgs to compete with the other well made rpgs that are being announced for the system.the_bloodwalker's post sums up that part nicely.

Exactly. SE got the Licence of Unreal III engine to develop multiplatform games, not the Cristal Tools. That was made to fully use the PS3, their platform of choice.

You're right about the disruption, SE got cought off guard will  the Wii's success. They understood that they had to move. They thought with Chocobo's Dungeon and their original Cristyal Bearers it would be enough, but now they have to shift resources and reorganize internally. 

While the FFXIII port came to my mind, it made think of a remake of FFVII more possible on Wii because of the franchise's fame and will be a lot easier to strike back hard with a known title. On the other hand, it would look like that they are using theur previois games as defense for not developing an original title.

This is why Crystal Bearers will be made as close to a final Fantasy game as possible in terms of quality. But besides Chocobo's Dungeon, they need a full RPG flagship. the chances are

  1. FFXIII, which I find it hard. Sony needs this game more than any other.
  2. FFVII remake, but will have to be less like the Adven Childern models and more like the CG cutscenes from the PS1 game. Besides it may give an image that they are unable to make original games successful on Wii.
  3. Kingdom Hearts 3, but if the rumors about the NA version of the PS2 games that weren't localized, this is ruled out. Besides Sony would not let it go as well that easily.
  4. Revive with Full Strenght other franchises: Chrono, Mana, Musasshi, Saga.

I find it hard to come up with an original IP for the need to stop a disruption



How would this be ruled out? Just localizing it on the PS2 is easier than porting it to the Wii, then localizing it. it would just make sense, not SE/Disney say "O noz Wii is not for us!" Besides, Sony wouldn't do anything. They haven't done anything to DQ. They haven't done anything to Star Ocean. Why do something for KH now? It's not like Sony has any say in where SE/Disney games go.

 

you have to consider tham many wii owners have never played a KH game nor know anything about the story. The Kingdom hearts games revolve around one big story so releasing KH3 without any prequel many gamers will be confused, and a confusing game is not attractive to new gamers.

And a comic-style backsory wouldn't help either. It would be much better in terms of sales to release a quick port of the first two games before the release of KH3 if it comes to Wii. That Way KH3 will sell much more.