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Forums - Sony Discussion - FF XIII now 13% complete

Kytiara on 19 July 2007
Quickdraw McGraw said:
Kytiara said:


Actually Quickdraw, I hate to say this but in general the last 10% of any software project takes much longer than you might expect. Its sometimes called the "Last Mile Problem", though that was specifically coined for telecommunications, but for software it is a similar idea.

The reason the last 10% take so long is because you have to iron out all those bugs that everyone missed. No matter how talented your development group and no matter how many procedures you try and implement to reduce bugs, all software has them. In general, the longer a bug has been in the system, the longer it takes to debug and fix that problem, so if you have a software project that spans years, and there are bugs from the first months of development, you can imagine the pains it takes to fix them.

This is probably a bit of a geeky joke, but oh well...."Developers often say that the first 90% of the project takes the first 90% of the development time...and the last 10% takes the other 90%!"


Is creating the graphical engine part of the completion percentage? I always thought that was the most complicated part of development. Although if it's not included, that makes sense.

Either way, thanks for the info (The More You Know!). I guess I'll keep quiet next time when I don't know what I'm talking about, =P.


If I had to guess I'd say that the graphics engine wouldn't be considered as part of the true FF13 project...simply because they've indicated that the engine (white engine or something?) is going to be used in other places.

Also in my professional opinion (working in software development) giving a  percentage completed to any project is subjective at best =).  I haven't ever worked on a project as complicated as a video game, but I'm nearing the end point of a project I've been working pretty steadily on for over a year now and that Alpha release date keeps getting pushed back lol.  It was a hopeful "august-ish" last year, and now a hopeful "October-ish"...luckily I don't have a specific release date that can't be missed so that last 10% isn't causing me too much stress. 



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twesterm on 19 July 2007
Kytiara said:
 

Also in my professional opinion (working in software development) giving a percentage completed to any project is subjective at best =). 


 

twesterm said:
 

You don't include the engine when you're looking at the completeness of a game. Generally, every task and milestone is put into a Gantt chart and it only takes looking at a single field to see how complete the game is (assuming they're using MS Project or something similar which they are).


 They aren't the same (I've worked in both now ) and as I said earlier, the 13% isn't likely subjective at all.



 

outlawauron on 19 July 2007

And, you do realize that this is in the RUMOR section of a magazine. Magazines have been known to mess with their readers.

(ex. Mushroom Hearts, Sonic in Super Smash Brothers Melee, and topless girls in DOA Xtreme.)



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twesterm on 19 July 2007
outlawauron said:
And, you do realize that this is in the RUMOR section of a magazine. Magazines have been known to mess with their readers.

(ex. Mushroom Hearts, Sonic in Super Smash Brothers Melee, and topless girls in DOA Xtreme.)

1. Assumed this was a rumor.

2. Some of those rumors were known April Fools Jokes.

I was mainly commenting on that developers know exactly how far along they are in the project in terms of completeness and generally know how far ahead or behind they are to the day. 



 

scorptile on 19 July 2007

wasnt FF7 for the n64 at like 35% when they jumped ship to sony? and the delays were about the same. and the support was about hte same from SE hhmmm can i smell something fishy?



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dli2k3 on 19 July 2007
scorptile said:
wasnt FF7 for the n64 at like 35% when they jumped ship to sony? and the delays were about the same. and the support was about hte same from SE hhmmm can i smell something fishy?

If 360 really wants to see ffxiii, they'd have to improve sales a lot more in Japan. No matter how bad the ps3 is doing in NA, it's a lot better than the 360 in Japan. And honestly, I don't see any other systems that can handle FFXIII or MGS4 other than the 360 and PS3. What can happen for Nintendo is spinoffs, but those have already been announced I guess.



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deadhorse on 19 July 2007

They're probably more focused on Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers right now.



z64dan on 19 July 2007

Remember guys, a delayed game will eventually be great, but a bad game is bad forever!



ClaudeLv250 on 19 July 2007
deadhorse said:
They're probably more focused on Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers right now.

Different development teams. At the most they could be re-directing resources but I don't see the point. FFXIII is supposed to be their heavy hitter.

At this rate, we'll see Dragon Quest X on Wii before Final Fantasy XIII on PS3.



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redspear on 19 July 2007
dli2k3 said:
scorptile said:
wasnt FF7 for the n64 at like 35% when they jumped ship to sony? and the delays were about the same. and the support was about hte same from SE hhmmm can i smell something fishy?

If 360 really wants to see ffxiii, they'd have to improve sales a lot more in Japan. No matter how bad the ps3 is doing in NA, it's a lot better than the 360 in Japan. And honestly, I don't see any other systems that can handle FFXIII or MGS4 other than the 360 and PS3. What can happen for Nintendo is spinoffs, but those have already been announced I guess.


Yeah but it wouldn't have to be exclusive to the 360 it would just have to be ported over to maximize US and european sales as well as a few more sales in Japan.

 

However FF7 for the PS3 was not FF7 for the then Ultra64. It was far less 3d intensive and much more CGI expansive. Square essiential showed FF7 than scraped it later for the PS1 FF7. I doubt very much that they would do this for FF XIII considering the cost of development to even get this far would be very diffirent to 1994. I woudl say the chances for the Wii to get  FF XIII is almost slim to none but very high for FF XIV if things continue this way. However the chances for the 360 to get a Port would be fairly decent if this is true. Until 2 months ago I would say FF XIII only on PS3 and that there was no chance for it to show onthe 360.