I thought the engine was designed around the ps3? If it's cross-platform, why are they making Lost Remnant using UE3? Why spend the money to license a third party engine when you have your own in-house?

Using UE3 doesn't make any sense if this is true. Could they mean cross-platform Ps2/3? The white engine was initially designed for the ps2, and then revamped for the ps3.

True, Non Sequor, one thing no one is pointing out is that RPGs often have pretty lousy attach rates. They're worshipped by the hardcore and virtually ignored by everyone else.

The vast majority of gamers don't want to spend 50+ hours on a game to beat it or spend days figuring out a complicated job system or battle structure.

While some of these games sell many copies, it's my opinion that it's mainly due to their moderate popularity in every region, not their true popularity amongst gamers in general. Three solid markets can add up to good sales but beyond that, you need to move massive numbers of consoles to get to the 10m mark with an RPG. The games appeal to far too little a percentage of gamers.

Final Fantasy VII had the highest attach rate ever for an RPG with 9.5%.

When FFVII was released the PS had not sold 100,000 million units. In fact, the attach ratio for FFVII was quite high when the game was released. Attach ratios don't work well on Sony systems because they sell over 100 million therefore making it impossible to have high attach ratios.

This has never been a problem for Microsoft because they haven't been successful enough to sell enough systems to the mass market and only supplied games to their niche community. Notice how sport games and shooters have high attah ratios on the Xbox/360 but other genres not so much. It's a measure of success that the Xbox brand has yet to achieve and that's why attach ratios are high on their systems.

If you only sell 20million units, obvious attach ratio will be better then a system that has 100+ million. 

What does final PS2 number mean to lets say GT3 attach rate if by 04 GT4 came out and GT3 was no longer sold ?

My point is small user base = high attach rate, on 10 million PS3 user abse FF will come close to 50% since the 10 mill are very hardcore gamers.

10% on 100 mill or 50% on 10 mill = the same sales.

If resistance can do +35% attach rate you really thing Final Fantasy will have a hard time doing much better ?

what are the predicted install bases of ps3 and xbox360 around jan/feb '09?
14m and 20m?

Hus dont worry they want the ps3 to crush into ashes so nintendo can rule "again".

 A lot of people bought Resistance because there was nothing else.  This isn't a jab at Resistance or the PS3 in any way at all, I'm just saying that's the advantage of getting to do a launch title.  It doesn't matter if your game is good or bad, if there's only a small amount of titles available (launch) then of course it's going to sell well.

I think developer is pretty much accept the fact that PS3 is doing well below their expectation and even with bullshit hype that a specific game can only be done on ps3 only cant no longer fool the mass public anymore. We know better you can run virtually any new pc game with a 2 year old dinosaur pc at the lowest setting compare to most expensive computer with max setting, they both run fine just one has the eye candy while the other one run at 640x480. This same apply to console, dont tell me this crap this console can have better AI, when do we need super AI on a RPG game??? even worse on a turn base game???? maybe some ultra realistic looking first person shooter need a super fast console, and again the difference can be doable with a few treak in setting on every console.

 And how is it not the similar for FF ?

It will be the biggest RPG yet to hit the PS3 and thats for damn sure, people will buy justbecasue its the big rpg form Square.

ROFL um it DOES matter if its good or bad, early adopters are the hardcore know everything about a game types they wont buy crap.  Which explains why the best sellers for PS3 are Resistance and Motorstorm and not COD3 and Ridge Racer.

I accept that there was some naivety in my previous analysis, but I still maintain that FFXIII will have disappointing (by FF standards) sales if released as a PS3 exclusive. Final Fantasy VII was a break out success and it had the advantage of being released on a substantially cheaper console. However, Final Fantasy's fan base has not grown since that Final Fantasy VII and Square-Enix stands to lose a significant portion of that fan base if they release FFXIII as an exclusive on the most expensive console.