Final Fantasy: Ubisoft to create a competitor?

Ubisoft want to break into the Japanese games market with an RPG game as big as Final Fantasy according to executive director Alain Corre. Speaking in the latest issue of Famitsu, he said;

Our mission is to create hit games on the same level as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. We'd like to see everyone in Japan root for us. Perhaps someday our efforts will result in a major hit on the level of a Dragon Quest.

We've made shooters, strategy, sports, action, and adventure games, but not any RPGs yet. Still, we're open to all possibilities. If we can get a quality team of RPG-oriented developers, I'd love to release one. If we have a chance to work with Japanese creators, then I'm sure we can make a game that appeals to the Japanese audience.

Let's see what the future holds. For now, Ubisoft have just released the incredible Assassins Creed II and will soon be releasing the highly anticipated Splinter Cell: Conviction.

Ubisoft always makes some top quality games, I'd love to see them make an RPG

Go for it!

Glad to see more RPGs and not everyone hoping on the damn shooter wagon.

It's about damn time.

Ba ha ha ha ha!! Right, and nobody else who makes RPGs actually wants this kind of sales. Only Ubisoft can break into the Japanese market! Color me VERY skeptical. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see more RPGs, but if they really think they're going to crack the numbers of FF (which would love to do DQ numbers in Japan), they've got a pretty bad reality check coming up...

This time Ubisoft can make its excuses to Wii owners for the shovelware they released in the first years (and still sometimes continues to sell) and make this also for Wii.

I hate to be one of those people.. but already posted :-/

If they wish to do so, its going to be an uphill battle.

Frankly, in my mind, its obtainable. But its going to be something akin to making Dragon Quest popular in the 'west'. It would basically take a monumental advertising campaign and a company focused on making multiple high quality games over the LONG RUN which they recognize wouldn't instantly see those milti-million unit sales numbers. And they would have to stick with their brand for 2, 3 even 5 entries until Japan got interested. A model even SquareEnix hasn't done with Dragon Quest in the west.

But I'm very skeptical. Their little blurb there states that they're interested in 'working with Japanese creators'. Countless western developers have gone this route recently and all have failed. You can't simply buy the support of a Japanese studio, make an 'RPG' and expect the Japanese public to love the product. Unless Ubisoft goes that extra step, and by extra step I mean all the effort I laid out above, their idea of a Japanese RPG targeted towards the Japanese market will fail.

You know,

They could just create a hit western RPG, and market it properly in Japan. Except for Final Fantasy, Japanese RPGs really don't have a lot of traction in the west. However, western RPGs have been doing better over there (Oblivion).

I think Mass Effect could have bridged the gap if it was released earlier than it was, but western devs need to place a higher priority on launching western RPGs there in a timely fashion - Fallout and Fable were both released pretty close to their western launches, and both did fairly well, given the install bases.

Go for it Ubisoft. Collaborate with some Eastern Devs to Co-develop a JRPG.

I really like how Ubisoft has been this gen. They seem to want to diversify themselves. I mean this gen we've seen Stealth and Sandbox Hybrids from them, We've seen an awesome platformer and awesome shooters and Splinter Cell. They've really earned my dollars this generation