You know every review will start with "Final Fantasy Versus XIII was announced at E3 2005. Has the excruciatingly long wait been worth it?"
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S-E news: New Agni's Philosophy in June 2013, (very) small VXIII and LR:XIII update
- Thread starter Reveirg
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You know every review will start with "Final Fantasy Versus XIII was announced at E3 2005. Has the excruciatingly long wait been worth it?"
Can't be worse than Duke Nukem Forever.
If they were to port it, it would make no sense to not also release it on PS3 unless it's at least a year in.
That said, the PS3's architecture is even being abandoned by Sony, and I doubt they built their engine very cleverly, so porting it around wouldn't be the world's easiest task.
Certainly, I meant gamers in general, not the press.
Yeah, it would take years to move to PS4, we wouldn't see anything of Versus XIII for a couple of years in fact...
Well, you can brute force SPU jobs on to compute shaders in most cases, so it's not that bad of an issue.
It's just that I imagine this is all game specific technology and porting it gives you fairly little long term benefit when they're just going to use other engines for everything else.
With the way XIII-2 went over and the market is polarizing, this might not even be an especially hot seller, making cost for additional platform less appealing.
H_Prestige
Banned
How could they even be in the process of porting it to ps4 this whole period of silence? The ps4 kits just started shipping and won't be final until late next year.
metalslimer
Member
If it actually takes until 2015 for the game to come out.....just wow. Or wait was Versus announced in 2006 I can't even remember anymore.
Blood Diamonds
Banned
Conceptually you would have to be porting it to PC and then porting that over, since all signs points to Sony's next console being very "PC in a box"-esque, going so far as having x86 processor architecture.
Absolutely. Which is exactly why I think it'd be Orbis exclusive. Because the only guaranteed way of making sure that game is profitable as the situation has developed, is soliciting first parties for some sexy exclusivity deal.
Who knows, it's all just wild speculation, but I imagine at some point, possibly when XIV flatlined, resources were pulled that made shipping Versus while the PS3 was viable impossible, and something had to be decided, be it to allow the game to ship on PS3 late, and not be profitable, expand to 360, which wouldn't help much, and would raise the budget further, or move to next-gen, which unless they're willing to wait two years into that, still couldn't make money. Unless a first party pays for it. I was just guessing Orbis because I think Sony is much more likely than MS, maybe Wii U too, but a first party buying it seems the only way to reduce the risk of losses.
People have been developing next-gen games for more than a year, if they have dev kits or not. You don't have to wait for Sony to send out the boxes. And Sony themselves have been making PS4 games for a couple of years, if it was an exclusive, I'd imagine they'd get greater access than a normal third party project.
StealthGoblin
Banned
Versus will have to be multiplat to make its money back. I would imagine the wait is longer because they've taken porting into consideration already.
metalslimer
Member
Is FF as a franchise still worth blowing a bunch of money on?
It's got pretty good mechanics, but they are all useless considering how easy everything is.
The rest is a total mess. It makes me hate the XIII universe, and I liked XIII.
In Japan? Sure. In the west? Probably not.
Well, it depends what they want to do with it.
If they ever intend to make more Versus, you want it on as many platforms as is feasible to try and find an audience.
If they just want to get it over with and then shove it in the closet, then finding amortization is appealing.
I would say it depends how willing they are to notably change the direction of the series to match the modern Western market.
Otherwise I would just suggest tearing it off consoles at this point.
That said, Agni's Philosophy features Middle Eastern militiamen with AK-47's, so maybe they are interested in a direction change.
Other than DQ, it's SE's biggest.
Dynamite Ringo Matsuri
Member
Curiosity purely. (and for fairness' sake, I lament the unraveling of Silent Hill as well) There was once a time when I looked forward to the game as well. And to be frank, the onus lies on SE to deliver, especially when they state that it'll be worth the wait. As a displeased consumer and once loyal fan, does that then forfeit me the right to criticize their recent efforts or should I just continue to be strung along? Even Kagari notes that SE's XIII-2 was a soulless attempt.
And I've closed the door on it coming out, at least in the form that we know it as (I wouldn't be surprised if it were moved to next gen at this point) Let's face facts, it's been like 7 years and all they've got to show for it is a handful of trailers. We hardly know a thing about it. Even Amano has forgotten what he's contributed to the game. Meanwhile SE seem content to pump out enumerations of XIII, and focus on making events out of tech demos that may have no bearing upon subsequent FF entries (FFVII anyone?). I suppose what I'm mostly addressing is SE's incompetence and inefficiency overall, which is why I no longer put much stock into whatever they have to say
thehypocrite
Member
The beautiful smell of next gen.
The Angi demo? It's not going to sell anything.
That's totally a possibility. I just keep in mind there are games out there, like The Dig, that took even longer development time and still ended up coming out. If it does go next gen, I certainly wont be complaining. The concept already seemed pretty awesome.
Also, wait lol, has Amano seriously forgotten what he did for Versus? I need to read that if that's true.
Lumpy Onion
Member
lol you are gonna be waiting for quite a while then.
Dynamite Ringo Matsuri
Member
You could say the same for Duke Nukem Forever
It has more to do with the fact that their output this gen hasn't exactly been confidence inspiring, with XIII (and the company's recent focus on its iterations) being polarizing to the point of offending long time fans. Meanwhile, expectations for VS continue to mount and ramp up to the point where it can't possibly live up to its promises. Whatever it ends up being, the wait will have been such that it's bound to incur disappointment barring some genre transcending revolution as someone else mentioned. And yeah, it was a recent thread, in an interview where someone asked him about the piece(s) he contributed to the game, (I believe it's the piece that can be found in Stella's abode) his reply was something to the tune of: you know I don't remember much about that game at all
funkystudent
Member
Versus XIII was announced in 2006!
TWO THOUSAND AND SIX
Just kill it already.
TWO THOUSAND AND SIX
Just kill it already.
So Vs XIII has turned into the Lightning game... sad.
BlazingDarkness
Member
SE 'We got nothin'
Agreed.
XIV is coming out in Q1 2013, so yes. One can only wonder what it would be like if the original XIV didn't tank in the first place.
Dynamite Ringo Matsuri
Member
Man you are optimistic. They can't even get a game that's been announced in 06 out the door, and have expressed all manner of technical woes culminating in the lol worthy "HD towns are tough" debacle and "I spent weeks working on an HD rock" and you expect a game that's orders of magnitude more graphically complex than XIII to be out the door in 14/15? These guys are rendering toenails on characters that wear shoes man lol
Edit: I think the Agni survey and the recent forays into intense focus testing speaks more to SE not having a flipping clue where to take the franchise than any form of intent
Well, they were surveying if people liked it, so I think there has to be some level of intention there.
The dev team.
Might as well post this too I guess:
new artwork (from the UK concert)
weee
This is actually pretty cool.
This is what concerns me the most. What happened to the Square of the SNES/PS1/early PS2 days? They certainly didn't have trouble coming up with meaningful games then. Instead we get an entire generation of Lightning and a failed MMO they're trying to resurrect.
It's a sad state of affairs. People should be playing FFvsXIII by now.
My guess would be that they feel their internally generated console direction doesn't match the market that well anymore after the reception of Final Fantasy XIII, Last Remnant, Crystal Bearers, and Final Fantasy XIV.
XIII sold well enough but spinning it off into now two sequels probably doesn't match the market that well either.
Last Remnant was an unfortunate mess caused by lack of experience/documentation with UE3 but the game itself is decent. Crystal Bearers had terrible timing and XIV was a mess during development. Tanaka apparently wanted to change things other staff were doing but felt he would be too pushy in doing so, so he left it as it was... and we all saw the result.
Seems weird to ask that now with their development taking as long as it does. Heck, people could get tired of the Middle East bad guy by the time Agnis the game comes out.
Not to mention the possibility of something happening that would the game a tasteless. eg. The Hassan (sp) v. Undertaker storyline cost at least 2 careers.
But FF13 sold well, right? And wasn't LR their specific attempt at the targeting the west? Oh and Nier. Along with possibly Mindjack as their poor attempt at getting in on the shooter craze. It is the early days of Taco Bell in Mexico in software form.
Not to mention the possibility of something happening that would the game a tasteless. eg. The Hassan (sp) v. Undertaker storyline cost at least 2 careers.
But FF13 sold well, right? And wasn't LR their specific attempt at the targeting the west? Oh and Nier. Along with possibly Mindjack as their poor attempt at getting in on the shooter craze. It is the early days of Taco Bell in Mexico in software form.
I agree, but I think that's partly because they poisoned the well with the first game.
AC:B and AC:R performed much, much better than FFXIII-2 did both in relative and absolute terms despite being similar sequels in concept, but I would propose that's because the general audience actually really liked Assassin's Creed 2.
While the game in and of itself was a financial success, its lasting impression was problematic. The game's reception along with their inability to change the design enough to win people back over speaks to direction problems at the company, and their inability to release a new, highly different product speaks to production problems.
I feel it's notable though that the games received Metacritic ratings of 66, 66, and 49 respectively, and were all large commercial failures that also had seemingly poor production schedules.
When you're failing on the commercial, critical, and development fronts, I could see why they're losing confidence in their own ability.
The biggest problem is that I believe I also just listed all four internally developed Square Enix consoles games released in the West this generation sans Final Fantasy XIII-2.
As it stands today, they have zero consoles games they can point at in the international markets and say "This was an unqualified success." That's got to have a tremendous impact on confidence and morale for a formerly leading edge studio that is sitting in year seven of this generation.
I would propose they're out fishing for feedback so significantly because they honestly don't know what they're doing wrong or where they should go, especially in a market that's rewarding maybe 10 console titles a year at this point at the level they would want mainline Final Fantasy to sell, and they know that most (and often all) of those receive extensive user testing.
That said, most of the user testing is probably handled a lot better than Square Enix is doing judging by the result of Final Fantasy XIII-2, but I can see on paper why they want to try.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
I won't care until I see stuff for myself.
If they do not know where to take their beloved franchise, allow the GILGAMESH FAN KING to point them towards an area of my interest which involves GILGAMESH and Dark Fantasy.
I hope that the Philosophy of Agony is a new IP.
Though a main protagonist that is a full-on mage is welcomed.
If they do not know where to take their beloved franchise, allow the GILGAMESH FAN KING to point them towards an area of my interest which involves GILGAMESH and Dark Fantasy.
I hope that the Philosophy of Agony is a new IP.
Though a main protagonist that is a full-on mage is welcomed.
I believe they specificly said it's not going to be a game, maybe it would have been if the reaction had been big enough, I dont think there's any intention,. just another example of them not really knowing what to do.
in fairness, their outsourcing has resulted in complete garbage too, Mind Jack and Front Mission Evolved remain among the worst games this gen. They desperately need leadership and direction, not Wada consulting fortune tellers.
Dynamite Ringo Matsuri
Member
I'd love for them to return to a time when the games weren't so self serious, and I really miss the fantasy/steampunk aspects of the series. Something more like VI or IX is what I want. When the characters were charismatic and charming instead of the self tormented protags that seem to be based on the Cloud Strife template (yes I'm aware that Zidane is not immune to this existential quagmire). It used to be that you'd only have like one of those lone wolf, woe is me archetypes in an FF, except XIII can't seem to get enough of them. Also, moogles should never speak, not ever. I can see where Nintendo got it right with not voicing their games if it meant saving my ears and sanity
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
Still you rated the game far better than XIII if I remember correctly. Those focus groups helped crafting a more complete experience, while Toriyama's input in the story made it a worse scenario. Are we really sure the focus groups are the problem here?