Basically Konami with MGS?
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Square Enix Wants To Release A Major Final Fantasy Game Every 1-2 Years
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Basically Konami with MGS?
MGS actually (used to) sell really, really well, whereas Hitman was more of a 2-3 million game in the end, but it still probably has the highest potential of their Western IPs in Square Enix's eyes.
I would assume they intend to do something more like yearly though (eventually) since they already intend to operate the company on two year schedule for the most part.
Nora Kisaragi
Banned
Slappers Only
Junior Member
This.
I support them making an assload of FF games. Even if they're terrible, eventually they'll be so bad that they wrap back around to good again.
Ghost_Protocol
Member
Ugh...The yearly Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Assassin's Creed titles aren't 40-50 hour experiences that radically alter gameplay fundamentals or dramatically improve graphical quality with each iteration.....
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
I'll be glad to see Square Enix pulling out a main Final Fantasy every year if developed by different teams. They did this in the past, and the recent long cycles didn't show me anything worthy of waiting so much. So, give Kitase's team a main FF to develop every two years and give a second team (Nomura? Itou?) another one to alternate to that. I'm not even against Bioware's strategy to create an universe and developing in it a trilogy (basically what they did with Mass Effect and Dragon Age). Square Enix can do the same for me (FFXIII, XIII-2 and... XIII-3?).
how dare you forget Otomedius Excellent!@
So, is he saying he wants two year development times, or he wants to have multiple teams working on the franchise to have a release every two years (with development times of three or more years)? Because a game with the scope of Final Fantasy just wouldn't work well with a one year or two year development cycle.
They could fix it by sharing tech or having multiple studios working on mainline FF games instead of what else they're developing, like MMO's that flop horribly or Crystal Chronicles games that no one buys. So you could have two teams on a 2/3 year development cycle instead of one team on a 8(?) year development cycle.
No. Just no. FF13 was bad enough with the long dev time. I can't even imagine what the quality of the game would be if they followed the western practice of releasing yearly iterations. Nearly every western game with yearly iterations is poor (looking at you Assassin's Creed, Madden, CoD, etc.) and western devs have it together much more than S-E.
Omegasquash
Member
Read it and had the same reaction.
I dont mind a long wait for a Final Fantasy game, so long as they produce a great game that was worth waiting for.
Every 3 years or so seems about right for a mainline FF game. Any less time than that and its obviously gonna be just some FFXIII-2 sort of stuff. I want them to sit down and reinvent themselves every iteration just like they used to.
Every 3 years or so seems about right for a mainline FF game. Any less time than that and its obviously gonna be just some FFXIII-2 sort of stuff. I want them to sit down and reinvent themselves every iteration just like they used to.
You can't blame Square Enix for trying. It's better than Konami et all who just throw their hands up in the air and are like: "We got nothing". Maybe Square Enix Japan can learn something from their Eidos friends. It's one of the most weird ass mergers that has worked out quite well so far.
lunarworks
Member
If only they'd spend more time perfecting the story rather than perfecting the hair.
It was bad BECAUSE of the long dev time. Working a long time very inefficiently gives you worse results than working a reasonable amount of time efficiently.
You also fail at reading because they don't want yearly iterations they want every two years; using multiple teams for mainline FF games that could mean effectively 3 years to work on each game.
If you're taking longer than three years to complete a game then you need to reevaluate what you're trying to do. SE as a publishing company knows how to do this; Eidos Montreal (Which they own) or Avalanche (who they publish for) are examples of this. The problem only seems to exist in their japanese game development studios; 'the way we've always done things' isn't working anymore and they're slow to adapt.
Quote in OP states 1-2 years, so I don't see how I failed at reading. Also, I think you are mistaken. It was bad despite having a long dev time. Saying that it was bad BECAUSE of a long dev time insinuates that that was a cause, so if all they do is spend less time, they'll have a better game?
Also take western devs that work efficiently. Their yearly releases rarely make great innovations. And please I hope you don't respond with sales as a way to imply quality. I see the western, yearly-released games as no different than how Dynasty Warriors is in the east. The same game gets made over and over again with a new coat of paint, and sheep continue to buy it en masse.
KingJ2002
Member
Well honestly... it's how they're handling their RPG's that makes their main FF gaps too long. Long development times and announcing sequels and spin offs before & during development of their recent offering isn't the way to get people to clamor for FF... plus there is no extended support of the current offerings. There's no downloadable content or extension packs to keep players playing.
i dunno... i hope next gen Square-Enix actually follows what they say and becomes better at releasing final fantasy titles. Especially next gen where companies like Konami, Capcom, Tecmo and the like have a new chance to re-introduce themselves as big players again.
i dunno... i hope next gen Square-Enix actually follows what they say and becomes better at releasing final fantasy titles. Especially next gen where companies like Konami, Capcom, Tecmo and the like have a new chance to re-introduce themselves as big players again.
Also, if they're shooting for 2014 for the next Final Fantasy it would probably be prudent to have it on PS4/Xbox 3, considering rumor has it those will be released a year prior. They're going to need that newfangled engine
they were showing off a few months ago ready soon.
hallway simulator
Jason's Ultimatum
Member
I want my FFVIII remake or FFVIII sequel.
Nora Kisaragi
Banned
FrontalMonk
Banned
Could it be possible, just maybe, that they're not talking about the numbered releases with new worlds, systems, etc. and are instead talking about releases that also expand those worlds and systems, like XIII-2 and Versus XIII?
Could it also be that they've actually already done this before even with the new worlds and systems (take a look at the release timeline of FF's 7-11 for examples)? S-E has done it before, why is everyone so scared that they can't do it again?
GhaleonQ
Member
I'll tweak what others have said and say that I don't mind iterative Final Fantasy/-ish games that often if they branch and experiment with gameplay and storytelling. Say what you want about Kingdom Hearts, but the series has done lots of intriguing things even as the plot grinds to a halt and eats itself.
I don't think the Final Fantasy-and-spinoff people are prepared to do something like that, so we'll just get the gradual introduction of action elements AND hands-off elements (the worst of both worlds) while occasionally getting a statistic and ability system that's worthwhile. No, thank you.
I don't think the Final Fantasy-and-spinoff people are prepared to do something like that, so we'll just get the gradual introduction of action elements AND hands-off elements (the worst of both worlds) while occasionally getting a statistic and ability system that's worthwhile. No, thank you.
GregLombardi
Member
I'd prefer they actually made good games, but thus is the pitfall of the public company. 
Final Fantasy XIII-2 from a gameplay perspective is vastly different from XIII and that's being turned around in 18 months. Gameplay systems in more recent games aren't inherently more complex than they were in the SNES or PSX or PS2 games. The systems are different but not any more or less complex to implement into a game. They used to make completely new game systems in 2 years time, and they're still doing that now with XIII-2. What takes the most time is creating the art assets, piecing them all together and making sure it runs well and looks good. So I would be more concerned about asset re-usage and lack of visual distinctiveness due to a shortened dev cycle, not rehashed systems and samey gameplay.
Joei
Member
I'd be perfectly fine with a 2 year cycle for games. I could see it happening again if they decide to get their act together, maybe. This gen probably only has 2 or so years left, though I'd be fine with longer. SE will release 13-2 next year and god knows when 15 will hit. I assume it'll be a late release, as the gen is dying down. Then for the next title SE will probably want to develop they're own engine for whatever reason, and that'll take a good 5 or so years till 16 or whatever hits.
ZephyrFate
Banned
We already got it: FFXIII.
jump_button
Banned
SE are to far up they own ass's how about you give the rpg fan what they want and not aim it to wested tease I want my JRPG to be JRPG balls to the haters
and I do cure about story
I enjoy game more if they where more like 4 warrior of light
and I do cure about story
I enjoy game more if they where more like 4 warrior of light
I'm sorry I'll be more specific: It was bad because of their terrible archaic design practices which inherently lead to a long devleopment time. If they had a set of tools which allowed for fast turnaround on iteration the game would have taken less time AND been better better because they could actually test more ideas and how they work before having to finalize plans. Spending 3 years having people just create art for a game that you have no functional prototyp/vertical slice for is a joke; that vast amount of wasted time/work could have been an entire game. I guess technically it is with FF13-2...but it could have been a game that isn't so obviously made of unused assets.
It's not about sales by any means though a well made game should get sales appropriate to its' budget. Look at DX:HR; it was in actual development for around two years and has a reasonable amount of content with a far more polished gameplay design than anything SE has created themselves in recent years (Though it's still not as fun as TLR but I'm a sucker for awesome turn based combat).
EDIT: And as DaBuddaBa said above: it's not the game systems that take extra development time. Good game systems are about creativity, innovation, and either great intuition or excessive data analysis. Their writing is mostly bad because that's who they're writing their games for; we had this argument in the 'make a better JRPG' thread and it basically comes down to a huge difference in the western/eastern console demographics.
TheJollyCorner
Member
I would prefer Toriyama to go away. Bring back Nojima to write and convince Kitase to get back into the director's chair.
Difference is FF7-11 were not HD. S-E themselves have stated before that development for the HD FF games is an entirely different monster from the SD ones.
TheyTookOurJobs
Member
Jeebus. That'll take quite a development team.
Ah I see. I agree with what you said now that you clarified. But, the reason I was down on the idea initially is because I'm talking about the near future. It is unrealistic due to the Japanese business culture in the game industry especially, that S-E will make large, wholesale changes with their structure and business practices.
For the FF team(s) to do what the DX:HR team did, they would have to overhaul their entire team (i.e. fire or massively retrain all of their employees), hire a lot of western help, and change processes and management. I just don't see that happening any time soon. Given that, a 1-2 year dev time for the FF series will not produce great products.
Imperial Hot can say whatever he wants, but without incredible change within S-E, it's all hot air or else the FF series will see even more decline in quality than it has recently experienced. In this case, actions speak way louder than words, and those actions will not come anytime soon.
I don't really like the idea... Seeing as though Final Fantasy games usually rack up the hours in longevity for a single playthrough, shorter development times cannot be a good thing.
Those shooters referenced rely on a multiplayer focus most of the time for filling their hours and a shortened development window will not allow for great creativity.
I'll be glad to be proved wrong however if they're up to snuff.
Some sequels wouldn't go astray either.
Ah, Juniors.
No offense my boy, but you'd do well to read about game development. x hours of gameplay doesn't equal x years in development.
TheJollyCorner
Member
I know I'm probably in the minority here, but let's try going back to pre-rendered backgrounds. Amazing high-res, HD, fully animated pre-rendered backgrounds.
iSurvivedTheOutage
Member
I would love this.
Do I think it will happen? No.
Do I think it will happen? No.
This is their problem. Everyone and their mother is making games on an 18-month turnaround save Bethedsa/Rockstar. That's normal. Announcing games that only really exist as CG teasers and doodles in Nomura's sketch pad? Not so much.
I tend to agree that Final Fantasy isn't the type of game that lends itself well tot his sort of development.
To be specific, FF is not like Call of Duty or Battlefield; it is more like Grand Theft Auto and Elder Scrolls. The fun seems to come from a vast universe and world for users to explore. And indeed, both those later franchises have significantly longer development times.
Perhaps I've got those comparisons wrong, as I don't play FF. I'm not saying it's impossible to accomplish, but it's very difficult.
To be specific, FF is not like Call of Duty or Battlefield; it is more like Grand Theft Auto and Elder Scrolls. The fun seems to come from a vast universe and world for users to explore. And indeed, both those later franchises have significantly longer development times.
Perhaps I've got those comparisons wrong, as I don't play FF. I'm not saying it's impossible to accomplish, but it's very difficult.