Support NeoGAF

[Skilletor]

It was a dumb line of thinking after Birth By Sleep's disappointing western sales.
Kingdom Hearts is a franchise that should make more money in the west than it does in Japan. Maintaining momentum outside of Japan is and was important, but they handled the franchise like a bunch of idiots.

I don't think SE thought BbS would sell much in the west...psp and all.

 

[RoninChaos]

Guy looks like he cries himself to sleep in a Hot Topic store. Does he need to be depicted with the usual heavyhanded anime portrayal of watery eyes for him to seem sad? Hell no. Again, the limo shot: You can practically hear the world's smallest violin. I can only imagine what poetry he's drafting up in his mind to write in a cryptic Facebook musing. But maybe in the final game it'll make sense in context. Assuming there is a final game, and this isn't vaporware. Maybe they're saving it for TGS...

LMAO. I don't know why I found that so funny.

 

[RoninChaos]

Yea, Johnny Cash is worse.


I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real

He didn't write that song. He covered it.

If you're going to be critical, at least know what the fuck you're talking about.

 

[Father_Brain]

I don't think SE thought BbS would sell much in the west...psp and all.

Maybe not by the time it was actually released over here, but I have no doubt that it was greenlit and budgeted with the expectation of much better Western sales than what it actually got.

 

[Krev]

I don't think SE thought BbS would sell much in the west...psp and all.

I think they did, and if they didn't, that casts them as even more moronic. Putting the Kingdom Hearts team on a game that isn't expected to sell well in the west is a great way to kill off momentum in the region where the previous games found their greatest success.

What's going to be impressive is when Versus comes out, sells several million copies, and everyone tries to shrug off this fact with, "Well, it sold well!" There is no way Versus could ever sell enough to offset the damage S-E has likely sustained by not having a Kingdom Hearts game this generation.

Nor the damage done by allowing FFXIII, a sequel built from cut content, and a disastrous MMO to be the only Final Fantasy console games released over this long generation.

 

[Meccanical]

Maybe not by the time it was actually released over here, but I have no doubt that it was greenlit and budgeted with the expectation of much better Western sales than what it actually got.

All this is meaningless sense no one knows SE's projected sales figures.

 

[RoninChaos]

Again, this really speaks to the management at Square being entirely inept. It seems like they just weren't ready to take on next gen games. And that's a shame. Because the Square of the 90's and early 2000s was pretty awesome.

I was listening to some podcasts yesterday and I heard a story about a Square Enix artist that worked on a rock for two weeks. The rock was to be in a two second part of a cut scene. She just kept working on it and working on it because nobody had given her a new assignment.

I'd also heard that until they bought Eidos, play testing their games to an outside audience was just unheard of.

 

[Dresden]

Again, this really speaks to the management at Square being entirely inept. It seems like they just weren't ready to take on next gen games. And that's a shame. Because the Square of the 90's and early 2000s was pretty awesome.

I was listening to some podcasts yesterday and I heard a story about a Square Enix artist that worked on a rock for two weeks. The rock was to be in a two second part of a cut scene. She just kept working on it and working on it because nobody had given her a new assignment.

I'd also heard that until they bought Eidos, play testing their games to an outside audience was just unheard of.

That must have been one hell of a rock.

 

[RoninChaos]

That must have been one hell of a rock.

lol no shit. But it really speaks to how Square simply doesn't know how to use the man hours it has available in an efficient manner. I'd wager a guess that's why so many Japanese developers have had a hard time this gen. Their management style is simply different.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

He didn't write that song. He covered it.

If you're going to be critical, at least know what the fuck you're talking about.

Even better are the people who think the NIN version is a Johnny Cash cover. That said, Hurt works on its own (and as a standalone song I think the JC cover is better than the original), but it only really reaches its full potential as the ending to the bleak, hopeless story told through The Downward Spiral.

 

[Midou]

lol no shit. But it really speaks to how Square simply doesn't know how to use the man hours it has available in an efficient manner. I'd wager a guess that's why so many Japanese developers have had a hard time this gen. Their management style is simply different.

More like their management style is bad.

 

[jaxword]

More like their management style is bad.

I think this is the one point everyone can agree on.

WHAT THE HELL IS WADA DOING?

 

[Gbraga]

Again, this really speaks to the management at Square being entirely inept. It seems like they just weren't ready to take on next gen games. And that's a shame. Because the Square of the 90's and early 2000s was pretty awesome.

I was listening to some podcasts yesterday and I heard a story about a Square Enix artist that worked on a rock for two weeks. The rock was to be in a two second part of a cut scene. She just kept working on it and working on it because nobody had given her a new assignment.

I'd also heard that until they bought Eidos, play testing their games to an outside audience was just unheard of.

Holy shit I bet sony fanboys will post pictures of that rock on every PS3 vs 360 thread

 

[H_Prestige]

They did have a KH game this generation.

On the 3DS.

Neither of which appealed to most of the people who bought KH1/KH2. They needed to have KH3 on the ps3 this gen to keep the momentum going. Now it will be almost 10 years between KH2 and KH3, and it probably won't even be on this gen. That's a long time.

But, it's a bit silly to say definitively that Versus XIII was a poorer use of resources than hypothetical KH3. KH3 might have been shit for all we know, ala FFXIII. Sales wise it wouldn't have been any bigger than Versus. And Versus might help the FF brand if it actually turns out to be good.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

Should we start a new round of predictions? When similar news hit almost exactly one year ago during SE's FY2011 results, I made the grim assessment that the game wouldn't hit until Fall 2012 in Japan and Spring 2013 in the US, a full 6 months after the official start of next gen (Wii U).

It really is amazing if you think about it though. Late 2012 release is likely Japan only, meaning that we're looking at a potentially spring 2013 launch date for NA/PAL. A game that was announced before the Wii ever hit shelves, will release after the Wii's successor is already out.

Edit: And supposedly, KH3 doesn't even get started until after that is completed, lol. Meaning that one of their best-selling franchises will have missed an entire console generation.

It is May 2012, and that prediction now seems ludicrous. This may be the only announced AAA PS360 title currently positioned for well after Q2 2013, putting it in the potential launch window for PS4 and XBox 720.

Neither of which appealed to most of the people who bought KH1/KH2. They needed to have KH3 on the ps3 this gen to keep the momentum going. Now it will be almost 10 years between KH2 and KH3, and it probably won't even be on this gen. That's a long time.

But, it's a bit silly to say definitively that Versus XIII was a poorer use of resources than hypothetical KH3. KH3 might have been shit for all we know, ala FFXIII. Sales wise it wouldn't have been any bigger than Versus. And Versus might help the FF brand if it actually turns out to be good.

KH3 as a Wii, PS3, or PS360 game would have easily outsold Final Fantasy XIII-2 or vs XIII. Look at the sales of Epic Mickey.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

From the other Versus thread.



Some of us expected this, but it's still disappointing.

 

[Meccanical]

KH3 as a Wii, PS3, or PS360 game would have easily outsold Final Fantasy XIII-2 or vs XIII. Look at the sales of Epic Mickey.

Are you being sarcastic?

 

[ctrayne]

.

 

[H_Prestige]

KH3 as a Wii, PS3, or PS360 game would have easily outsold Final Fantasy XIII-2 or vs XIII. Look at the sales of Epic Mickey.

The series was never bigger than FF to begin with, and moving to this gen wasn't going to change that. It wouldn't have been on all three platforms. Either Wii only, ps3 only, or ps360, most likely the latter two.

Selling more than XIII-2 is pointless comparison because that game's development didn't prevent KH3 from being made. It's Versus that did that, and I see no reason to think that Versus would sell any less than FFXIII on ps3, which is about as much as any KH game ever sold on ps2.

 

[laika09]

I think this is the one point everyone can agree on.

WHAT THE HELL IS WADA DOING?

I've never worked for Square Enix, nor do I know anyone who has. Why should I agree that everything is Wada's fault? It's easy to blame Wada because he's senior management and his name floats around a lot in the game press, but without any inside knowledge of the situation, it's intellectually lazy to blame him for the company's missteps. It could be the fault of game producers, budgeting, talent retention, or a thousand other things that have nothing to do with senior management.

You can go ahead and say "oh everything is clearly Wada's fault" simply because he's the one guy you've heard of, or some ridiculous notion you might hold that senior management has absolute control over every aspect of an organization, or because his appointment as CEO roughly correlates with SE's declining reputation (spoiler:

Spoiler

Square was virtually bankrupt before he was hired as an executive, and has subsequently come back from the brink and developed into a major international corporation

). But unless you're his personal secretary you probably don't even know what he does all day, let alone how he could possibly be personally accountable for a couple quarters of operating losses.

 

[SykoTech]

They did have a KH game this generation.

On the 3DS.

Yet another bad move by SE this gen.

 

[StoppedInTracks]

Hitman: Absolution (360, PS3, PC)
Tomb Raider (360, PS3, PC)
Sleeping Dogs (360, PS3, PC)
Quantum Conundrum (360, PS3, PC)
Heroes of Ruin (3DS)
Kingdom Hearts 3D Dream Drop Distance (3DS)
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy (3DS)

-from IGN and the SE Members twitter basically confirmed this list.

No Thief 4?

 

[RoninChaos]

I've never worked for Square Enix, nor do I know anyone who has. Why should I agree that everything is Wada's fault? It's easy to blame Wada because he's senior management and his name floats around a lot in the game press, but without any inside knowledge of the situation, it's intellectually lazy to blame him for the company's missteps. It could be the fault of game producers, budgeting, talent retention, or a thousand other things that have nothing to do with senior management.

You can go ahead and say "oh everything is clearly Wada's fault" simply because he's the one guy you've heard of, or some ridiculous notion you might hold that senior management has absolute control over every aspect of an organization, or because his appointment as CEO roughly correlates with SE's declining reputation (spoiler:

Spoiler

Square was virtually bankrupt before he was hired as an executive, and has subsequently come back from the brink and developed into a major international corporation

). But unless you're his personal secretary you probably don't even know what he does all day, let alone how he could possibly be personally accountable for a couple quarters of operating losses.

I've worked for a few corporations and it isn't a logical leap to think that the CEO has a lot to do with the culture of management. That culture trickles down to middle management, which then hits the regular workers.

There's a reason why so many people dislike Randal Stevenson at AT&T. The things he put in place at that company has caused a LOT of issues, and a lot of customer dissastisfaction. The same could be said for most corporations, really. In a lot of instances, the way the company is run starts at the top, and then trickles down. So it probably is pretty spot on to blame him for some of the management failures at Square.

 

[cilonen]

That must have been one hell of a rock.

When is "Awesome Cutscene: Look at our Fucking Rocks" releasing? Will we see it at E3 and will there be a PC port?

Hype++

 

[Phatcorns]

Pathetic.

Literally the same word that popped into my head. Completely pathetic.

 

[Green Mamba]

I almost feel embarrassed for the people working on this.

 

[MadSkillzBahamut]

Has anyone thought of the possibility of this game having a surprise re-reveal at one of the conferences? Under the name Final Fantasy XV or Type-1 or something?

 

[Krev]

KH3 as a Wii, PS3, or PS360 game would have easily outsold Final Fantasy XIII-2 or vs XIII. Look at the sales of Epic Mickey.

Kingdom Hearts 3 on Wii would have been a far better investment than Birth By Sleep, and likely wouldn't have cost much more. A large portion of the PS2 userbase moved over to the Wii, and furthermore it owned the family demographic and was the strongest platform of the generation for mascot games.

Has anyone thought of the possibility of this game having a surprise re-reveal at one of the conferences? Under the name Final Fantasy XV or Type-1 or something?

Everybody's thought about it, nobody has any hope of it happening.

 

[NeededSleep]

I want to see this so called Rock more than ff versus at this point.

 

[CorrisD]

Has anyone thought of the possibility of this game having a surprise re-reveal at one of the conferences? Under the name Final Fantasy XV or Type-1 or something?

If I was SE I would have just rebranded it as FF15, if it really does/did have so little in common with other FF13 titles there is no reason to have kept the name.

Though it has been so long since we last saw it I don't know why people expect SE to plainly say it will be there, I would imagine it would either be behind closed doors or as some sort of surprise reveal.

I also at this point fully expect Vs13 if it ever arrives to be multi-platform.

 

[Blunt]

I couldn't give two tin shits about this game, especially after the last few Final Fantasy games SE have farted out.

 

[nelsonroyale]

If I was SE I would have just rebranded it as FF15, if it really does/did have so little in common with other FF13 titles there is no reason to have kept the name.

Though it has been so long since we last saw it I don't know why people expect SE to plainly say it will be there, I would imagine it would either be behind closed doors or as some sort of surprise reveal.

I also at this point fully expect Vs13 if it ever arrives to be multi-platform.

Yep, it will be on andriod as well as iphone...ughhh. Considering the engine is apparently heavily tailored towards PS3, a simultaneous multiplat release could potentially delay the game even further...however, an integer over infinity is a dud so its probably mute

 

[Vinci]

Kingdom Hearts 3 on Wii would have been a far better investment than Birth By Sleep, and likely wouldn't have cost much more. A large portion of the PS2 userbase moved over to the Wii, and furthermore it owned the family demographic and was the strongest platform of the generation for mascot games.

Exactly. It would've been a pretty nice money maker.

 

[keltickennedy]

I don't think we will ever be seeing it. I mean, its been in development for so long, is there anyway for them to make their money back? Especially just being exclusive to one platform.

 

[Roxas]

I was so hyped when this was revealed, now I just don't care. I don't understand why they are keeping the FF13 name either, it's poisonous and most people will just see it as another spinoff of 13. Plus it's a stupid as fuck name too.

 

[lunchwithyuzo]

Because again: it hasn't been in development for 6 years.

Here is a decent example I guess, look at how many games Matsuno worked on from FF12's announcement to it's release (spoiler alert: it's just FF12). Afterwards go look at what Nomura did from FFvs13's "announcement" up until now.

Edit: Should probably point out though as far as I'm concerned the real reason FF12 was awesome was Ito and not Matsuno Ito for FF15 please.

Actually no, Matsuno also worked on Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.

Nomura has been more prolific in the interim though (TWEWY, Crisis Core, Dissidia, Monotone, tons of KH spinoffs).

 

[noirebanana]

I was so hyped when this was revealed, now I just don't care. I don't understand why they are keeping the FF13 name either, it's poisonous and most people will just see it as another spinoff of 13. Plus it's a stupid as fuck name too.

Yup, they should just call it Final Fantasy XV. Anything but an association with the Final Fantasy XIII name.

 

[dramatis]

I want to see this so called Rock more than ff versus at this point.

It's not a rock. The original poster probably didn't remember correctly, but he was referring to a discussion regarding the "Cobblestone Girl", which is an artist specialized in cobblestone modeling/texturing (I have no idea how factual this actually is with regards to Square Enix). The discussion on WAHP wasn't so much about how they wasted time by assign people to do such specific tasks, but rather about the deliberate inflexible policies implemented by Japanese management to prevent employees from being able to seek employment at other companies. If an employee's only skill is cobblestoning, then it's less likely she would be able to leave Square after they train her (to cobblestone) and go to another company.

The side effect, of course, is that everyone is so specialized the structure is too rigid to accommodate necessary changes when changing development methods.

 

[Cmagus]

That list may not be complete though you never know they could pull a FFXIII on 360 surprise announcement plus they may have other stuff that may be shown as surprise in conferences.

 

[Midou]

Yet another bad move by SE this gen.

Yes, I love KH1 and KH2, but having played all of the other KH titles except the 3DS one, it has just been disappointment after disappointment. Yeah I mean BBS isn't a bad game, but doesn't recapture any of the so-called 'magic' of the first two. Nothing has felt remotely fresh or interesting after KH2.

 

[DJIzana]

I'm still hopeful at the very least for a trailer.

Again, look at FFXIV, it's not on the least yet they did make mention it'd be there. (Obviously the fact that they mentioned they'd be there is the key point but still...)

 

[SDBurton]

I completely forgot about this game, which is good as it prevented me from placing expectations of a reveal at E3. It's probably better this way.

 

[H_Prestige]

Kingdom Hearts 3 on Wii would have been a far better investment than Birth By Sleep, and likely wouldn't have cost much more. A large portion of the PS2 userbase moved over to the Wii, and furthermore it owned the family demographic and was the strongest platform of the generation for mascot games.

Everybody's thought about it, nobody has any hope of it happening.

Not saying BBS was a good idea (it wasn't), but the KH fan base has always been more or less the FF crowd. Those guys didn't migrate over to the Wii. I don't consider KH a family oriented game either. It's a single player JRPG. Family games are like wii sports, mario kart, and other party type games.

 

[Utako]

Yup, they should just call it Final Fantasy XV. Anything but an association with the Final Fantasy XIII name.

But it takes place in XIII's universe. Something akin to Type-0 would suffice, however. FF Noctis?

 

[Roubjon]

But it takes place in XIII's universe. Something akin to Type-0 would suffice, however. FF Noctis?

The game has been in development for 6 years. We don't really know that anymore.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

The series was never bigger than FF to begin with, and moving to this gen wasn't going to change that. It wouldn't have been on all three platforms. Either Wii only, ps3 only, or ps360, most likely the latter two.

Selling more than XIII-2 is pointless comparison because that game's development didn't prevent KH3 from being made. It's Versus that did that, and I see no reason to think that Versus would sell any less than FFXIII on ps3, which is about as much as any KH game ever sold on ps2.

Vs 13 is not going to sell 1.7 million copies in Japan or >1 million in a month in the US, come on. A spinoff is still a spinoff at the end of the day. If it passes XIII-2 at this point it would be a small miracle.

Are you being sarcastic?

About what? Epic Mickey sold more than a million in a little over a month in North America, easily more than 2x the sales of XIII-2. I would think that KH3 would be an easy sell to the same demographic...had it come out this past winter.

 

[polyh3dron]

Could HD gen Squeenix possibly be any more of a fail?

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

Could HD gen Squeenix possibly be any more of a fail?

As some people noted: Dragon Quest X might be a disaster (probably not)

 

[lunchwithyuzo]

Not saying BBS was a good idea (it wasn't), but the KH fan base has always been more or less the FF crowd. Those guys didn't migrate over to the Wii. I don't consider KH a family oriented game either. It's a single player JRPG. Family games are like wii sports, mario kart, and other party type games.

This is the case more inside Japan that outside. In the west KH's core audience is kids and Disney fans, and it's bigger than FF.

Epic Mickey likely has more crossover with the KH games audience wise than FFXIII did.

 

[Zeal]

Placing a ban bet that this will simply be renamed Final Fantasy Versus.