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Square-Enix Executive Embarrassed by Company's E3 Showing

Its funny because FFXIII-2 is actually looking pretty good. If they can release it by early next year, then they will have shown a big improvement over the entire development process of FFXIII. The problem is that no one seems to be talking about it.

(They are more interested in complaining about FPS and then giving the majority of their coverage to FPS)
 
SE needs to downscale, Eidos should be a bigger part of the company than the rest.

The only Japanese company that knows what it's doing IMO is From Software, maybe Namco which is starting to show signs of "getting it" (they are doing the right thing with Ace Combat and they are publishing Dark Souls). Just the fact that they had a supposed "producer" talking at E3 in perfect English, shows they know what's up.

So I think Japan has a handful of studios can will manage to find their place in the coming years, but it would be the usual suspects. I'd put my money on Namco before any other publisher.
 
Ether_Snake said:
SE needs to downscale, Eidos should be a bigger part of the company than the rest.

The only Japanese company that knows what it's doing IMO is From Software, and maybe Namco which is starting to show signs of "getting it" (they are doing the right thing with Ace Combat).

So I think Japan has a handful of studios can will manage to find their place in the coming years, but it would be the usual suspects.
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I think square should just learn to fucking manage their ressources.
I'm not sure but I think all their manpower could be put to better use if they actually would learn how to coordinate teams.
 
Ahoi-Brause said:
I think square should just learn to fucking manage their ressources.
I'm not sure but I think all their manpower could be put to better use if they actually would learn how to coordinate teams.
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Sure, but the products they are making cost more than ever to make, yet the fanbase is shrinking, there is more competition, etc. So IMO they are fucked. Their whole lineup has to change. The only good thing they have is Eidos, every thing else they make that isn't portable can be thrown in the garbage.

If they get better at managing their resources, they can keep making money on portable games, but it won't help them on the higher end games enough to save them.
 
Atrus said:
Costs to produce games have risen so much due to the fact that they feel pressured to cram ever more realistic cutscenes to artificially induce emotion into the script to make up for the shortfalls in gameplay because they can't adapt quickly to technology.
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You know that is a good point and it makes me wonder if improved graphical fidelity might lower SE's development costs over time in a way. Honestly I thought the in-game stuff in FFXIII looked absolutely fantastic to the point that they really don't need the CG anymore to make an impression. If say next gen the fidelity is even greater perhaps they won't have to waste development resources on elaborate rendered cut scenes? Isn't CG much more expensive to produce?
 
It takes more resources or time to make because you need different assets and render times, etc., but if you do it in real-time it means you need to develop your own tools to be able to animate, move cameras, and do whatever else you were doing in a 3D package but in your game editor instead. Some things are much easier and faster to do in pre-rendered footage, and it's not that easy either to re-use real-time assets in a CG package without some extra work (materials need to be rebuilt, etc.).
 
Ether_Snake said:
Sure, but the products they are making cost more than ever to make, yet the fanbase is shrinking, there is more competition, etc. So IMO they are fucked. Their whole lineup has to change. The only good thing they have is Eidos, every thing else they make that isn't portable can be thrown in the garbage.

If they get better at managing their resources, they can keep making money on portable games, but it won't help them on the higher end games enough to save them.
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I said it another thread, it took cd project $10 million to create witcher 2, which was more impressive than anything squaresoft created in the last few years. And I don't wanna know the difference in budget and manpower.
If square would just fucking use their assets wisely they could probably churn out a FFVII remake in a matter of two years.
 
I'd be embarrassed too if I was a senior executive of the company that made FFXIII, then had its sequel as the main showing from the Japanese side at E3.
 
MrMephistoX said:
You know that is a good point and it makes me wonder if improved graphical fidelity might lower SE's development costs over time in a way. Honestly I thought the in-game stuff in FFXIII looked absolutely fantastic to the point that they really don't need the CG anymore to make an impression. If say next gen the fidelity is even greater perhaps they won't have to waste development resources on elaborate rendered cut scenes? Isn't CG much more expensive to produce?
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My question is why are they even still doing FMV in the first place??!? This is the high-def era, FMV is a waste of cash no matter how you look at it. Srsly.
 
Terrell said:
My question is why are they even still doing FMV in the first place??!? This is the high-def era, FMV is a waste of cash no matter how you look at it. Srsly.
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I know right? It seems like a huge waste of resources and I actually preferred the in-engine cut scenes in FFXIII to the CG.
 
Probably because they got a chunk of the studio solely dedicated to this, and a lot of money invested in that department, so they just keep giving them work. They probably don't want to recycle themselves in making the actual games, so they manage to stick to their pre-rendered footage jobs.

It's called bureaucracy:p
 
Riposte said:
Its funny because FFXIII-2 is actually looking pretty good. If they can release it by early next year, then they will have shown a big improvement over the entire development process of FFXIII. The problem is that no one seems to be talking about it.

(They are more interested in complaining about FPS and then giving the majority of their coverage to FPS)
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setting yourself up for a major disappointment
 
Square is dead since it turn into multiplatform which downgrade there games for Xbox 360. Allot of features were cut and downgrade. Actually they are dead since the beginning of ps3. Sakaguchi, Amano, etc. are gone and they focus so much on FF and there designs are generic and story is not as deep as the past FF series. They forgot other great franchise like Chrono, Legend of Mana, KH, Vagrant story, etc. To much FF. This is the problem if a company focus more on money than quality.
 
BocoDragon said:
This is obviously true.
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Making 360 game is like selling your soul to the devil. It downgrades and makes everything worse apparently. FFXIII problems are not related to the 360 version. I don't see how not making a 360 version would have repaired the economy, the story, dungeon designs, crystallium, HD towns and allowed you to change party leader when one is ko'ed.
 
Vamphuntr said:
Making 360 game is like selling your soul to the devil. It downgrades and makes everything worse apparently. FFXIII problems are not related to the 360 version. I don't see how not making a 360 version would have repaired the economy, the story, dungeon designs, crystallium, HD towns and allowed you to change party leader when one is ko'ed.
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After betraying Sony the noble Japanese developers were overcome by their honor and shame (which as any expert will tell you are huge parts of their culture) and they sabotaged the game. If only their greedy overlords had not forced them into such dire straits.
 
Vamphuntr said:
Making 360 game is like selling your soul to the devil. It downgrades and makes everything worse apparently. FFXIII problems are not related to the 360 version. I don't see how not making a 360 version would have repaired the economy, the story, dungeon designs, crystallium, HD towns and allowed you to change party leader when one is ko'ed.
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Its hard to concentrate on making a good game when you're reeling from the pain of shooting yourself in the foot.
 
yogaflame said:
Square is dead since it turn into multiplatform which downgrade there games for Xbox 360. Allot of features were cut and downgrade. Actually they are dead since the beginning of ps3. Sakaguchi, Amano, etc. are gone and they focus so much on FF and there designs are generic and story is not as deep as the past FF series. They forgot other great franchise like Chrono, Legend of Mana, KH, Vagrant story, etc. To much FF. This is the problem if a company focus more on money than quality.
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You have internet transferred crazy keyboarditis, seek medical help.
 
Square was already shit when they decided to make up elaborate marketing schemes with increasingly complicated names, present them to the public and then never act on them.
WORLD OF MANA, IVALICE ALLIANCE, etc.
I think they spend more time planning awesome names for elaborate plans they will forget as soon as they lose interest because some new stupid idea manifested in their minds than actually creating games.
And even the plans they act on are flawed.
Like announcing that moronic Fabula Nova Crystallis where they decided they're going to make FFXIII the new FFVII and create lots of spinoffs and support it for a bazillion years, without even conceptualizing the game in the first place, having any idea where they are going with it or actually knowing how people will react to it

That was the worst part - they didn't even know if people are going to like it - yet the decided that this is going to be a super great plan. Either they're really dumb or delusional. The management has clearly no idea what they are doing.
 
Kam said:
I'd be embarrassed too if I was a senior executive of the company that made FFXIII, then had its sequel as the main showing from the Japanese side at E3.
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Sequel looks like a major step in the right direction. Obviously it has a lot to prove, but from impressions and videos it's turning out to be good. Versus XIII is still in limbo, no mainline FF in progress, no console KH, nothing from Tri-Ace, no Dragon Quest for consoles in sight, etc. . .
 
Lightning said:
I'm becoming increasingly concerned that Valkyrie Profile 3 is never going to happen...
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Recently re-played through VP1 and 2. Place it with Chrono Trigger as a series thats painfully neglected.
 
DR2K said:
Sequel looks like a major step in the right direction. Obviously it has a lot to prove, but from impressions and videos it's turning out to be good. Versus XIII is still in limbo, no mainline FF in progress, no console KH, nothing from Tri-Ace, no Dragon Quest for consoles in sight, etc. . .
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When I was a kid square was synonmous with amazing adventures and imaginative worlds with a slightly darker undertone than most other japanese rpg

When I look at the images for FFXIII-2 I see nothing but a generic, unimaginative product catering to different focus groups filled with horrible stereotypical characters
 
Ahoi-Brause said:
Square was already shit when they decided to make up elaborate marketing schemes with increasingly complicated names, present them to the public and then never act on them.
WORLD OF MANA, IVALICE ALLIANCE, etc.
I think they spend more time planning awesome names for elaborate plans they will forget as soon as they lose interest because some new stupid idea manifested in their minds.
Like announcing that moronic Fabula Nova Crystallis where they decided they're going to make FFXIII the new FFVII and create lots of spinoffs and support it for a bazillion years, without having even conceptualized the game in the first place or where they are going with it

They didn't even know if people are going to like it - yet the decided that this is going to be a super great plan. Either they're really dumb or delusional. The management has clearly no idea what they are doing.
Click to expand...
I'm really starting to buy into Tim Rogers' view of Square Enix: As an inefficient, bloated mess of in-house artists constantly churning out designs that are hastily stitched into years overdue "games" by panicked producers.

It's like they spend years developing art and design documents before storyline or gameplay comes even to mind.

That's why we see nebulous projects like Fabula Nova Crystallis. It serves as a mandate for the artists to generate content so that later they can think of making games out of them.

It's a Japanese company thing. In Japan, companies want to keep artists and other employees specialized and in their employ alone. That means no outside concepts ... and if someone is bad, inefficient, wasting money and time... they don't get fired. Less competition. Lots of wasted effort. A thousand monkeys with paintbrushes hoping to generate something usable eventually. A bloated insular world of art design which is undynamic and unfocused compared to say... Valve, or Pixar.
 
Ahoi-Brause said:
When I was a kid square was synonmous with amazing adventures and imaginative worlds with a slightly darker undertone than most other japanese rpg

When I look at the images for FFXIII-2 I see nothing but a generic, unimaginative product catering to different focus groups filled with horrible stereotypical characters
Click to expand...
So you've played the whole game, then? Tell me how it ends.
 
They've put way too much on Nomura's shoulders. He needs to move up from directing to supervising similar to Miyamoto's role. His projects are bottlenecking the company.
 
ZephyrFate said:
So you've played the whole game, then? Tell me how it ends.
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This was all I had to see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjVMW1BwPAU and for a company with their track record I seriously doubt this game is going to be any different than I expect it to be.
They basically reached a level where every single line of dialog makes no sense anymore and where character motivations are only dictated by the respective anime stereotypes they belong to
 
ZephyrFate said:
The White Dragon, who just did an FFIX LP and won a shitton of people over with the game who previously hated it before by including backstory about Hawaii that made its way into the game due to the fact that the game was I think either made or translated in Hawaii.
Click to expand...

Great, that's 4 LPs in my queue now.

Ahoi-Brause said:
This was enough I had to see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjVMW1BwPAU and for a company with their track record I seriously doubt this game is going to be any different than I expect it to be.
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I dunno, I'm getting kinda sorta hyped for this.

If I can play through DA2(which XIII-2 seems to have a higher standard of level design than, holy shit that is pathetic :I) then this shouldn't be a problem.

I'm sure everything about the writing is guaranteed to be horribad though, but eh.
 
Ahoi-Brause said:
This was all I had to see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjVMW1BwPAU and for a company with their track record I seriously doubt this game is going to be any different than I expect it to be.
They basically reached a level where every single line of dialog makes no sense anymore and where character motivations are only dictated by the respective anime stereotypes they belong to
Click to expand...
I can judge games based on the 10 minutes I saw of them at a demo at E3.

Come on now. This is stupid.
 
Ahoi-Brause said:
Square was already shit when they decided to make up elaborate marketing schemes with increasingly complicated names, present them to the public and then never act on them.
WORLD OF MANA, IVALICE ALLIANCE, etc.
I think they spend more time planning awesome names for elaborate plans they will forget as soon as they lose interest because some new stupid idea manifested in their minds than actually creating games.
And even the plans they act on are flawed.
Like announcing that moronic Fabula Nova Crystallis where they decided they're going to make FFXIII the new FFVII and create lots of spinoffs and support it for a bazillion years, without even conceptualizing the game in the first place, having any idea where they are going with it or actually knowing how people will react to it

That was the worst part - they didn't even know if people are going to like it - yet the decided that this is going to be a super great plan. Either they're really dumb or delusional. The management has clearly no idea what they are doing.
Click to expand...


fap fap fap, completely agree with you.
You just forgot the atrocity that was Seiken Densetsu 4...
Another dud was Unlimited Saga and how about Dirge of Cerberus heh? World of Mana as you have cited, good lord.

EDIT: Oh and I forgot that one;

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/codeage/
 
Ahoi-Brause said:
When I was a kid square was synonmous with amazing adventures and imaginative worlds with a slightly darker undertone than most other japanese rpg

When I look at the images for FFXIII-2 I see nothing but a generic, unimaginative product catering to different focus groups filled with horrible stereotypical characters
Click to expand...
That's because it's literally a sequel to FF13, the cutscene RPG.
 
Rahxephon91 said:
Someone's never played Xenosaga. FFXIII is hardly a cutscene fest, they aren't overly long at all.
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Actually I have, and I stick by saying Xenosaga 3 is ten times better than FF13.
 
Rahxephon91 said:
And has ten times more cutscenes that go on ten times longer as well.
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Yeah but they're actually interesting. Nothing in FF13 is really exemplary other than graphics and voice acting.

It's like squeenix went "here's all this cash! make a ff game that breaks all the barriers!" and when you get the game it's the most on rails, cliche'd game where you just press X and L1 all game and sometimes press triangle. It was more interactive than say, a xenosaga fight, and it looked cool, but there's no real challenge and it wasn't all that fun.

Vamphuntr said:
What about Xenosaga II? ;)
Click to expand...

Xenosaga 2 doesn't exist. It's a bad dream.
 
Gvaz said:
Yeah but they're actually interesting. Nothing in FF13 is really exemplary other than graphics and voice acting.

It's like squeenix went "here's all this cash! make a ff game that breaks all the barriers!" and when you get the game it's the most on rails, cliche'd game where you just press X and L1 all game and sometimes press triangle. It was more interactive than say, a xenosaga fight, and it looked cool, but there's no real challenge and it wasn't all that fun.
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Well this is all debatable and I disagree immensely, but that's neither here nor there. To say that FFXIII is the cutscene rpg is wrong though, compared to other rpgs like Xenosaga it's cutscenes aren't that long or incredibly frequent to the point of annoyance.
 
I was never really upset with any of the cutscenes, except the ones where they stupidly made Shion into this bitch because she wanted to get back with Kevin.

Anyways, I haven't finished FF13 but I'm mostly done chapter 10 it seems, and there's only 13 chapters left so I don't think anything changes between now and then enough to change everything that's been happening all game up till now. Really, the only interesting characters are Sazh and probably Fang. Hope and snow can go fuck themselves. Lightning, Vanille and Serah are mildly tolerable but, I only really like Vanille when she's not so bubbly.

Mostly I want bad things to happen to the lot of them to take them all down a notch.
 
Aeana said:
I would say that the latter is the natural way of things. Ideally, sequels should be better.

I'm personally looking forward to when people decide FF13 isn't so bad after all. Watching people turn around on FF12 and Wind Waker and lately Twilight Princess (the cycle will be complete when Skyward Sword is out) has been amusing.
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FFXIII isn't really bad if you compare it to II and XIV.

Of course in my own opinion XIII isn't so bad compared to VIII and XII. But IV, VI, VII, IX, and X trump XIII pretty hard.
 
XIII is totally a cutscene laden monster. It's cutscenes may be slightly less obnoxious and slightly better directed than any of the Xeno messes but it's still a crazily on-rails cinematic fest with almost no interactivity or good exploration in any real part of the journey.

Heck, takes upwards of 20 hours just to get a hand on any piece of tangibility and then you're rewarded with with the full brunt of some of the worst character and crafting systems ever and the combat system which is nothing but swapping around a couple of ridiculously obvious presets that require no real dials to turn nor any interesting pre-planning, outside of the back end of the hunts. (which were very fun, IMO)

I can appreciate the main reward of battles being speed and mastery over an enemy but it's not very fun when you just don't have any real say over much of it, under the hood or behind the wheel.

Moving forward XIII-2, however, does have some potential considering that XIII is polished to an unnecessary fault (outside of ground textures!) and is so amazingly simple that just a few corrections could at least produce a fun and inoffensive popcorn RPG, which probably what people expected XIII to be like (like X-2) until reality set in.

I know I'll buy it either way though, it's too pretty to not buy and I have no sense of shame.
 
I was told by a friend at E3 that they were able to ask Toriyama and Kitase about the absence of both FF Versus XIII and FF Type-0 at the show... and they wouldn't say a single thing. A lot of "We can't talk about that right now" and just plain no comments.
 
Square sounds like they badly need some more competent management. Just bad decision after bad decision and some very expensive games that needed (need) whips cracked on them.

I'm at complete ignorance here, but it always seemed to me like after Sakaguchi got the boot their grip over their employees just fell apart. They've had some OK handheld output, but their console games are mostly just one disaster story after another.
 
It's nice to hear Square-Enix acknowledge the trouble they're having, because they haven't won any awards for being the most forthcoming company in the world. While I still enjoy Square-Enix Final Fantasy games, I understand why a lot of people have felt a bit dejected from caring about the series for a while for personal taste or other reasons. We know that they are capable of making excellent games, it's just a matter of organizing the talent they have to get that done and having the proper creative vision.

It's sad to see them fall from grace popularity-wise, but as long as they try to win us back without sacrificing the heart of what makes the Final Fantasy series interesting (taking the series staples and doing something new and unexpected with them) I will be a supporter. Nothing would break my heart more than to see a new mainline Final Fantasy game that didn't at least try to be different.
 
Square has had terrible management for years, and consequently have been bleeding some of their top talent.

Just the Square part of the company back in PSX days had 3x the games, they were largely original, and most were good to great as games.

Now SE outputs the same type of Final Fantasy as before, except even worse in terms of story and dialog. While every other genre has matured, Final Fantasy has not. It's even a bit less mature and less complex.

SE should make stuff like FF7, FF9, but up the story complexity & quality, get good voice actors, pay Uematsu whatever he wants. Liquidate the CG department, they're wasting money.
 
Kagari said:
I was told by a friend at E3 that they were able to ask Toriyama and Kitase about the absence of both FF Versus XIII and FF Type-0 at the show... and they wouldn't say a single thing. A lot of "We can't talk about that right now" and just plain no comments.
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Oh Square.
 
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