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Yoshihisa Hashimoto (ex-Square Enix, ex-Sonic Team) starts new company

D

duckroll

Member
http://www.libzent.co.jp/

LIBZENT Innovations is a tech start-up which plans on developing applications for iOS/Android/Mac/Win/Web which cover the three main goals behind the company's name - Life, Business, and Entertainment. It doesn't sound like a game company, more like a general software developer. Some of the ideas they're exploring for applications include stuff which can help optimize workflow for businesses, lifestyle improvement, general entertainment, educational tools, etc. I guess Hashimoto is out of the game industry for good, but probably a better business plan for someone who is highly skilled and with a more technical system development background.
 
L

L~A

Member
Reminds me of the folks at CiNG who went on to make a similar company, working on apps and stuff rather than games.
 
U

Uncle Rupee

Banned
Have any games made in Luminous Studio actually been released? We've seen a bunch of tech demos, but do we know if it is actually being put to use? Maybe it's buggy as fuck and that's why we haven't seen anything concrete. FF15 was being made in a different engine, wasn't it? Agni's Philosophy was just canned animations... so what does this spell for the future of S-E?
 
D

duckroll

Member
2San said:
Sonic Generation ran and looked great. However we never saw an actual game made with Luminous studio, right?
Click to expand...

Well yeah, S-E sucks at actually making console games. Lol. He was responsible for the complete engine overhaul for FFXIV 2.0 too though, and that turned out really well.
 
2

2San

Member
duckroll said:
Well yeah, S-E sucks at actually making console games. Lol. He was responsible for the complete engine overhaul for FFXIV 2.0 too though, and that turned out really well.
Click to expand...
Didn't know he was involved with 2.0. While it was major improvement over FFXIV vanilla, it wasn't a particularity great engine either. Considering how sectioned off everything is.

That said, it does seem like SE will miss his talents. Was he involved with FFXV or KH3 in any capacity?
 
D

duckroll

Member
Uncle Rupee said:
I don't know, a lot of shots I've seen of FF14 have very flat lighting
Click to expand...

2San said:
Didn't know he was involved with 2.0. While it was major improvement over FFXIV vanilla, it wasn't a particularity great engine either. Considering how sectioned off everything is.

That said, it does seem like SE will miss his talents. Was he involved with FFXV or KH3 in any capacity?
Click to expand...

The goal of the FFXIV 2.0 was not to look super amazing, it was to have a very scalable engine which runs the game well across all platforms and with decent performance even for people with weaker PCs. It's a MMO that has to reach a wide audience, not a tech showcase. That was actually one of the problems with the previous engine.
 
R

Relaxed Muscle

Member
Uncle Rupee said:
I don't know, a lot of shots I've seen of FF14 have very flat lighting
Click to expand...

2San said:
Didn't know he was involved with 2.0. While it was major improvement over FFXIV vanilla, it wasn't a particularity great engine either. Considering how sectioned off everything is.

That said, it does seem like SE will miss his talents. Was he involved with FFXV or KH3 in any capacity?
Click to expand...

People forgets it has to run on a PS3 with split 512MB RAM. Is actually a very scalable engine that runs great in a wide hardware while lookign really nice, probably one of the best looking MMO right now...
 
P

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Pretty wise of him to get out of the games industry really, even if its sad the industry has lost a dude who make some pretty tight and delightful looking game engines.

Kinda weird to see complaints about Realm Reborn's lighting in here as well. It was one of my favourite aspects of the game and made many areas look gorgeous.
 
2

2San

Member
duckroll said:
The goal of the FFXIV 2.0 was not to look super amazing, it was to have a very scalable engine which runs the game well across all platforms and with decent performance even for people with weaker PCs. It's a MMO that has to reach a wide audience, not a tech showcase. That was actually one of the problems with the previous engine.
Click to expand...
That's thing the are MMO's like for example Tera that looks good and has the entire world streamed. It performed similar if not better than 2.0 iirc.
Relaxed Muscle said:
People forgets it has to run on a PS3 with split 512MB RAM. Is actually a very scalable engine that runs great in a wide hardware while lookign really nice, probably one of the best looking MMO right now...
Click to expand...
True I do think the PS3 version messed things up a lot. The engine doesn't run great on a wide range of hardware. It performs adequately on a wide range of hardware.
 
S

Sami+

Member
Shame he may have left the industry - he's a really talented guy. I wish him the best in his future endeavors.
 
D

dramatis

Member
2San said:
That's thing the are MMO's like for example Tera that looks good and has the entire world streamed. It performed similar if not better than 2.0 iirc.

True I do think the PS3 version messed things up a lot. The engine doesn't run great on a wide range of hardware. It performs adequately on a wide range of hardware.
Click to expand...
Tera probably couldn't run at all on PS3 or PS4, at least not without some heavy modification. So it only runs decently on PC. You'd be better off trying to compare the one other MMO that has to run the same gamut of platforms, DC Universe Online. The argument about how Tera looks good falls flat when you're only talking about how good it looks on PC.

It doesn't hurt to admit that the 14 engine is actually performing its job admirably and it is definitely flexible enough that they could pop out the PS4 version half a year after relaunch on PS3/PC.
 
F

Famassu

Member
2San said:
Sonic Generation ran and looked great. However we never saw an actual game made with Luminous studio, right?
Click to expand...
It wasn't done until maybe in the last year or so, so of course no games have been released yet that use it. Both KHIII and FFXV use it and we've seen footage from both.
 
S

Shamdeo

Member
The limitations in FFXIV:ARR are more on the PlayStation 3 than the game's engine - particularly with regard to memory use.

Further down the line they will likely drop support for it altogether which is why they've encouraged a PS3-->PS4 upgrade (by offering it for free).

The PS4 and PC versions are quite gorgeous and I'd say that coupled with the art direction it's the best looking MMO out recently.

Considering the circumstances, such as a mere 18-month dev cycle and 1.0's reputation, the game is something of a miracle for Square Enix. It's a shame Hashimoto left before anything out of Luminous comes to fruition--if the engine is even done.
 
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