Square Enix is just laying down the smack this week. After confirming yersterday that FFVII isn't being made, they've come out and stated that they are not working on a single Final Fantasy game for the Xbox 360. In an interview with the Japanese Business website Nikkei BP, Square Enix executive Hashimito dropped the bomb. When the site asked if the Wii or The Xbox 360 are going to get any Final Fantasy games, Hashimito responded, "For the Wii, we have FF Crystal Chronicles in production. As for FF on the Xbox 360, it's currently a completely blank page."
Ouch -- well that pretty much debunks the ongoing 'Final Fantasy XIII OMGZ Xbox 360' rumors right there. While it seems unlikely that the Xbox 360 will never get another FF game, it appears that for the foreseeable future the PlayStation 3 will be getting all the big name Final Fantasy love. This is fantastic news for Sony and the PlayStation 3, since not only is there a 'slight' dearth of big name third-party exclusives, but also both Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X both helped skyrocket the sales of the PlayStation systems that they were on. And it seems very likely that the same thing will happen with PlayStation 3 sales once FFXIII is released.
Mmm ... the idea that FFXIII is being built exclusively around the PS3 and Blu-ray is pretty exciting. That just makes the wait until next year that much harder though!
In lulls of gaming goodness, we like to sit back and watch what 1080p can deliver, thanks to the PS3 built-in Blu-ray player. Recently Sony Pictures Home Entertainment unveiled their late summer lineup, with Arlington Road and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within both set for release on August 7th. The feature list for Arlington Road looks pretty light, but Final Fantasy is getting the full treatment, with additional featurettes, an interactive documentary, deleted footage and even joke outtakes. Then on December 11th, Lost: The Complete Third Season will mark its debut on both standard DVD and Blu-ray with again, more goodies than typical Blu-ray fare has provided so far. It's good to finally see movie studios show their strong Blu-ray support by supplying meatier Blu-ray supplemental features. Are there any unannounced titles you are heavily anticipating for Blu-ray release?
[Update: Disney Home Entertainment has officially come out to say that Badder Santa and Lost: The Complete Third Season are "not planned for high-def (Blu-ray) release." Also important to note, they reaffirmed their Blu-ray exclusivity and have "no plans" to support HD-DVD anytime soon. Removed Lost from the post title.]
Fedupofinterviews? Then I have some bad news for you because a user over on the NeoGAF forums has put together a collection of quotes from interviews with Square Enix developers from the latest issue of LEVEL magazine. The excerpts include discussion by the interviewees, Motomu Toriyama, Tetsuya Nomura and Hajime Tabata, of Crisis Core, Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII.
Whilst generally an exciting collection of quotes from some of the top names at Square Enix it is hard not to be disappointed by Toriyama's statement that the games in the Fabula Nova Crystallis series will be kept largely separate. We had harboured hopes of cross-game cameos. Imagine two Final Fantasies where the main characters from each game meet up and help each other get through a problem before going on their separate ways again. Sadly this doesn't look likely, though the games will link with each other through a "vague crystal theme," as Nomura puts it. Same as all the previous FF games then?
Nomura's thoughts on the tone and style of Final Fantasy Versus is a particularly interesting read. For those of you who suffer from fears that the series will be moving over to other consoles, then let me put them to rest. Both Nomura and Toriyama make it clear that they couldn't do the things they're doing without the power of the PlayStation 3. Make sure you check out all of the quotes over at the NeoGAF forums for more info.
Let me guess. You couldn't make it to the Square Enix Party in Tokyo last weekend? Me neither. Thankfully, however, youtube user 'Mirafi' did. Whilst there they took some video footage of the (very) big screen which showed trailers for six of Square Enix's upcoming games. The games are, in order:
Nothing there that takes your fancy? Yeah right. The only way I could be more excited about Square Enix's upcoming offerings right now would be if they'd included footage of The Last Remnant and Dissidia. Granted these 'trailers' aren't very long, but seeing six new titles sit back to back like that, all due for release within the next year or so, is quite a wonderful sight. Especially considering we've only had two new games from Square Enix in the last few years: Final Fantasy XII and Kingdom Hearts 2. It looks like we're going to be up to our ears in Final Fantasy before too long.
For the record, my favourite piece of footage was the battle between Sephiroth and Gackt Genesis. Crisis Core cannot come out soon enough. [Via PSU]
In all honesty, there's not enough real news in the scanned pages to merit much discussion -- a lot of the text turns out to be fluff about what the PS3 is capable of. You know, stuff we already knew. However, a few tidbits worth mentioning were gleaned from the article coming out of PSM, but not much from the EGM page. Lots of magazines featured.
Random battles are gone for good! XIII will build off of the elements introduced in XI and XII -- where player and foe enter combat naturally. But Toshiro Tsuchida (battle director) wants more than just the same ol' thing: he wants to create natural "ecosystems" where the creatures will react based on their environments, feelings towards the player and other creatures, et cetera.
Versus is going to have an even stranger system -- every weapon has its own camera system and control algorithms... algorithms? Let's just say camera and control system. Even a third-person shooter weapon. Meh.
The article claims that the graphics in these latest Final Fantasy games will pose a challenge to the incredibly well-received movie, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (sarcasm is fun). Doubt they mean the in-game graphics, but the cut-scenes? Yeah. We'll believe it. But really, a movie that took hundreds of computers and a game taking... the PlayStation 3? Time and technology... amazing stuff.
That's it for now. We'd love to get a demo of this game soon. No promises, but that'd be nice. Right, Square-Enix? It would be nice. Heck, demos for any of the high-profile titles would make us giddy with excitement.
On a personal note, I was moderately excited when I read this. Well, some things made me kind of sad, but other things made me bob my head and whisper "yeah..." to myself in my darkened bedroom. That would probably come off as really creepy to my roommate, but you know what? This is worth it. There was a lot talked about (mostly Nintendo-oriented), but if we're good at anything, it's making lists that weed out all the crap and get right to the point. So, in an interview with Square-Enix's Senior Vice President, Hiromichi Tanaka, Cubed gathered the following information:
The Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary project is planned to launch on many platforms.
It is not out of the question for the Chrono franchise to make a return -- whether this entails a sequel, remake or a virtual-library style release of the original, he wasn't perfectly clear.
The Mana franchise is going to take a little break, but a new entry into the series is being considered down the line.
This 20th Anniversary project has to come out this year, but there's absolutely no word on what it is. Is it the Final Fantasy 1 & 2 remakes for PSP? Will it be some other classic FF remade and re-released? PS3Fanboy and IGN both agree that this year should see the return of classic franchises and it seems Square-Enix agrees, with the implication of some sort of return of Chrono. Oh well, if you've been around the gaming block for a while and experienced all the classic SNES goodness, this will probably make you think a little more than others. What do you guys glean from this interview?
We've all wanted an official Final Fantasy site just as much as we've wanted a Wave Runner -- not too often, not in the front of our minds, but every now and then we remember just how awesome a Wave Runner is and how you can't possibly be sad while driving one (thus money buys happiness, says comedian Daniel Tosh -- "go ahead, try to frown on a Wave Runner"). With that horrifying comparison out of the way, may we present the official Final Fantasy website? We may.
This crazy site has news about every game in production in the FF world to date (and some history lessons for the n00b gamers who jumped in at FF7 and therefore call it the greatest RPG ever... let's not get into that argument, please please please), listing the people involved in the projects and even some movies to watch/download. There are some pretty character shots, because the guys and the girls always have to be far beyond beautiful and we'd have it no other way. There is a catch... the site's in Japanese, but you guys are resourceful. You can find a way to translate it, even though it's not that necessary. The pictures do most of the talking.
Heh, get it? Cuz, cuz, they like airships and loaded it with too much money, so it crashed. Heh. Heh. Ahem. Anyway, let's take a break from what seems to be an overwhelmingly anti-Sony news day to look at one of Sony's most beloved allies. Squeenix announced today that it expects a 3.3 billion yen ($27.9 million) consolidated net income for their six-month period that ended on September 30th. This is a 32% increase from the previous forecast. Amazing.
The massive increase with due in part to "an adjustment in the amount of deferred income taxes associated with consolidated accounting" as well as the Final Fantasy VII movie, Advent Children. So, have they made up for the Spirits Within bombshell of a movie? No way in hell, most likely. Even so, this is good news for RPG fanatics -- they can expect to enjoy their final fantasy many more times, but still call it final. Square got very lucky back in the day... that game saved them and in a way, the RPG genre. It wouldn't be as popular as it is, anyway. Kudos, Squeenix.
Yes, Square-Enix is huge. Very, very huge. It may very well be the one developer that makes or breaks Sony's new console (much like a certain Bungie that helped along another suffering system). This is why in a recent interview, senior VP at Square-Enix Michihiro Sasaki said they were going to support the PS3 mainly. He added smartly (sarcasm) "We don't want the PlayStation 3 to be the overwhelming loser, so we want to support them. But we don't want them to be the overwhelming winner either, so we can't support them too much." Oh... kay.
What does this mean for us, the Playstation 3 loyalists? We'll get our not-really-final Final FantasyXIII, hopefully our Dragon Quest IX, and other Square-Enix titles (how about reviving the Illusion of Gaia/Terranigma franchise? Please? Oooh, or Vagrant Story!). However, other consoles will be graced with a bit of Squeenix's presence (Sylpheed for the 360, Dragon Quest Swords for Wii...) but it would appear... not as much presence. Not surprising, but Square-Enix is sticking behind Sony this round, too. With Square's penchant for radically beautiful FMV's, they might actually use Blu-ray storage to its limit. Perhaps a perk of sticking with Sony?
Yoichi Wada, president of Square-Enix, recently gave some opinions about the game industry over at GameSpot. He said that users will demand more innovation and originality. He makes note of the Nintendo DS and the iPod and their subsequent successes in the industry for being innovative. Wada also said that "entertainment is not a necessity, so the users don't know what they should demand." Whatever! I demand nine-thousand more World War II FPS's! Not really.
Wada describes that in three years, things may be changing as the next big thing could come from anywhere (maybe even Squeenix, nudge nudge). He summed up his speech with this statement: "This is one of the reasons Square Enix will collaborate with Taito, a company that produces physical hardware. In our talks with Taito, ideas for an actual physical product have come up. In any case, we will be releasing some 'thing.' It's interesting in that it's not the sort of thing you expect from Square Enix." It definately isn't! What's your take on it? What could Square-Enix-Taito possible create that would be innovative and new as far as hardware goes? Will they pull support from PS3 to make this hardware a success? PS2 was held up pretty well by the Final Fantasy franchise. What would happen to the PS3 should it lose that?
Seems a lot of people hopped on the rumor-wagon this past week. Regrettably, Squeenix debunked this rumor today by denying any FFXI sequel altogether. They say the gameplay footage of their next-gen MMO is a completely independant project, original in title and story. Some may say "great! FFXI was terrible! Now then, back to WoW..." while others may say "Aw, poo, no Vana'Diel on my PS3..."
What kind of newfangled MMO could Squeenix be working on, then? It's hard to think about what a new, original project could be like, since the MMO world has pretty much two options: fantasy world or post-apocalyptic world. Would they go to the latter? More like a Final Fantasy 8 world, but online? It's more futuristic at least. Or it may be unrelated to the Final Fantasy franchise altogether. Anybody have thoughts on what Square could possibly toss at us?
At the ripe price of 60 bucks, Final Fantasy VII for PS3 is showing up on Best Buy's website. Oh but wait, there's more. It even goes as far to list December 1st as being release date, obviously for here in the States. With everyone and their grandmother talking about a next-gen remake, this puts a bit more substance to the discussion (albeit only a little).
Now who wants to start taking bids on how long it takes for Square Enix to get this removed?
It's a fantasy of the final kind that just keeps on chuggin'. Shane Bettenhausen of EGM fame got to talk it up with Shinji Hashimoto, Yoshinori Kitase, Tetsuya Nomura and Toriyama about Square Enix and their Final Fantasy XIII project.
While the interview will be appearing in this month's magazine, the whole unabridged version can be seen on 1UP. Mr. Kitase starts it up by conceding that they had originally thought about doing FFXIII on PS2 before deciding that both it and FFVersusXIII would ship on PlayStation 3. On the subject of narrative crossovers, Nomura says that each world is separate and will not allow for other characters meet each other.
Of course he follows that up stating that there is the "possibility in the future" of that happening, but obviously they haven't gotten to that bridge yet. Check out the full interview to see what else they had to say (motion-sensing anyone?).
The drool-inducing aesthetics that define the Final Fantasy series never cease to amaze. FFXIII is no exception. Check out these gorgeous scans from a Japanese magazine to get a feel for the upcoming epic. It's being taken care of by the same team behind FFX, and with an all new "white engine" backing it, this title is a serious hook for RPG fans looking forward to the PlayStation 3.
Posted May 8th 2006 10:05PM by Dan Choi Filed under: News
Final Fantasy XII won't be out for the PS2 in the States until October, but we now have a glimpse of Final Fantasy XIII thanks to Square Enix's pre-E3 press event -- and this installment in the series won't be coming alone.
Like the different titles in the Compilation of FFVII collection of games and movies, the initially announced installments in the FFXIII universe will span multiple platforms which, in this case, include both the PS3 and sufficiently advanced mobile handsets. Not much is known about the mobile-bound Final Fantasy Agito XIII, but the subtitle-less version of FFXIII will concern a gun-and-sword-toting heroine in a futuristic world, while Final Fantasy Versus XIII will focus on "a spiky-haired character," "extreme action elements," and a primary theme of "bonding" (whatever that means). Anybody ready to "resist the world"?
The multiple titles might explain the earlier rumor reported in March that FFXIII was "practically close to being finished" (maybe only one of these games was nearing completion). Whatever the case may be, we're just happy that more than one not-so-Final-Fantasy will be hitting the next PlayStation in relatively rapid succession. RPG feasting: on the way.
