Final Fantasy Versus XIII

[Lex]

When that time comes, we’ll also reveal our reason for the delay of any form of announcement.

Well, I just realised the gravity of this statement. This spells "this is Versus XIII which is really FFXV our PS4 launch title and we haven't been able to tell you about it because Sony hadn't announced it yet".

 

[ForceStealer]

Well, I just realised the gravity of this statement. This spells "this is Versus XIII which is really FFXV our PS4 launch title and we haven't been able to tell you about it because Sony hadn't announced it yet".

And that is most assuredly the reason for the past year. I'd be more interested to know the reason for the half-decade before that.

 

[Lex]

Rumour stuff.

 

[Drax]

Might as well throw it in as a Vita title too.

PORTS FOR EVRABODY

 

[Carlie]

Nothing really surprising, some of us had already predicted this would happen.

 

[Tennyo]

I actually forgot that this game existed until I saw a post about it on the front page.

 

[Alex Strife]

Uh oh. I hope it doesn't come out as a launch title for PS4. I always want to get shiny new FFs, but at the same time... I like to wait when new consoles come out because they're expensive like hell and they don't have any good games (PS3 was like that and I only got it on may 2009).

It'd make sense, but we'll see I guess.

 

[Roger]

Well, I just realised the gravity of this statement. This spells "this is Versus XIII which is really FFXV our PS4 launch title and we haven't been able to tell you about it because Sony hadn't announced it yet".

At the very least it screams "gonna be on PS4 instead".

 

[Blade]

No. No. NO!

Blaming Sony for an unproductive schedule is NOT an excuse!

Sony's made enough financial mistakes on their own...adding blame to the pile just makes things worse.

And shifting to PS4 right now seems like a kick in the teeth to anyone who bought a PS3 in the first place.

"Oh we had a bright idea but it doesn't work on this console"...BULLSHIT IT DOESN'T. You just didn't try.

Believe it or not, a ton of games could EXIST on a lot of current-gen consoles if developers stopped bitching about speed or graphic limitations and actually used the tools in front of them for what they're supposed to be USED for.

All you really need to do is spend some quality time learning how the Dev-kits work.

Everybody's always in a big damn hurry to make money so they impose these retarded schedules on themselves and prefer easy-peasy Dev-kits over powerful tools that take time to learn how to use.

And then you got guys screwing around in the back room instead of making games, getting drunk and partying...and nothing gets done and you end up losing more money than you invested.

This is how businesses go under!

 

[ForceStealer]

Well like I said it only would really explain the last year of almost-announcements.

 

[Zuchalot]

No. No. NO!

Blaming Sony for an unproductive schedule is NOT an excuse!

Sony's made enough financial mistakes on their own...adding blame to the pile just makes things worse.

And shifting to PS4 right now seems like a kick in the teeth to anyone who bought a PS3 in the first place.

"Oh we had a bright idea but it doesn't work on this console"...BULLSHIT IT DOESN'T. You just didn't try.

Believe it or not, a ton of games could EXIST on a lot of current-gen consoles if developers stopped bitching about speed or graphic limitations and actually used the tools in front of them for what they're supposed to be USED for.

All you really need to do is spend some quality time learning how the Dev-kits work.

Everybody's always in a big damn hurry to make money so they impose these retarded schedules on themselves and prefer easy-peasy Dev-kits over powerful tools that take time to learn how to use.

And then you got guys screwing around in the back room instead of making games, getting drunk and partying...and nothing gets done and you end up losing more money than you invested.

This is how businesses go under!

Dang, you mad.

Although Sony has been cultivating a large ammount of financial critisism, there is a bit of truth in the fact that info was delayed due to an information ban "proposed" due to the development of the ps4.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I still say I will never buy the fucking game if it goes to the PS4. Now, if it's available for both PS3 and PS4, as that rumor claims, then fine -- but I don't for one second believe they will expend the effort for that.

 

[Lex]

 

[Unlucky]

I don't remember what particular year this April joke came out, but I do remember that article about Nomura saying Noctis is gay. And honestly if that were true then I'd probably show the slightest interest in this game. Because tbh I'm not impressed by any of it at this point, moreso SE's jackassery about everything..

 

[Blade]

Dang, you mad.

Although Sony has been cultivating a large ammount of financial critisism, there is a bit of truth in the fact that info was delayed due to an information ban "proposed" due to the development of the ps4.

All I know is, there's a ton of talented "out of work" individuals that could do a hell of a lot better job with a PS3 Dev-kit than what current execs are doing with it 'just because they aren't paid enough or it wasn't as profitable as projected'.

I'd love to get my hands on a dev-kit myself, just to make my own games.

Way I see it, if people can still make games for Dreamcast and NES, then it doesn't matter how old consoles get, you can still develop games for them.

Even if they're indie titles without much profit, the potential is still there...

The game industry needs to see less executive money meddling and more artistic freedom.

 

[AvecAloes]

The game industry needs to see less executive money meddling and more artistic freedom.

Although it seems to be a popularly held belief that Square's problem was that the former head gave developers too much freedom

 

[Lex]

^And I'd be inclined to agree. Hearing things like "we called it this because it sounds cool" then you end up with the world's most ridiculous titles like "358/2 days" and "DUODECIM 012 SUPER FAINARU ULTIMATE" is absolutely infuriating to me, and seems to represent the general ethos behind story and game development - it simply isn't working IMO.

Kinda hoping this new head reigns them all in a bit. Slaps on wrists would be nice even. Hard ones that cause a fraction of the pain we as fans feel for the company's ridiculous decisions.

 

[Jiro]

Versus XIII was announced at the same time as the rest of Fabula Nova Crystallis (or whatever the hell it was). Final Fantasy XIII came out (twice - it got a sequel) and Agito XIII came out (as Type-0 and not in the West, but still).

There is absolutely no reason for Versus XIII to still be sitting in development. If they couldn't fucking do what they wanted to on current gen stuff, they should have bloody well said that. A simple "we're creating the Luminous Engine to make Versus amazing but it won't be able to run on the PS3 so we have to wait for next gen consoles" would have been fucking fine; it's not spoiling Sony's "big reveal" either because we all bloody knew there would be a new console generation eventually.

I am so fucking pissed off because what looked like a promising title is going to be absolute garbage, thanks to spastic expectations and Square Enix's own incompetence.

Even blaming something internally is not going to cut it here. Square Enix has dropped the ball and disappointed all its fans and that's pretty fucking dangerous considering the general reactions towards recent games and reported financial troubles. Be honest and fucking transparent with what's going on and hype will generate itself. This secrecy bullshit undermined them entirely.

ARGH

 

[Alex Strife]

That is the problem.

I do think the game will be really good, whenever, wherever and in whichever form it comes out.

But... 8/9-years-wait-worth good? That, I don't think so.

 

[Blade]

I'd be more inclined to believe someone was screwing around and not meeting deadlines than to say they were having problems with the current-gen hardware.

It's not unheard of in recent headlines that Japanese developers in particular have gotten lax compared to what's been said of the West.

And by that, I mean, lots of companies have been outsourcing western developers in favor of traditional Japanese devs because they simply just can't cut it anymore.

It doesn't help that you hear JP devs complaining about this and not actually bothering to "be competitive" as a commodity in the industry.

Even so, I've even heard rants from Japanese developers about their own people that say JP devs are more "settled in their routines" (regular paychecks/steady work over renovative ideas) than the West and that they could use a more competitive environment to stimulate game design.

I won't say I fully understand the economics of it all, but from here it looks like they could use a refresh or a do-over of some kind.

Sony, Square-Enix, Sega, Capcom, Nintendo, Electronic Arts...a lot of these companies are dealing with flack in the business due to issues with management and not keeping on top of things in recent years.

 

[OneWingedDemon]

I honestly don't understand how you can make the kind of decisions SE have made. I don't. It's like they are purposely trying to fuck their company up. Well, congratufuckinglations!

 

[Hisako]

But... 8/9-years-wait-worth good? That, I don't think so.

There have been a hash of recent games in the past years that have proved that having an overtly long development period for a title (and by overt, we're talking near-decades) potentially makes the product suffer and risks being released with sub-par quality and design.

Of course, there's a whole lot of context behind every such failure, but such games have usually failed due to a loss of creative vision on the developer's part and a lack of consistency and focus. The only triple-A title I can think of that didn't come out playing completely like ass was Sleeping Dogs.

Versus probably isn't even plagued by the same problems of publishing and development deadlines since it's an in-house production on Square Enix's part - perhaps that could be part of the problem of why they don't seem to be sufficiently motivated enough to release it anytime soon.

 

[Arianna]

I wouldn't be surprised if we learn that they remade Versus over from scratch at least once in this amount of time. I am having a hard time putting into words my thoughts, but I feel Versus was on the back-burner for a while.

 

[Hisako]

To cite the same example, Sleeping Dogs was picked up by Square Enix a while after Activision dumped it, and afterward there was apparently an almost-immediate overhaul of a large portion of game assets, simply because through the years that the game had spent just pottering about the stuff was looking more and more clunky and outdated.

I'm thinking Square Enix will try and reuse what little of Versus they have now (and to a keen eye when it's released people would probably notice anyway ) but they'll also be overhauling whatever assets they can in order for it to pass off for a next-generation console game - if that truly is their intention.
Of course, if they've been basically doing nothing and fucking around like most of us think they have, then that won't be an issue at all and it's just a matter of the assigned developers getting off their lazy asses.

 

[Arianna]

I wouldn't be surprised if we learn that they remade Versus over from scratch at least once in this amount of time. I am having a hard time putting into words my thoughts, but I feel Versus was on the back-burner for a while.

I feel like they may have had some problems - be it the company's losses or the programming or whatever - I just feel the project has had issues. There, those are the words I was looking for.