Where's all the "perfect" chat coming from? The impression I got from the video is that they're delaying it because they don't want the stability of the build and some last minute additional content to rely on a huge day-one patch.
That is of course, bullshit. But that's the official line and it's at least an admirable goal on paper to not want people without good internet access to be able to play the same version of the game as everyone else.
Which is why "perfect" came up - because granted that the official line is bullshit, it becomes apparent that they are at this point either
A.) delaying for more brush-ups - and really, what's the point of that at this point in time?
or
B.) for some other reason like matching the release with the Neo.
As a person with good internet access, I want the game on its original release date. As a person who believes that's just an excuse to appease people who'll believe it, I'm happy they're taking the time to make it more stable in any scenario, if annoyed by the delay.
The problem is that I have no reason to believe that in this short period of time, that it'll become more stable or better in any meaningful sense.
What people don't seem to get is that if the game suffers from noticeable slow-downs or problems at this point - that's most likely emblematic of serious issue with the engine, base code, or too resource costly assets, which can only be fixed either by lowering the graphical settings significantly, or doing a shit-ton of work on the engine and the code.
You're not fixing that in two months.
If they're spending time tweaking shit for 2 frames performance boosts, or adding/detracting a clump of bushes etc. that pisses me off, and that smells of perfectionism, because no stable artist worth their salt think they're going to be able to deliver a product that doesn't have some nicks in the paint.
And let's not pretend for a second here that those kind of minor issues couldn't be fixed with patches down the line.
Tabata wants to be nice to people without internet connection?
Psh, please - so you expect me to believe that no patches will ever be made for this game down the line then?
What about the DLC?
Why is it different at launch from down the line?
It's obviously just PR speak.
And as such, this delay is just emblematic of either more fuck-ups in the development, or more dishonest bullshit from SE's part.
Well no one is denying that Square didn't put themselves in this position. It seemed like they took on too much from the start, announcing the Fabula Nova Crystallis compilation, with XIII, Versus, and Agito, then making XIII into a trilogy and turning Agito into Type-0 and everything else they have in development...
Then don't make excuses for renewed delays then.
Final Fantasy XV has only been 'Final Fantasy XV' since 2013. While it retains the bulk of what has made it identifiable to us over the past 10 years, they still gave it a complete overhaul. So in reality, we actually haven't been waiting 10 years for 'Final Fantasy XV'. I'm not trying to be politically correct asshole here, but come on.
July 2012 - that's when work on "Final Fantasy XV" began. That's more than 4 years ago. The Witcher 3 on the other hand, took 3 years.
It remains to see how much bigger, if at all, FFXV is comparable to that game, but then FFXV has a much larger company and studios to fall back on, to it's still ridiculous - especially when you consider all the other stuff that they waste resources on making.
And no, they haven't given it "a complete overhaul".
Several development interviews after the transition talked about the porting of assets.
Lots of the animations, and 3D assets - while obviously having been spruced up significantly were not reworked from the ground up.
That being said - again, even if it had a full overhaul, starting entirely from scratch, it's still not an excuse because it shouldn't have happened to begin with.
Delaying an entire console cycle and then deciding to build a new engine entirely from scratch is what is caused this, and that's not something that would have happened if they'd handled this like pros to begin with.
I was in highschool when this game was announced and I've managed not to lose my shit for 10 years. I understand all of the frustration, but it's not the end of the damn world. To my knowledge, none of us here work for Square, so the only things we know about the development of this project is what's been made public. Let them polish up the damn game and stop throwing a tantrum and assuming every game after XV isn't going to be released on time.
Firstly, this game could never come out and that wouldn't be a problem for me personally as a would-be fan of the game.
I am not expressing anger because the game is delayed due to a want for it - I'm expressing anger delay as a sign of the incompetent management of SE, who happen to be the people holding the rights to several other IPs I am already a fan of and care much more about than this game.
What's more - Squaresoft, and SE has a long and bad history of botching up development of games leading to delays and the releases of sub-par products starting with Vagrant Story.
Did you know that Vagrant Story was released not even half-finished and was supposed to feature a whole party of characters, and a larger world similar to that of FFXII?
Do you know that the primary reason we got spin-offs of FFX, and FFXIII is because they spent so much money on producing these games, yet couldn't sell enough of them that they couldn't justify to share-holders moving on to new even more expensive titles before reusing assets and squeezing more money out of those franchises first?
SE is a company that's shooting itself in the foot, and then demands that the fans pay the medical bills so it can keep on shooting itself in the foot.
They think they need all the spin-offs, trinkets and marketing to sell their games, and spend insane amounts of money on that, when in reality the reason their games cost so much money is often tied to the fact that their development process, corporate structure and management is completed ineffective and bloated, combined with the fact that they divert resources to all that marketing and those trinkets and spin-offs to begin with.
If they didn't keep on spreading themselves thin, and bleeding themselves dry, then perhaps they could release a decent FF game every 1-2 years or so like they used to do in the PSX era, and earn enough to profit while laying up the new project, but they keep on painting themselves into corners announcing way too many projects at the same time, almost always (up until now) thinking they need to have their projects on in-house engines, striving for ridiculous graphical quality that complete over-burdens their budgets, and then when the game hits a bump in the road they have the bad habit of completely restructuring teams and leadership setting the project back even further demanding even more money for completion.
Then, when they see the tab, they start fretting and devising strategies to help bring in cash from the fandom from other things than the game, when they realize that the projected sales numbers won't adequately cover the profit margin they imagine is needed in the first place.
They then end up spending even more money and time on trinkets and spin-offs further diverting attention from future projects, and diluting their entire productive process.
Moreover, Square-Enix has been consistently releasing (FF and non FF games) games on time betwen the past 10 years.
I hope for god's sake that this is sarcasm, because this isn't even remotely close to being true.
How many of those games had the future of the company riding on it? How many of those games have a movie, a free anime, two side games, collaborations with companies such as Audi and ROEN, and a music collaboration with a renowned singer like Florence Welch?
The problem here is that the very reason the company's future is riding on this project is because of mismanagement.
Secondly, all that other shit wouldn't have had to happen if FFXV's productions cycle wasn't riddled with problems to begin with.
If anything, the additions of all that gimmicky bullshit is another problem with FFXV. How about they not do any of that, and spend all that money on the game?
They're only doing this to begin with as a part of a marketing scheme that they now see as necessary because of all the money they spent on the game, and they're now afraid they won't make back.
However, does anyone really believe that this marketing campaign is going to strongly impact sales?
Are they (or you) imagining that the general movie goer, Audi and Roen consumer, game of thrones-/Breaking Bad-fan, anime-fan and Florence and the Machine fan is somehow going to buy the game because they've tied these famous names to it?
If anything, the insistence on having all these ridiculous marketing gimmicks have just increased the need for additional merchandise and DLC to cover the costs of the game which has ballooned as a result of the marketing ploys.
It remains to see how this will all pan out - but my prediction is that what will make this game sell or not, is the game itself. Not the fucking marketing. Not the shizzle-shazzle bullshit they've tagged on to it.
And ultimately, the fans of the franchise will suffer because they're the ones who'll end up fielding the extra costs of this game through ultimate editions, season passes, paid DLCs, DVD/Blue-Ray box-sets, plush toys and the sequel(s)/prequel(s).
Square doesn't have to be like Ubisoft, where they release games every year and then have to patch the frack out of due to bugs. I'd rather have them take their time and make a masterpiece than pump a mediocre piece of crap I'll forget about by next year. We are not entitled to receive FF or non FF games by such and such date. It's done when Square says it's done.
No, they can be the same as the old Squaresoft and other good companies and spend a reasonable amount of time (a couple of years) on a solid title by pooling their resources into that one project and deliver a solid experience without all the strings and bullshit additional merchandise attached.
This has nothing to do with entitlement and everything to do with consumer responsibility and awareness and not doing apologetics for companies that are shitting all over their consumer base by punishing them for their mistakes.
We live in a time when making games is more expensive than ever, and that causes the need for compromises.
The problem here is that gaming companies refuse to compromise (like adapting their vision for the graphical fidelity of the game according to reasonable profit projections) then mess up the entire production process due to lack of foresight, and then create this almost mobile-game-esque exploitative money-making scheme to have the fans of a franchise field the costs of their screw-ups.
People should not be indulging that kind of shit - not because we're entitled to products on specific dates - but because as consumers it's in our best interest to take a stand against that kind of business practices if we want quality products for a reasonable price.
I imagine SE and Sony will be laughing all the way to the bank if and when the Neo bundle is announced and it becomes apparent that the only way to play FFXV with a steady frame-rate is on that console.
But no, that couldn't possibly be happening now could it, because Tabata seems like such a nice guy and SE don't do that kinda stuff...
Yeah right...