It's a strange day when a trailer for Final Fantasy XIII is shown at something other than a Sony press conference. And that's what happened.
At Microsoft's E3 2008 press conference, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada emerged onstage and announced Final Fantasy XIII was coming to the Xbox 360 the same day it would be released on the PS3 in North America and Europe.
During Square Enix's press conference more information was given. Development for the Xbox 360 would not start until English localization began after Final Fantasy XIII had been released in Japan (no date for the release has been given). It seems to indicate there are no plans to release the game for the Xbox 360 in the land of the rising sun, and the intent of a Xbox 360 version is to take advantage of its user base, which is much larger than that of the Playstation 3 in most parts of the world.
So what about the game itself? Final Fantasy XIII director Yoshinori Kitase took a few questions on the game, specifically differences between the previous installation of the series - FFXII - and XIII.
"Each time we make a game, we try to make it unique. So it won't be like the last game." When asked another question about differences he continued "It (FFXIII) is flashier."
See if you can detect a "flashier" appearance:
Note that the trailer ends with "for PLAYSTATION 3 Only... In Japan." So I suppose that settles that debate. If you don't like the Japanese and want to see what the English would look like, then of course you could check out what was shown at Microsoft's E3 '08 press conference...
To cap the article off, Square Enix executive Shinji Hashimoto stated that Final Fantasy Versus XIII will remain a Playstation 3 exclusive.
Terp: hindsight is 20/20. The average gamer had no idea that NP was stretching the truth...NP at the very least insinuated that Square was going to be supporting N64, and why would anyone think otherwise? Square always supported Nintendo. The lesson was learned: lots of Nintendo fans realized that buying a system on future potential is foolish...but to argue that 12 years ago people should have known that the screen shots in NP were a totally unrelated demo from an obscure graphics convention? Bull.
It was Nintendo Power. It wasn't Final Fantasy VII. It was a 3D gaming demo using FF6's characters put together for the Siggraph convention. Nintendo Power tried to hype it up as FF7. It wasn't.
Actually, FFVII WAS originally going to be a N64 game, until very early in development they switched to Playstation. I remember seeing the early, early shots in Nintendo Power or something.
I got my PS3 for Ratchet and Clank, and MGS4, so this doesn't bother me at all. Honestly, I think this one looks like it might actually manage to be worse than XII, which really doesn't help matters.
This is good news for me. I had intended to get a PS3 for this, MGS4, and Ratchet and Clank, but I'd always intended to wait until the price dropped. Now I can play FFXIII a bit sooner than I might have otherwise. What I don't understand is that if people bought a PS3 for FFXIII and ONLY FFXIII, why didn't they wait until the game was actually released? The only thing I can think of is that they wanted something new to play right away, but if that's the case, they don't really have a reson to complain. The PS3 has enough games at this point to be worthwhile to most people who bought one.
It's the whole N64/FFVII debacle all over again. I fell for buying a system based on a game I wanted then and I'll never do it again. Except for the fact that you can still buy it for said system, you just could have bought it on that system you already had.
Although, honestly, this looks like a stinker in the series. The Storm Troopers are a bit much for me.
"It's been a long time since I laughed so hard at some of the hyperbole coming out of both camps on message boards about this announcement."
I agree, this announcement has provided quite a bit of comedy. Some people are just a bit upset that FF13 caused them to buy a more expensive console with a smaller library, which is understandable.
Other people are hilarious. It's funny the sense of entitlement some Final Fantasy fans have. It's as if only THEY, the loyalists, deserve Final Fantasy and when somebody else gets to enjoy it, it harms them somehow. It's these same people that gave a sigh of relief when Square's Gamecube FF game turned out to be Crystal Chronicles.
To see them rant and vent their frustrations is a guilty pleasure.
I don't expect too much of a downgrade in graphics and sound with the port, but I do expect a lot of discs (4-6) for the XBOX version of FFXIII. I also want Yoda to be in the XBOX 360 version...prolly won't happen though/.
So, I wonder if both versions will be identical? I can already see it, there's bound to be an uproar when Square announces that the 360 version will have compressed, lower rez cut scenes/textures/audio. I also wonder how many discs the game will span on the 360 as well? We're dealing with two formats, one that holds over 5 times the amount of the other. That's bound to create some issues.
"Wait so I'm confused. They're NOT making a English version of XIII for the PS3?"
The phrase 'For Playstation 3 only in Japan' is terrible grammar and that's what's causing your confusion.
It could be taken to mean that the playstation 3 version will only be released in japan, but what it actually means is that there'll be no japanese X360 version (which is I assume how Square Enix kept Sony sweet on this).
I think we may still see a port of Versus and maybe even Kingdom Hearts 3. I mean, why the heck not? Especially when the western gamers are snatching up the JRPGs like in the PS2 days?
>>"Some people aren't interested in all these spinoff XIII titles."
Versus is an action-RPG in the vein of Kingdom Hearts, IIRC. If that's the case, there may actually be people that aren't interested in the main game at all and pick up Versus instead.
digg this story!
