Square Enix tells us what to expect from now on.

[Damane]

As you later realized, simply throwing everything into an emulator won't do for the common modern day gamer. They'll take one look at that Cloud model—even if it's given newer textures and displayed at a higher resolution—and balk. Likewise, if the high resolution versions of the pre-rendered backgrounds don't exist anymore, they would need to make new ones—and even if they do still exist, they probably will not be high resolution enough, nor will the art look nearly as impressive.

This doesn't mean that SE can't do it. I forget what game/franchise it was about, but someone commented in another thread on BG that companies can't simply take their games, throw them into an emulator, and then re-release them. That's not true; they absolutely can do that. Numerous ones have, in fact, and there are companies that thrive by doing the emulation work for them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Eclipse).

Further, SE could do such a thing and make a reasonable amount of money. As mentioned, nostalgia sells, and they've been milking it for years. The point I was specifically countering was related to completely remaking the titles on modern day engines, which is not feasible.

SE nostalgia has died for me when I played FF XIII and tried out FF XIV. Anyone who calls those titles AAA titles needs to get its rose glasses down, none of them are. And frankly the JRPG time has gone, I cant get excited anymore over any JRPG because all that comes into my mind when i see JRPG: turned based boring battle system (no direct influence action drive), god-awfull random battles on the map that just lengthen the time of playtime without haveing fun, Same shit hero story with no noticable twist and overbumped emo boys.

when I was a teen I loved JRPGs alot and couldnt play any Western RPG, because I found them boring. Ironicly I cant play any JRPGs more because they are so boring, but I love Western RPGs. I loved Skyrim. The reason why this is this way for me is prolly because Western RPGs have had alot of evolution the last couple years, while the forumla for JRPGs has pritty much stayed the same since the SNES aera, just with better graphics.... No evolution, no revolution, just better graphics and a modiefied battlesystem that is basicly the same just with different rules/settings.

EDIT: the last FF game I finished to the end was FFX, since then I only have bother once more with FFXIII

[Elcura]

Anyone who calls those titles AAA titles needs to get its rose glasses down, none of them are.

AAA refers to the amount of money spent on the game, not how good it is.

JRPG because all that comes into my mind when i see JRPG: turned based boring battle system (no direct influence action drive), god-awfull random battles on the map that just lengthen the time of playtime without haveing fun, Same shit hero story with no noticable twist and overbumped emo boys.

For real? Play some better RPGs then.

[Shiyo]

JRPG: turned based boring battle system (no direct influence action drive), god-awfull random battles on the map that just lengthen the time of playtime without haveing fun, Same shit hero story with no noticable twist and overbumped emo boys.

while the forumla for JRPGs has pritty much stayed the same since the SNES aera, just with better graphics.... No evolution, no revolution, just better graphics and a modiefied battlesystem that is basicly the same just with different rules/settings.

Maybe you should take your time machine from 1995 and come to 2013 with the rest of us, or stop playing horrible JRPG's. JRPG's also have some of the best stories out of all the video game genres.

Western RPGs have had alot of evolution the last couple years

Yeah, skyrim's combat is so evolved and complex and amazing! You complain about turn-based combat, yet are ok with skyrim's? The fuck.(Not insulting skyrim, just it's combat)

[Kiarax]

There's so much wrong with that post I can't even pick individual remarks to respond to.

[AoE]

There's so much wrong with that post I can't even pick individual remarks to respond to.

Lazy

[Xno Kappa]

What the fuck is an ouya?

[Kiarax]

A $100 console that runs on Android. It can play FF3 (because hey, what can't nowadays?) and some other shitty flash games.

[Correction]

Skyrim's combat is pretty crap tho

[Aevis]

www.ouya.tv

whoever said he hopes that ouya fails: it can't fail per se, because it already successfully sold 63k units through the kickstarter campaign, which made it even possible to begin with. also, they just raised 15M in funding from new investors.

about the evolution of jrpgs: I remember an interview with some japanese developers mentioning exactly that point. they complaint that most studios rather repeat the same concept from their glory 90's era than trying something new. thus western-rpgs like skyrim (interview was around release) get a constantly growing fanbase in japan, which was unheard of in the past.

[Lucavi]

www.ouya.tvabout the evolution of jrpgs: I remember an interview with some japanese developers mentioning exactly that point. they complaint that most studios rather repeat the same concept from their glory 90's era than trying something new. thus western-rpgs like skyrim (interview was around release) get a constantly growing fanbase in japan, which was unheard of in the past.

They regurgitate this statement every time there's an interview with a media group who cares enough to lend them an ear, and yet nothing changes. The same "little boy saves the world" and "spunky loli-girl poses around" JRPGs get churned out of the factory, year by year, with developers choosing to pander to the guaranteed fans of their respective franchises for guaranteed money.

Meanwhile, for as much as the genre has annoyed me in modern days, the shooter genre, no matter how stale the content released, continues to grow in terms of its player-base. Just looking at the jumps between the N64 console era, with Perfect Dark and Golden Eye, in contrast to the PC era for that time, with Quake and such, then flash forwarding to the Xbox/PS2 era, with Halo and Call of Duty, and again to the 360/PS3 era with Gears of War and Modern Warfare... the difference in growth is staggering.

You can't argue with results. Japan can't argue with results, but yes, do go and develop for the phone market, Japan. I wish you all the luck in the world.

[Enkidu]

No, console games—as we know them—aren't the future. They're not going away today, tomorrow, or even in a year from now, but smart devices are where the market is at, and with the ballooning costs of AAA PC and console development, it's where the profits are. It isn't a fad, either.

If Square Enix has learned from their mistakes, they'll cut out costly console development and will continue focusing on the mobile sector. It's obvious that FFXI will continue running, as that's a huge profit machine for them. (Again, despite the fact that their MMO incomes stayed at a constant level while console sales looked huge, keep in mind whether the latter was actually profitable or not, as that's what's important.) They're hoping FFXIV will be the same. It's a stupid hope, and hilariously, FFXIV always has been and always will be what threatens to destroy FFXI more than anything else, not to mention the entire company. It was meant to pick up where its predecessor left off, and ironically, it became the very thing that could destroy them both instead.

Even if you hate the smart device platform, that's where SE needs to concentrate their efforts (in addition to FFXI and possibly FFXIV) if they want to survive. Anything else is suicide.

This may be true for SE, but I don't think it's true overall. The phone market is saturated with games because literally anyone can make a game for these devices. It's a necessary move because they've made such a mess of things. They're going from a high-risk market with a handful of competitors to a low-risk market with literally thousands of competitors. They're the "big fish in a little pond" so yeah they'll sell better then most groups, but it's just a sad event. It's like Ferrari axing their automobile sector to focus on designing bicycles...

There are plenty of companies thriving in the AAA market and this will continue for the foreseeable future. Especially when the PC market shifts and PC's become more like consoles... The biggest issue I have with AAA games is the focus on sequels and rehashing already-proven IP's. It gets boring after awhile, but it's all about risk/reward.

[Correction]

There are plenty of companies thriving in the AAA market and this will continue for the foreseeable future.

There are really not that many third party publishers in the AAA space and whether or not they're 'thriving' depends on how long of a historical view you take. Are Ubisoft, Take Two, EA and Activision going away anytime soon? Probably not. Did all of these companies come out of this gen of hardware as strong as they were at the end of the last gen of hardware? No, not at all. Especially EA, and as shown here, definitely not Square Enix. And this is just looking at the publishers, not the wasteland of the AAA development scene. The number of development studios that entered the market and dropped dead is staggering.

p.s. AAA publishers ignore the mobile market at their peril. Saturated or not there is real money still to be had there and real growth. There are already signs of this between EA (their strategy is shit but their head is in the right place) and Activision (Hearthstone represents their most polished effort yet).

[Lonely]

Ok so smartphone gaming is fucking terrible for some of you and you will never submit but what about the tablets?

[Dmitry]

Tablets are even worse. Same control problems in a bigger device that isn't as comfortable to hold.

[Corrderio]

So when SE says they're going to focus more on mobile and regional, I guess it's safe to see we won't see anything coming to the US for a long assed time?

[Kaisha]

Indie scene is just so good nowadays when anyone can make a visually pleasing game with solid gameplay relatively cheaply.

I'd take it any day over developing for the mobile platform (excluding Vita/3DS).

The question I have is if these smaller cheap-to-produce games can even sustain a company with a large overhead of higher-ups like SquareEnix or EA. It's different when you're just a bedroom coder and all your expenses are just living costs, and whatever job you may have in addition to keep things afloat.

[GoggleHead]

So when SE says they're going to focus more on mobile and regional, I guess it's safe to see we won't see anything coming to the US for a long assed time?

Given what they've been releasing for the past several years I don't think that would be much of a loss.

[Correction]

So when SE says they're going to focus more on mobile and regional, I guess it's safe to see we won't see anything coming to the US for a long assed time?

You will still see every Eidos title currently announced and in development. Murdered: Soul Suspect has already been announced as a multiplatform title, so you can rest assured that will still make it here. SE might cut off access to other titles based on a strict localization/market potential basis. It's an incredibly stupid strategy long term but honestly their goals are to cut costs rather than grow market share in the console space because XIV and Versus are going to bleed them fucking dry for years to come. Hence the move to mobile/social games.

[Lucavi]

Ok so smartphone gaming is fucking terrible for some of you and you will never submit but what about the tablets?

What's the point of a tablet? My handheld does it better and more comfortable, my laptop is also portable and does it better through better graphics, and if I want the real experience, I can play it on PC. There's no room for a tablet in my life because a tablet does nothing I want better than anything else that I have.

I don't buy shit just to say I have it. There has to be a use. There's no use for a tablet for me.

[Mugmug]

I can't wait for this smartphone/tablet trend to die already.