Square Enix focusing on 'shorter turnaround' for Final Fantasy series
Square Enix's Yoshinori Kitase thinks there isn't enough Final Fantasy in the world. Kitase says that the company is trying to adopt the quicker development cycle of its western peers, aiming to release games as quickly as a Call of Duty or Assassin's Cre
In spite of the franchise having reached the Roman numeral XIV, Square Enix's Yoshinori Kitase thinks there isn't enough Final Fantasy in the world. Kitase says that the company is trying to adopt the quicker development cycle of its western peers, aiming to release games as quickly as a Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed game.
"The current generation console, Final Fantasy XIII, was obviously the first game, and personally I think we took a little too long getting it out," Kitase said. "When you think of Western triple A titles like Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Assassin's Creed, they seem to work with a lot shorter turnaround--they make a new game in 1-2 years."
Final Fantasy XIII released in 2010, four years after Final Fantasy XII on PS2. The long delay between the two iterations, Kitase believes, has hurt the franchise. "That is something we need to follow up, because that seems to be the best way to keep our fans interested and attracted to the franchise," he told Gamereactor UK (via VG247).
Saying that the company learned a lesson with FFXIII, he said the team behind Final Fantasy XIII-2 was determined to produce the sequel in a short time. According to Kitase, "actual development took about 1.5 years," which explains the game's quick turnaround.
While Square Enix may be working on making Final Fantasy games at a quicker pace, there are a few games currently unaccounted for. For example, Final Fantasy Versus XIII was announced shortly after Final Fantasy XIII, and has only received vague updates since. "I think it's going to be a great game," Kitase said. "But we haven't got updated information to release at this point."
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replyAndrew Yoon posted a new article, Square Enix focusing on 'shorter turnaround' for Final Fantasy series.
Square Enix's Yoshinori Kitase thinks there isn't enough Final Fantasy in the world. Kitase says that the company is trying to adopt the quicker development cycle of its western peers, aiming to release games as quickly as a Call of Duty or Assassin's Cre-
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They probably see how Activision churns out a yearly CoD game and idiots keep paying $60 every year not to mention that they now have some kind of CoD subscription service that people are actually paying for ON TOP of that $60.
Why not churn out an FF game every year and see if they can ride the same wave. Final Fantasy games seemed kinda nice when they weren't so abundant; they're going to water it down.-
You can't compare a franchise whose draw is primarily multiplayer to a single player experience. As someone else commented, I bet that a significant portion of consumers don't even finish the games. Which is ok when there are multi-year delays between games, but probably not if they release every year.
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Who cares what its called? Almost all of them don't carry on in any way, as you said. So literaly the only reason you have to say this is the name. Unless you mean they should just stop making games of the same type, which just seems stupid. Oblivion was a huge time investment, and I'm sure tons of people didn't 'finish' that. I'm sure as hell happy they added to it with Skyrim.
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I love the entire third paragraph. It read out as 'we believe Final Fantasy XIII was perfect, and if we put it out closer to XII - people would have eaten that shit up.'
My co-worker, who used to be an ardent Final Fantasy fan (until XII and his experiences beta-testing XIV) is going to suffer from a laugh-attack this morning.-
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A counterpoint is all the 2 year games that have been coming out lately that feel unfinished - that could use an extra 6 months or a year of development. Sony seems to have limited game development to 2 years and the quality of their recent games have suffered because of it.
They should be aiming for quality in a reasonable amount of time not some arbitrary 2 year mark. There are many games with a wider scope that wouldn't work at all in 2 years. Final Fantasy may need 3 years. It seems to me that they are lacking talent and processes in some areas outside of the art department - that's the problem they need to solve more than reigning in the people they already have there. The combat in FF XIII is an embarrassment for that many years in development. Bad people, bad management. -
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Well they are well ahead on the incomprehensible stories part at least.
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Square need to stop comparing it self to other companies. This idea that they need to be more like the west will be the death of them.
They need to step back look at why FFXIII failed. The development took 4 years because 2 years were devoted to developing the game for the Playstation 2, then they decided that it would be better to switch to the next Playstation. So, the following year Square spent rebuilding and salvaging what they could from the PS2 version to a new game engine and environment instead of working on the game itself. Then to make things more complicated in the last year with a hefty payout from Mircosoft Square made the move to put it on the Xbox.
In total Final Fantasy XIII spent more time converting and changing formats then working on making the game.
People will pay for quality games the take 4 years to create, but not game that takes 4 years to make because of second guessing and that are incomplete when done. -
Western triple A titles = they suck
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shorter time = great game
mission impossible
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While I can understand the concern over talk about shortening development time if I was Square's CEO I would have to wonder why it takes so long to produce a game in your biggest franchise. Once game a year maybe much, but I would have to wonder why I can't a two year turnaround. There are a lot of western games that are working under that model successfully critically/commercially.
It is not like Square does not have Western studios under their stable to draw experience from.-
I've heard from many sources over the years that Square's development process is incredibly messy, with different departments not talking well to each other, story and gameplay and whatnot getting changed constantly and no one clear vision of what's getting done. As much as I actually did enjoy XIII (and all previous titles), they really need to get a few people at the top who have a clear idea of what the game is going to be, and make sure everyone else working on it knows that.
And they need to stop letting the suits fuck with things, as apparently that's largely what lead to Matsuno leaving and he was (IMO) their best guy.
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He should compare FF with Elder Scroll, not with totally different kinds of game. And both MW and AC is becoming worse and worse year after year because of short developing time. Look at Dragon Age, good franchise nearly became trash because of the company want to milk it asap. FF series have lost many devoted fans outside of Japan already. Time to redeem, not to create so many more pieces of shit.
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they already did one, like ~10 years ago..called Chrono Cross.
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How were sales for FFXIII? I was turned off by the main protagonist (presumably) fucking what appeared to be a 12 y/o girl. Also it was a JRPG, with all the banal dialogue and nonsense story that goes with it.
I think they're going to oversaturate the market with JRPGs.
I actually liked Final Fantasy XII, oddly enough. The combat especially. I could play another XII, but not if it has story and characters like XIII did. Strange how some FF games are just bizarrely out in la-la land, and others are just...kind of typical hero stories.-
It sold like six or seven million. I don't think there are really any concerns with sales of individual games. The problem is mainline games are the only new games coming out of the Japanese development arm. You can't run a company on that kind of development cycle with income only coming in every few years.
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Don't forget they've been running an MMO with hundreds of thousands of subscribers for like 8 years now. And it's not like they put a lot of effort into adding content there. Or when they finally do step up production, they charge you for every update (Abyssea).
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