Square Enix and Microsoft have a rather strange relationship quite akin to that of a roller coaster. Early on in the current generation's life, Square Enix was happy to offer their games on Microsoft's system, distributing exclusive titles like The Last Remnant, Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean: The Last Hope - now also on the PlayStation 3 - and just recently Final Fantasy XIII was released on both major consoles. Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada explained it as a way of expanding their audience. So then why isn't Final Fantasy XIV heading down the same route as well?
Originally codenamed Rapture, it was a brand new MMO being developed by Hiromichi Tanaka and the team behind FFXI. It was announced way back in August 2005. Since then, statements about what platform it would be on went back and forth with Tanaka first stating it was being made for the PlayStation 3 and PC in 2006. However, it was later said that Rapture was being made for the Xbox 360 and PC, with the possibility of a PS3 version being brought out at a later stage. Square Enix then reaffirmed that the game would be for all consoles at GDC 2008.
Fast forward to June of last year, E3 2009, Sony's Press Conference where Square Enix unveiled the debut trailer of Final Fantasy XIV - only for the PlayStation 3 and PC.
Today is a day of mixed emotions. Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy XIII would be seeing its Western release on the 9th of March, 2010 (good news), but they also announced that pop sensation Leona Lewis would be lending her song 'My Hands' to the Western version as its theme song (bad news).
Why is this bad news? Well, not only is Final Fantasy XIII the first game that Western gamers won't be able to hear any music composed by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu, but it's also the first time that Square Enix have featured licensed music from an artist in a main Final Fantasy game. Uematsu was originally hired to compose the theme tune for Final Fantasy XIII, but decided to hand off the responsibility to Masashi Hamauzu, who composed the rest of the soundtrack. The result was Kimi Ga Iru Kara, which is unlikely to be present in the Western version.
Towards the tail end of last week, Square Enix announced that Dissidia: Final Fantasy would be released in Europe on the 4th of September, 2009. While this doesn't sound overly significant in itself, the date is only a week after the North American release.
For those who have been following Final Fantasy for some time, especially those in Europe, delays between regions are usually quite substantial. It's not uncommon for there to be a 4-5 month delay between the North American and European versions, and it's something that's always been very disappointing to European gamers.
However, the announcement that Dissidia: Final Fantasy will be coming so soon after is huge. Square Enix have gone on record numerous times about how much more detailed Dissidia's dialogue is than Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII's and if they can get the localisation done so efficiently on a game like Dissidia, it definitely looks positive for Final Fantasy XIII. There is of course The Last Remnant too, which was released worldwide on the same day and while Square Enix have claimed it's something they're striving to do, up until now it hasn't been overly evident.
People probably expected a few surprises, but it'd be difficult to find anyone who accurately predicted what actually happened with regards to Square Enix at this year's E3.
There were rumblings about Codename Rapture being shown for the first time prior to the event, but nobody expected Square Enix (or Sony in this case) to officially unveil it as Final Fantasy XIV. Furthermore, it was even more surprising that it will be released as soon as next year, the first time in the franchise's history that two numerical Final Fantasy titles will be released in the same calendar year.
Final Fantasy XIV
Final Fantasy XIV, while not the direct sequel to Final Fantasy XI is effectively its spiritual successor. It will feature the same races (although Taru have not be confirmed yet), allowing players to feel relatively at home with their new surroundings. Square Enix have also stated that they will continue to support Final Fantasy XI with new content for at least another year, so this is definitely good news for those still playing the game.
E3 2008 was massive for Square Enix. They didn't announce any new games, or wow anyone with new trailers for their highly anticipated games. However, they did drop the bomb that Final Fantasy XIII would no longer be exclusive to the PlayStation 3, as it would also be appearing on the Xbox 360.
Since then, support for Square Enix has dropped considerably, and not just amongst loyal Sony supporters. Consistent rumours about Final Fantasy XIII delays and the game's production values, as well as other reports about the company have tarnished Square Enix's reputation in the West. What better place to try and rekindle the love affair than at the biggest trade shown in the world, E3.
On the eve of the Eidos takeover, Yoichi Wada, Square Enix's CEO, came out and fielded questions about how things will work moving forward. One of the questions pertained to how Square Enix will influence their qualities on Eidos and Wada proceeded to offer a response that was rather unexpected.
Instead of suggesting that Eidos games will be approached with the same diligence that Square Enix titles are, he suggested that Square Enix actually spend too long developing titles and that he'd like to see shortened development cycles with the same amount of quality. Now, it's unknown how long games are actually in development for, but it's assumed that Square Enix have two teams that work on Final Fantasy titles, and that work on the new title generally starts 1-2 years before the release of the previous title.
When looking at a graph of how many years there have been between the releases of main Final Fantasy games, it doesn't necessarily back Yoichi Wada up; unless he wants more than one main Final Fantasy game a year, a move which would obviously saturate the market.
When looking through a list of Square Enix games that have been released or are in development on their official Japanese website, it was actually quite surprising to see how things have changed so dramatically in one generation. Squaresoft, Enix and then Square Enix were all strong supporters of the Playstation 2 and other home consoles such as the NES and SNES. However, this generation has seen a stark change in Square Enix's process and they've gone completely against their strategy for the previous 20 years.
For the first time, Square Enix has chosen to support hand-held consoles over the home console and they have shown their support mainly by backing the Nintendo DS to extreme proportions. According to Square Enix's Japanese website, Square Enix are majorly involved with 95 titles on nine different platforms. It was actually quite amazing to see that 54 of these (56.8%) were for the Nintendo DS. A further 13.6% of titles were also concerning the Sony Playstation Portable, which brings their total involvement to just over 70% of all Square Enix's activity.
According to various news sources, the size of the Final Fantasy XIII demo stands at about 5.09GB, 256 MB of that being a firmware update for the PlayStation 3. This, of course, spread the idea that the Xbox 360 version will be downgraded from the PlayStation 3 version, or the PlayStation 3 version will be downgraded to run on the Xbox 360, due to the Xbox 360 using the DVD format (around 6.5GB due to copyright protecting), compared to the 50GB Blu-ray currently has.
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