Square Enix: exclusivity war is officially over; LA studio to go DLC |
So. Square Enix has finally set up shop in Los Angeles. I'm sure some of you are getting ideas now - wanna apply, eh? Well, whether you fancy having Square Enix US president John Yamamoto as your higher up or not, it pays to know what direction the company is charting for the future.
Going 1s and 0s. With the new LA studio in its infancy stage, the bosses want this new branch of theirs to start relatively small: downloadable titles. Speaking to an interview with GamesIndustry, John Yamamoto reveals that DLC games are the way to go (for now):
All formats - Xbox Live, WiiWare, PlayStation Network - are all viable formats for us. We started the in-house development team a couple of months ago and we're starting with downloadable content because the team is still small.
Gradually, I want to expand that team, and also evaluate lots of middleware, because western middleware is much more advanced compared to Japanese middleware. So we will study and feed back information to Square Enix in Japan.
(By the way, if you are interested in sending in your resume to the LA studio, apparently, they're currently working with a skeleton crew of three members - whoa! - and that they hope to expand to as much as thirty staffers within a year.)
Doing a MySpace, only with devs. LA studio besides, it looks like Square Enix is starting to broaden its horizons. After The Last Remnant's use of the Unreal Engine 3 (a first for SE!), the company is now looking at forging stronger alliances with other devs in the west. And just recently, they got rights from Gas Powered Games to pick up Supreme Commander 2.
I think itÂ’s always good to introduce new ideas, techniques, and processes into the company in order to stay on the cutting edge. The Last Remnant was the first time we had built a game using an outside development engine, and it taught our developers to find new and creative solutions in order to achieve their objectives.
We're not only working with Gas Powered Games, we're also contacting multiple studios in England, other European countries, and the US and Canada. We're talking with other studios right now.
We are interested in studios that have their own established IP and we're also interested in creating new IP as well.
Platform-exclusivity. A dead thing. They've started with FF13... Is the time for platform exclusive officially over? According to Yamamoto, platform-exclusivity is really a thing of the past now.
I really believe so. Not so long ago the PS2 dominated the market so if we developed an exclusive game for PS2 then we could enjoy a very good profit. But that time is already over. To maximise and spread our games to as many users as possible I think we have to go to multiformat - the Xbox 360, PS3 and also the PC as well.
The Japanese market is very strong and back when we could concentrate on developing games for just one console, business was very good. But the one-console market is over
Ooh, some pretty bold statements there. I'd be quite interesting to see how Square Enix will be keep to these plans.
Related articles:
- Now hiring: Xbox 360 and Wii dev teams for US Studio -Square Enix
- Square Enix to publish Supreme Commander 2
- Sony on Xbox 360 exclusive DLC: "nothing is ever exclusive"
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Comments [refresh]
Inevitable for this gen, I think.
Not only was it inevitable, I believe it was the most intelligent thing to do in terms of business sense.
Sony Fans - you may hate this because in your warped minds you somehow believe Square only belongs to you.
Ms Fans - You may be happy and think you have won but the truth is we all have won.
Nintendo Fans - You don't whine as much a the other two but it seems you will no longer be neglected by one of the best Game developers/publishers known to the gaming world.
exclusivity no longer makes business sense...
yet another reason for my arguments against exclusivity, and this time it's coming from square.
If they released good PC versions of all of their games, then I wouldn't care what consoles they're on since I wouldn't be playing any of them.
I hate it when developers create a game for one platform and then does a quick (and most often time bad) port to other platforms. If your going to consider yourself a multiplatform developer then you need to develop simultaneously so they are realease together and look/play as good on all platforms!
Either that means that FFvXIII and Star Ocean are the last few exclusives left, or they're not gonna be exclusive anymore.
Kind of a pity, I was thinking KH3 would be a ps3 exclusive, but doesn't look as such anymore. I like franchises that stick to their roots.
Well said, man. A fine toast to the general gaming market at large.
I don't think Nintendo's been neglected tho. After all, the DS received all three the 3D remakes of some previous FF games. I'm sure a lot of RPG fans also wished Square Enix brought the remakes to the PSP too, and maybe now, that's possible if they pull through with this new strategy of non-exclusivity.
Imagine. If they continue remaking the previous FF games, we could eventually see FF6 remade for the DS and PSP! How sweet is that?! ^_^
I also support this decision. And this'll lift whatever misconsceptions that gamers may have that Square Enix betrayed SONY. During that FFXIII big shocker at this year's E3 Press Conference
Yup, I'm currently playing a FF title on my Nintendo product.
However, I read some comments here that got this article all wrong. SQUARE is looking to kill exclusivity. Exclusivity IS NOT dead all around.
We will still see plenty of exclusive titles hit the shelves. First party anyone?
well SE havent really make anything really appealing for a long time tbh. so i can only say just see how well they going to do with FF13. if a really good title is being made. ppl will still go all way out just to get it even if its an exclusive to a particular platform. so they are pretty much talking ***** just to cover their ass.
in the past about their claim when ps2 dominate the market, if they have what they said in mind at that time all games made by them would have been multi platform. there's not only the first gen xbox but also gamecube. but they choose to go exclusive. to broaden audience they are saying, you dont choose to do it only now. it could have been done long ago. MegaDrive sells really well last time too, but they choose to only make games on Nintendo platform. so seriously all these are just PR craps. only idiots would believe these bullcrap nonsense from them.
Does this mean Kingdom Hearts 3 is coming to the 360?
i would continue to assume kh3 will b ps3 exclusive... until sumone more creditable comments on it(Tetsuya Nomura or Youchi Wada(hope i spelt the names right lol), theres no reason to assume otherwise, even thought if it was on 360, it wouldnt b a big deal...most that havent gotten into it, call it a rubbish game wit a key as a weapon, so i dont c it going anywhere on 360 :S
Agreed. What they're doing right now with The Last Remnant shouldn't be done at all. Releasing the 360 version before christmas, and the ps3 version "some time later" ...
Of course there will always be platform-exclusive titles from first parties. That's a given.
But in the context of Yamamoto's statement - and where he's coming from - it goes without saying that he's talking about the third party industry.
im sorry but whats the point of having 3 different systems if their is no games that are exclusive.
other than pricepoint for many parents, gamers who dont look at price look at games that are available to them by buying that cosole. Therefore ur comment is stupid, competition is good.
good thing is this should open sony's eyes on investing on more their own games
first of all 2 all deeze fools thinkin this is smart shut it cuz it doesnt make sense wat he's sayin because final fantasy 13 is goina sell less then iit origanally was cuz how much ppl said forget it theres no point the game will b cut down for it to match a 360 version yes they said it wont effect it but theres no way they'll get it on 360 if the dont cut down the game from the start and final fantasy v13 is wat ppl want to get now and agito13 but 13 seems a waste but im not goina lie i will get it cuz its final fantasy and right now my fav 1 is final fantasy 9 witch i play on my psp and they said sails rnt as gud n.e more wit exclusives look at Gearrs 2 and look at resistance 2 look at MGS4 and look how looked at gta4 was and how little it sold compared 2 how noticed it was y? cuz they put it multi platformed
Square has been making Dragon Quest on Wii for awhile....know to us as Dragon Warrior...
take comfort that the same thing will happen with the newest FF....they are finishing and releasing it on PS3 before starting on the 360 version...."but it will be comming"
I know multi-platform is smart buisness sence....but exclusive games always end up better. Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses and need to have games developed very differently from the ground up.....if they were to fully utilize both systems, games AND release the games at the same time, games would take almost twice as long to develop....and there would be differences between them.
But many people will probably get the console that's already capable of playing backup games and download off of the internet(360). PS3 is great but it hasn't been hacked or modded yet and probably won't be till next year. But with multiplatform MS, Sony and Nintendo can't afford to mess up because if the games go to all systems then whichever system is better gets picked by the masses. Of course Sony does publish really good games, MS has great publicity on game system, and Nintendo targeting the kids and the fat people(Wii fit)(including me but I didn't fall for it).
oh and, you are wrong, wrong and wrong.
sure its great if there making more money, but it sucks in certain areas, if you think about it the 360 already has a ton of exclusives, sony only has sony made first party ones. if all the other companies stop making exclusive games that means sony would automatically lose cause they have the most expensive system with the least amount of games im pretty sure sony needs to win some exclusive and now and square said final fantasy versus XIII is a ps3 exclusive hopfully for sonys sake they keep there word I am psfanboy and proud
Good now they can work on both FF13 and Versus for the PC and 360 since we PC gamers have more POWER than consoles no offence guys.
I second that! Console manufactures will always scramble for exclusive content. Even if it means funding the third party.
like hell i'll ever buy one....having to always super expensively upgrade my pc to keep up wid it.....I made the logical choice and got a PS3
Surely Ubisoft,