Square to squeeze FFXIII onto 360 with little compromise

by Randy Nelson on Jul 17th 2008 5:00PM

When it comes to porting Final Fantasy XIII to Xbox 360, Square's of the opinion that it's not the size of the disc that matters; it's how you use it. FFXIII producer Yoshinori Kitase says that his team will "work on trying to find ways to compress the pre-rendered movies and voice that take up a lot of data in ways that don't affect the final product."

Kitase is also looking to the arcane arts of graphics programming "to ensure that the quality [of in-game visuals] remains the same between the two versions," as well. We suggest he trademark the name "Squeaze" for whatever method the team eventually settles on for cramming a Blu-ray based game onto (a number of) DVDs. Such a catchy name will certainly make the tech more marketable to other developers bringing their PS3 exclusives to 360.

[Via X3F]

Source

Tags: E3, e3-2008, final-fantasy-xiii, square-enix, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (139)

This still stings. A lot.

Why? PS3 isn't losing it.

I'll admit that it's just my inner PS3 fanboy pride. It's like if Gears of War II went multi-platform. FF has been a Sony brand since FFVII.

Because they lost a flagship RPG exclusive. Them losing it is not necessary for it to burn people.

Now Sony fans know how betrayed Nintendo fans felt.

I agree with Jonah. Now everybody gets to play it. The only people I can see being upset with reason are the people who bought a PS3 soley to play FFXIII. But I can't imagine too many people legitamately did that, especially since the game isn't out yet. It seems like it would be a waste to pay over $400 just to play one game.

To feel that you have been betrayed is a little bit silly as is all brand loyalty. I think Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony proved at their press conferences this year that being loyal to any brand is never a safe bet. You're better off just going with the flow and seeing which company's games you prefer at a given time.

4MyFriends, you say that like it isn't coming to the PS3 anymore.

WE haven't been betrayed - we're still getting the game. Sony has been 'bertrayed', yes, but not the PS3 owners. We're not losing out on anything.

it's cool i'm sure they'll pass the betrayal on to the end user just like they did with the rootkit

Will this sting?

http://www.gamestooge.com/2008/07/17/e3-metal-gear-solid-4-on-360-inevitable/

I think FFXII went Multi-platform was because MGS4 wasn't a big hit as was predicted and with millions spent to develop it, Square didn't see the worth on releasing it on one platform. go multi-plat like Capcom did with DMC4 and make googobs of money.

my 2 cents, I could be wrong though.

Golden, some games are worth $400. Knowing how much fun I've gotten out of a game like Gears I would gladly pay $400 for it if I were forced to (the disc itself, not even the whole console that comes with it) and it would still be a tremendous bargain.

For me, MGS4 and FF13 were worth $400. Now one is gone. InFamous and God of War 3 (on top of MGS4) still make it worth it though.

FireStiq: MGS4 has already sold between 2 and 3 million copies (depending on who you ask). Sounds like it was indeed a big hit to me. =)

This should sting PS3 owners in the sense that Japanese companies are realizing they'll make more money if they dual-release, and thus they are mostly abandoning Sony, especially since Sony so stubbornly refuses to give money hats in exchange for exclusivity (a thing that Microsoft has no problems doing).

In other words, except for niche anime games, train simulators, and what have you, there won't be very many PS3 exclusives in the future besides first party games. Money hats kinda have that effect on developers.... makes them want to dual release. (Or in the case of things like GTA downloadable content, exclusively release)

Great more 99.9999% pre-rendered cutscene CGI crap... oh lets not forget the antiquated RPG gameplay too... the PS3 can keep it... bordom!

If this game fits one one DVD then I'm most definitely NOT buying it.

I agree completely and whole-heartedly with GoldenS1104. I love my PS3 buy I'm definitely buying an 360 for Fable 2 and a bunch of other games that seem cool on the xbox. I for one am happy for xbox owners who get to play this game. I don't know what the big deal is...

That's nice. As long as it isn't over 4 discs I won't mind, it didn't harm my enjoyment of Lost Odyssey one bit.

As long as they don't have to lower the PS3 versions quality in order to maintain a more equal format for the two versions, I don't mind at all.

No I'm sorry. You just cannot talk about the 360 and not compromising in the same sentence.

You compromise WHENEVER the 360 is involved. Let's run down the list.

You compromise:
-social life
-integrity
-sanity
-all around joyfulness
-the chance to enjoy any other soda other than Mountain Dew
-variety
-GETTING LAID

hahahahaahahahah!!!

as long as they don't lower the quality on the 360 version to match the ps3 version.

Funnily enough Co, I'm a 360 owner and seem to have greater "all round joyfulness" than you do.

Someone who has so much time to bitch and whine about a bunch of plastic and solder surely can't be content.

squeezing sharp squares is seriously sore

I don't think anyone will really care if it's on 2 dvds.

I don't think anyone will really care if it's on 2 dvds

mother trucker

Well...it just might be more than 2. Who knows at this point.

I found humor in your comment duplication.

Ha, your comment is like the storage capabilities of the 360's DVD... get it, two comments... two DVD's...nevemind.

Two isn't bad, nor is three or four. Anything over that is probably pushing things a bit.

I'd rather use 2 dvds then waste space and time by installing something on the hdd. Although I won't be buying the game so it doesn't affect me.

Two isn't bad, nor is three or four. Anything over that and people will likely start falling out of bed.

Wait, wrong thread, sorry people.

Pssst. Fall update. Installation of games onto hard drive. Problem solved.

There goes all of your hard drive space. You know, the one you spent a gajillion dollars on? Yeah...THAT one.

Cramming 25 to 50 gigabites onto your hard drive doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Especially if you only have a 20 gigabite hard drive, like most 360 owners.

But seriously, how many hours would it take to install?

NOTE:

360 dash update is for OPTIONAL GAME INSTALLS in order to reduce wear on the discs, not to institute mandatory installs

No one is claiming otherwise, dude. =)

The fact that it's optional doesn't change the fact that that's a hell of a lot of data to dump onto your hard drive.

If it's more than one disc, I'm gonna install all of them except disc one. I wonder if we're still gonna have to switch discs if we do that...

YES YOU WILL seeing as you need the disc to be in the drive to play an 'installed' game.

So how many discs do you think this one will have? My guess?

13! ROFL

Ruh-roh! Judging by your two insightful posts in this thread, I'd say we've got a member of the SDF on hand here.

- Scott

It depends on how much useless crap they put into it. If they shove the game full of 'extra' crap just to help Sony justify the Bluray player, then that is nonsense.
I am all for a format with more space. But, there is no reason games today need to take up more than a 3 DVDs max. Nearly all games will fit on 1. It's the FF type games that are filled with so many damn CGI clips and what not that would take up a lot a lot of space.

ChuckJ says:

"But, there is no reason games today need to take up more than a 3 DVDs max. Nearly all games will fit on 1. It's the FF type games that are filled with so many damn CGI clips and what not that would take up a lot a lot of space."

But, there is no reason games today need to take up more than one cartridge. Nearly all games will fit on 1. FF type games that are filled with so many damn CGI clips and what not that would take up a lot a lot of space.

That Playstation and it's fancy schmancy CD-ROMs. Doesn't Sony understand that cartridges are enough!!!

@ChuckJ Ya thats exactly why I bought a PS3 with bluray so when games are multiplatform they remove all the extra CGI content and all the extras just so they can fit it on your format (DVD).

Wow. Light-hearted joke. Not an attack to 360. Sheesh, no wonder people put "/sarcasm" tags on their comments. People on Joystiq take everything seriously.

@ Scotto:

I only attack things that the Big 3 do stupidly. For example, the launch and first year of PS3 were disastrous, I lashed out at them for removing BC, and I hate them for not doing anything interesting with Home.

Nintendo...well that press conference was punishment enough.

Microsoft does some things stupid also. Take for example Avatars, new Dashboard, RRoD handling, paying for Games for Windows Live when it should be free, etc.

While I do prefer Sony, I don't own a PS3 and I don't own any other next-gen systems. I have my PC, PSP, PS2, and I'm happy. I'm also give credit where credits due. Microsoft's idea with Achievements was absolutely brilliant and Sony basically ripped them off. So there.

Yup everyone steals everything from each other. The greatest compliment than can be given.

Sony, Steam and Blizzard stole achievements from MS
Sony stole PSN idea from MS' XBL
Sony stole Micro-transactions from MS
Sony stole themes from MS
Sony stole sixaxis from Nintendo - wiimote
MS stole "Vision cam" from Sony
MS stole microphone singing game from Sony
MS stole avatars from Nintendo
MS stole HDD install from Sony (not the best thing)
MS stole dashboard update from PSN (keep it fresh)!
MS stole controller from Sony who stole it from Nintendo

Geez I hope I got that all right or I'm going to be flamed - the point is that all the companies have copied from each other. If they can tweak and improve on something - then that's good. Face it, no company is a supreme innovator anymore (well aside from Google ;)

Accept the fact that the company that you root for and makes you feel safe and secure in your purchase has, at some point, stole and implemented an idea and may have even tried to pass it off as it's own invention.

I don't mind how much discs this game will be, I just want to see battle footage. That is always my deciding factor for any RPG. I hate slow menu-based stuff, but not all turn-based game are like that.

Lost Odyssey was on 4 DVD's with pseudo-mediocre graphics, few CGI videos, and less voice acting that I'd have liked (less than FFX, about the same ammount as FFXII).

Here's hoping Square Enix manage to squeeze Final Fantasy into 4 or 5 DVD's without any loss in quality.

I imagine the Lost Odyssey devs weren't too thorough with their compression though. The cost of putting the game onto 4 discs is probably little compared to the cost of the effort needed to squeeze it onto 2.

Square probably knows that any more than 4 discs is going to put people off, so will most likely work to make it fit that. Hell, if Microsoft fund it, they might even try to get it onto 3 discs, or even 2.

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Square to squeeze FFXIII onto 360 with little compromise

Reader Comments (139)

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