Square Enix pres Yoichi Wada preaches platform neutrality

by Christopher Grant on Jul 29th 2008 12:46PM

Really, anyone old enough to remember Square's 1997 PlayStation debut with Final Fantasy VII – a franchise that had only existed on Nintendo platforms – shouldn't have been that shocked to see Square president Yoichi Wada sneak back onto the stage during Microsoft's E3 press conference to announce "one more thing": Final Fantasy XIII would be multi-platform.

Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Wada said, "We always consider the territory and hardware for titles, and I just want to make sure that we're neutral about dealing with companies." Though he conceded that "in Japan ... the Xbox 360 isn't really that strong yet" he acknowledged that in "North America Microsoft is doing very well with its hardware." Sounds about right to us.

Throw in escalating development costs, and you've got a no-brainer. Wada sums it up: "We're now in the age of the multi-platform ... in order to offer our product to the vast majority of gamers we need to deal with multiple companies and platforms." Multiplatform third-party games are increasingly the norm; however, with certain "now-gen" Square Enix titles remaining selectively exclusive (think Infinite Undiscovery), we're not quite ready to call it for Final Fantasy Versus XIII.

Source

Tags: Final-Fantasy-XIII, PS3, Square, Square-Enix, Xbox-360, Yoichi-Wada

Reader Comments (68)

Well then give us some more Wii games, S-E!!!

Wii has more SE games than Xbox or PS3.

Chocobo Dungeon Go!

That's because they're taking their time making the 360 and ps3 ones good.

Wow an anit-wii comment coming from elitist tmac?

How surprising.

@ Vegeta:

tmac's got a point. The games that go to X360/PS3 are the huge games like FFXIII, Versus XIII, Infinite Undiscovery, etc that are made less often.

The Wii on the other hand gets the games that I guess appeal to a smaller audience and that I personally don't like (Roguelikes with chocobos? not thanks)

"tmac's got a point. "

No he doesn't, he made yet another blatant anti-Nintendo blanket statement, and he gets rated up for it because Joystiq did a 180 degree turn At E3 2008 in regards to liking Nintendo.

I got voted up for it way before this E3. So what's your cover up excuse for that?

How about some Wii love?

Everyone (hardcore devs) hate the Wii.

I'm a large Final Fantasy fan who welcomes the news for Final Fantasy 13 (a game I've admittedly not seen a great deal of detail for yet), but I have to ask what the tie is between Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII? It's something which is so rarely stated bluntly that I'm begginning to wonder if it's a very well known piece of information at all; somebody spell out the primary differences, please. Details of different platform releases, and general release date expectations seem to be far more common-place for these games than details of the actual substance in them. I hope this changes soon.

IIRC, Versus and XIII are the guaranteed PS3-bound games from the series Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII, which includes FFXIII, Versus XIII, and Agito XIII. According to Wikipedia, Agito XIII is going to mobile phones.

Versus will be real-time from the same universe as FF13. I believe it's going to be like Kingdom Hearts (PS2) as far as gameplay goes. Regarding release dates, I guess Versus is secondary to FFXIII. However they're all in development so it's hard to say what the priorities are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabula_Nova_Crystallis_Final_Fantasy_XIII

Nice edge up Yoichi, lookin clean playa.

:P

now where its FF XIII for Wii

Why would you want something like that on the wii? It would be so gimped it'd make Dead Rising look like the 360 version. Why do wii owners want gimped games all the time? Just buy a 360 it's not much more expensive than a wii.

xbox360 cost a LOT here in latin america (like 100 dollars or more), and the tendency to fail with RROD plus the warranty policy here dont make it better.

Wow I had no idea it was so much more expensive over there. Guess I should have known because our economy is pretty shitty right now.

Your last statement is kinda ironic, especially coming from someone who has a logo of a browser that went extinct and is no longer supported.

You would think that a machine that RROD's would be right up your alley.

Wow, you guys are enormous jerks.

uh, eilegz, the latin american market tends to be the last one when it comes to electronics, so yes, I actually find it surprising that the gap between the 2 of them isn't higher

btw, how much is the Wii selling for? and also, what country are you from?

the wii its 300 dollars 50 more than the US, and a lot of US tourist come here to get the Wii.

I am from latin America, Dominican Republic, and the Wii sells for US$330.00 now. The Xbox 360 20 premium dropped to US$464.00. Arcade US$405.00, and the elite for US$588.00. The 40GB PS3 sells for $600.00 for some stupid reason.

Nobody dares to buy a used Xbox 360 unless its an elite for fear of RROD. and The PS3 is not very appealing because they dont even rent Blu-ray movies down here yet and HD LCD displays are just beginning to sell. And as you might image, quite expensive. Its a luxury really.

PS: Every freaking body knows what halo is. Its actually funny. The Wii is selling like hot cakes also. Dont know why. But no shortages though.

If FF XIII sells like gangbusters on the 360, and it should, you can bet every major S/E title will be brought over. 360 owners just buy up anything good like crazy, everyone knows this. The tie ratio is astronomical.

"we're not quite ready to call it for Final Fantasy Versus XIII."

Would be the silliest comment available. Right now the 360 is the lead JRPG platform by quite a large margin. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who thinks the PS3 might have some sort of 'gotcha' to this whole thing, is out of their minds.

Welcome to multiplatform releases, Square.

Not exactly the easiest call to make right now, I should think. The PS3 has ONE jrpg as it stands, which was a miserable port to begin with.

I'm also not finding the evidence of the 360 being a JRPG haven all that convincing either. Yes, it has more. No, they aren't selling as they should be. LO and BD both flew off the line on their opening weeks, but then fizzled almost immediately after.

Lets wait for something like FF13 or even Eternal Sonata to be released before we make a comparison.

Even though I'm happy that trese is coming to the 360, I might still purchase a PS3. The one thing that turned me off on the trailer is that they were using guns instead of magic and swords. Hopefully that is just a class or something and the mages are still in this one.

In before the "They put guns in it to appeal to the 360 crowd" comments.

Ok so that's a bit of a stretch I guess :P

Whats a Wii? And does it play REAL games?

:-p

well if third parties can make "real" games and not shovelware....

I agree, Wii owners might actually purchase and play "hardcore" titles when devs start making decent ones and not last gen PS2 ports that looks worse than 1st gen PS2. Tell Ubisoft to stop releasing 2-3 casual shits a month and give the system true support (I'm giving Red Steel 2 a benefit of the doubt, it did decently when you consider it was a Wii launch title).

Without going into a long rant as to why, I'll just sum it up in one line of disgreement with Mr. Wada:

I fear the day of a unified game system simply because of the complacency it would bring.

A single platform wouldn't be complacent. There will always be companies willing to enter the market if they think they can make a better/cheaper product. Even a monopoly has to innovate to maintain high barriers to entry.

"We're now in the age of the multi-platform ... in order to offer our product to the vast majority of gamers we need to deal with multiple companies and platforms."

We weren't in the age of multi-platform before?

We were, it's just that we are in the age where you can't profit by just supporting one console like they had been doing in the past.

There is no similarity between the two. Entirely separate projects. Versus is a real-time action RPG built on the shoulders of the Kingdom Hearts series.

It remains tenuously PS3 exclusive with absolutely no expected date of release, even in Japan. It is on hold pending the release of FFXIII.

I bet it will go multiplatform, but it could star exclusive if FF13 sells alot on the ps3, but i highly doubt they would keep it exclusive anyway. If star ocean does not come to the ps3, then ff 13 will probably stay exclusive.

Weren't you the one who confessed to hating him because he snubbed your friend's toy factory or something like that? You're STILL sore about that?

Neutrality? They have clearly picked a side. If console sales numbers are the driving force behind their decisions then they should make an all out Final Fantasy for Wii. Right now, Wii has beaten PS3 and 360 in all areas.

It probably has more to do with attach rates than console numbers. The Wii may be selling more but the 360's attach rate is greater than ps3 and Wii combined.

While that may be true, the Wii's attach rate is slightly higher than the PS3's, yet the system gets nowhere near the support the PS3 has been getting(even excluding titles that were in production before the PS3 launched).

I guess this means Star Ocean: The Last Hope will go multi-platform too? I STILL haven't heard anything about it being exclusive.

Yes it was me, the reason I want to see MSG4 go multiplatform is because MSG4 fanboys are the most melodramatic fatalistic bunch since the Jim Jones revival. So seeing this game go multiplatform would be an internet event of epic proportions. Who wouldn't want to see this event transpire?

why doesn't someone tell that to Gabe

Leobebes

"Who wouldn't want to see this event transpire?"

To quote Chris Grant from yesterday, "Yes. Oh, very yes."

Is Versus CONFIRMED to be multiplat then...lol.

So everyone will skirt my question? Does anyone here think Kojima comes off as ultra nationalistic?

If the consensus is that he is, then isn't it kinda odd behavior to be displayed from a business man and a game designer?

just because he doesnt want to downgrade his mgs4 so it can fix and run on the 360 doesnt make him dumb.s-e already stated that they would be downgrading parts of ff13 so it can fix on the 360.i find this to be the worst part of ff13 going muil platform.it would had been ok if they didnt have to make changes to the game but since they will i going to dislike s-e.also this statement of the age of muilt platform is a lie why is he making game only on the 360.

If SE is truly to be a multiplatform publisher, they should stop making exclusive games for the Xbox 360. Release everything for BOTH the 360 and the PS3.

dude, this is a home for 360 fanboys. you can't go asking logical questions like that around here.

Actually it's ok if SE doesn't port that airplane game to the PS3, it's pure rubbish. Do release Infinite Undiscovery and Star Ocean 4 on all platforms though. If multiplatform is what you preach, then practice what you...

AND the Wii...

sigh

Never heard of MGS2: Substance for the original Xbox huh?

In all fairness that was a like throwing table scraps to a dog. No marketing, no passionate plea to get the word out there that Metal Gear was on the Xbox. It was set up to fail. Plus I think that decision was more Konami that Kojima.

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Square Enix pres Yoichi Wada preaches platform neutrality

Reader Comments (68)

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