2010?
Honestly, why do they have to delay the PS3 version for such a long time because of the Xbox port? It will still get the same amount of sales either way. The only thing this delay does is prevent PS3 from getting a larger portion of the sales. That shouldn't matter at all to Square. So this reeks of Microsoft payoff.

yea this is lame.. when the ps3 version is done in japan, they should localize and release it on the PS3 in US and Europe and then when they are done doing the 360 version they can release it on 360.. this is very lame indeed.. Wonder when Versus will release as that is the one i am more looking forward to.

So.... what is the exact reason that Final Fantasy XIII isn't going to be released in 2009?
Does the X360 really need to be released at the same time the PS3 version gets it in Western countries?

If I recall correct, ports from the X360 to the PS3 were always later, so why, when it is the other way around, does the PS3 need to wait all of a sudden?
I agree with Hiku, I smell dirty money with Bill's name on it.

Oh well, this decided for me that I'm going to get the Japanese version then. xD

Somehow I'm not as affected by the delay. I guess it comes from the fact that I'm not exceptionally crazy-in-lust for FFXIII right now, and the fact that it's already been a long time for it to release. So another year or so for me wouldn't be too bad, but I can see how this would suck for everyone else. :\

That's pretty retarded. I know Sony has eaten huge losses lately but PS3 users can't get it a BIT earlier?

Just more and more reasons for me to hate Square and Microsoft >.>

Every Final Fantasy has always taken like 8-9 months before they were released in the Western market so I don't see why this would be such a big issue. Besides nobody complained when GTA4 was delayed due to the PS3 version having issues. Besides there are a ton of RPG's coming in 09 so I don't see an issue with the delay.

"At the time of the delay, Rockstar attributed the action to technical issues with both systems."

The PS3 is in the headlights because prior to the announcement, all speculation was only aimed towards the PS3.
And GTA4 was developed with both versions side by side, unlike FF13. So in other words, while developing GTA4 they constantly had to make sure that what they do works for both versions. FF13 doesn't have that issue though, because no matter how the Xbox port turns out, the PS3 version won't change, as it will have already been released in Japan.

And Square pointed out that it's because of the porting that we'll have to wait till 2010, so it's the porting on top of the localization. There's really no excuse not to release the PS3 version when it's already finished.

Seriously, this is a pretty stupid decision on Square's part, but there ain't much we can do. Unless hundreds, possibly thousands of people send messages to Square DEMANDING the release (and pffft, who knows if that would even work), I doubt anythings gonna change anytime soon.

I think it's pretty stupid to move it to the 360 at this late a stage of development, actually. If they had planned this near the early stages, I could care less (I'm a PS3 owner, not a PS3 fanboy. Don't confuse the two.). From a business standpoint, I can see why they chose this controversial path, so I just say more power to em. They're in this for profit, not the cries of console fans. I'm guessing when this game first came into being, they figured the PS3 would have done much better than it is currently doing, though I guess with some pretty original titles coming only to the PS3 in the next several months (LittleBig Planet, to name one), sales could pick up.

Anyways, I just hope they come to their senses and RELEASE the NORTH AMERICAN VERSION around the time of the Japanese date, because it's rather odd to hold it back because of another freakin' system. If they're doing this of their own accord, it's not SUCH a big deal, but I swear if Microsoft is playing some cards under the table, I am going to be so pissed.

As far as I know, it was issues on both consoles. Anyway, even if it weren't. GT IV would've been delayed on the PS3, thanks to the PS3. Now Final Fantasy XIII gets delayed for the PS3, thanks to the X360. How does that work? Why should we be happy?
X360 gets the main FF series for the first time and already are the screwing things up. What a bunch of idiots.
Dissidia was bringing back some respect I used to have for Square, but that is gone again.

Square should be only one held responsible. The game was first shown on E3 2006 as an exclusive for PS3. It's been some time now, and the other day, in one of their interviews, it was said that the game is still in it's early stages. What the hell were they doing all this time on PS3? Buying time for it to come on 360 too sounds more like their incompetence to hurry up and finish on the Sony's console.

I think Square would love to do this and release the PS3 version in the states when it is ready and then release the 360 version when it is ready, but I am sure when Microsoft paid big bucks to get this on their system, their was an agreement made that square would hold off on the PS3 version of the game in the states until the 360 version was completed. I just dont get square these days, they say they dont favor a certain console yet look at all the 360 exclusive or timed RPG's that have come out, and then when the PS3 finally gets one, we have to wait for the 360 version to be done? I don't see 360 owners having to wait to play Last Remnant until the PS3 version is complete and ready.

Oh well, we cant do anything about this, Square now seems to be buddy buddy with Bill's back pocket and thats fine, atleast we still have Atlus and NIS giving us Playstation owners some RPG love.

@ Athrun
It is true that there was a delay due to both having some issues, but there was an even greater delay due to the PS3 version:



Kotaku Article


It's probably been held off this long since they haven't wanted to release it until there was enough PS3 owners available.


I know that Microsoft is directly funding Infinite Undiscovery so they own that IP. My best guess about the Last Remnant is that they are having issues with Unreal 3 engine on PS3 or it's a timed exclusive. Really sucks for PS3 only owners who were looking forward to the game coming out this year.

Yeah, but who's to say the Xbox360 technical difficulties didn't delayed it until both versions were neck and neck anyway. Which was stated a few months before the game finished anyway. We can only speculate.
But like I said, FF XIII is a different situation. They're not developed side by side, and compatibility issues isn't holding the release back.

x bx 360 r teh bad cuz we noe get finel fatasee wen we sposed 2 on r ps3.

...

It's Final Fantasy. There were going to be delays no matter what their excuse is, as has been the case with the majority of the latest titles. There's plenty of games coming out from now until then so I honestly don't care when it's released, be it 2009 or 2025, nor do I care what they blame their tardiness on.

wow, that's not a good enough reason to delay the launch for the PS3, I mean I have a 360, but still, even I would rather want it to come out for the PS3 on the original date, and then just release it when their done porting it for the 360 the later date.

I still don't even see what the 360 has to do with the fact that Sony should have still tried to push Squeenix to get this out earlier for PS3 owners.

That was a pretty lame joke and an answer.

I could have said that money rules the world, and Bill Gates rules the money, if you would have preferred that.

There is nothing wrong with your statement about Microsoft Athrun, a bit funny, but I was thinking in a way that had something to do with TED's sentence, but whatever.

Well, now that you mention it...

I knew this was going to happen!!!

When i heard about that simultaneous release, i knew it could only mean this, since they're porting rather than making 2 versions!


There's no doubt Microsoft is paying HUGE bucks for SquarEnix to SCREW PS3 sales. Not wanting to sound like a fanboy (nor a conspirancy fan), but that's the only thing that seem to make sense!

To begin with, the announcement that FFXIII were gonna be ported to 360 came just before the release of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the exclusive game that boosted PS3 sales through the roof!

Seems clear that MS want's to hold back PS3 as much as it can (I think they may have their nextgen console already on advanced research), just as it tryed to prevent Blu-Ray from becoming the new DVD. I read that MS didn't really cared for HD-DVD, but rather wanted time to improve (yeah, right! ) their download system for movies and softwares!


About localizaion, I think that in this day and age, the big ones could and should be made on the (main) languages the game will be released. It was what happened with MGS4, that had simultaneous international release. It's possible that they had to delay the japanese version a bit, maybe, but I'm pretty sure they didn't finished the japanese first to than start localizing!

Not sure why people hate on MS and not on Sony. Both are gigantic corporations that are in it for the money. The only company you should even look at as a true videgame supplier is Nintendo. They are in it for the game/console sales(although I can't say I like there new Shovelware approach).

MS has xbox, zune, and of course Windows. Their best skills lye in software so it would seem natural for them to move into gaming (you know a software based product). Oh and Bill Gates doesn't even run MS anymore ( it's now in Steve Ballmer's hands so you should hate on him instead).

Sony has DVDs, Blu-Rays, CDs, DVD players, Blue-Ray players, CD Players, game consoles, radio's, TVs, computers, etc, etc, etc. Not sure why everyone doesn't see it as the gigantic electronic corporation that it is around here.



Really? No doubt what so ever? You should really stop and think about the situation for a minute before coming to this conclusion. Why is it that there is no 360 version coming to the PS3 in Japan. They could have said coming first to the PS3 and later on the 360. Here is another possible imaginary scenario:

SE: Sony We don't think that the PS3 install base is big enough for us to recoup all of our losses. If you want the game to remain exclusive we need some financial incentive.

Sony: Well, currently we're bleeding money on hardware so we can't really pay that amount. What kind of exclusivity can we get for X yen?

SE: We can halt the 360 version in Japan since that amount should cover the money we would make there (probably a small figure anyway).

Why would it be hard to believe Sony paid to keep the game exclusive in Japan. My guess is that the truth lies at Square-Enix headquarters and involves both Sony and Microsoft money hatting. That or maybe Square-Enix saw the opportunity to make some additional cash by porting it to the 360 (remember SE is in it for SE).

He was just talking about the inconceivable reason to delay the already finished PS3 version in the US. It's not a side-by-side development issue like GTA 4 where possible compatibility issues could come into play. Square would lose zero money releasing it for PS3 first. And the Xbox version's development would be completely unaffected by this event as well. The only outcome would be that the sales would be higher for PS3 than it would be otherwise.

That the game will be released for both platforms isn't strange at all. But the delay of the US PS3 versions is very intentional. Ask yourself why.


As for the Japan only release for PS3, that's been going on for quite a while with several companies. Even with the PS2. I doubt most of them are on Sony's payroll. The Xbox sells a minuscule amount each month in Japan.

Also: Final Fantasy XIII Xbox 360 Asia Version Announced.

For the record, it has been confirmed that a 360 version is coming to Japan too.

Source?

To be honest, I don't care why, there's no changing it I guess and I'll have plenty of things to occupy my time until it finally comes out (Hooray getting a Nintendo DS and Xbox 360!)

Good things take time.

Though it is hard to suppress my tears of rage at times

Correction, I misread it, it was an "Asian" version that didn't include Japan >_>

http://kotaku.com/5033592/microsoft-clarif...on-announcement

Considering we don't know the entire reasoning and everyone is simply speculating, I'm going to take a stab at the answer. My biggest guess is marketing. Simply put if the game is later released on the 360 they would have to remark the game and the is very expensive. You can also never build up the same hype twice for the same game. Why not do one giant marketing push and sell as many copies on it's release (even though there will be an unfortunate delay). We all know that when a game comes out later it never even does a quarter of the sales of the original release (GTA San Andres for example). Games just don't sell well on their second release. SE makes the greatest profit with a simultaneous release.



That is true, but the PS3 is not doing that much better. I think atm PS3 is only selling twice as much as the 360 in Japan (10,000 vs 5000) which is nothing in comparison to Nintendo's 40,000. Let's face it, Japan just doesn't care about HD gaming. Wouldn't be surprised to see many Japanese game series jump to PSP, DS and maybe the Wii.

Kotaku:



Source

Well, I suposed Sony too have more rottens than we can imagine, but still, none of my play Stations ever said to me: "This game executed an illegal message and will be terminated"...

My Secondary scool was focused on making Computers Technicians. It was then that I learned to Hate Microsoft, Bill Gates (I've heard quite some stories from my teachers... ) and that hellish blue screen!!!




I agree with that!! I've been having that this gut feeling that XIII will be a really expensive FAILURE!!
it has npothing to do with 360 nor microsoft. I'm having this feeling since way before I heard those news. It's just that there's so much expectation to it, and the more you wait the greater the expectation, and thus the dissapointment!

Remember George Lucas finally made Episode I? It was a great movie, but still a dissapointment!


Not to mention we haven't seen a single game trailer (not to mention DEMOS!!) in all those years!!!!

Ok, I only have one thing and only one thing to say:

SCREW YOU MICROSOFT!!!!!

I think my point has been made.

On the bright side, I feel better for taking so long to finally get on the bandwagon and buy a PS3/360. But yeah, this sucks for everyone else. On the bright side, this'll give people the chance to revel in other great games (Disgaea 3, Tales of Vesperia, etc.) before FFXIII steals the spotlight away. =p

They need to lay off the rice wine and panty vending machines.

It could be that the games released for both systems don't exactly appeal to Japanese market. While games released for PS3/360 currently in the U.S appeal to U.S. audience.

By this logic, the U.S. doesn't care for HD gaming too much since the Wii is the highest selling console.

There's other reasons why these consoles are selling or not selling. I highly doubt Japanese market doesn't care about HD gaming. The sales should start to spike for both systems once games of interest to that particular market are released. That's the simple fact of the matter.

I don't have a PS3, but this is just silly. How long has FF13 been announced, longest wait time in my knowledge for sure. My care for FF13 has gone down a lot because it's delay. Then again I'm currently on a older games that are great rush. Almost beat Symphony of the Night(3rd ending), Ico is next. These games at the moment are worth my time far more than current games, though it was smart idea to play some Tales of the Abyss, I was not disappointed with this RPG. My friend has Skies of Arcadia for the dreamcast, it's pretty nice so far, seems a bit overrated however at the moment.
But I'm digressing, fact remains this delay is ridiculous and square isn't who they used to be.

They have those??? Dang, and when I thought they couldn't be any more perverted...

**edit: Wait, they now have to compete with the dominicans for pervertedness with their Thong Walls at the 99 cent stores.

Don't hate on other cultures lack of Political Correctness, in Paris nude pictures are straight up in full view in a variety of public areas.
I think they are far better being themselves, guys here are just as perverted, but I think they'd get harsher judgment here to have underwear in vending machines. It's silly really.

This is a real blow to me, especially if it is true. I have both a PS3 and a 360, but I've always been a Sony fanboy at heart. I'm not too bothered about the console war, but stuff like this...ugh. One of my main excitement factors at getting a PS3 was that I would eventually be able to play FF13 on it. That was back before it was announced a 360 version was going to be made.

I just find it unfair to the fans, and PS3 owners to have to wait for the 360 version. As many have said, I'm sure bribery on Microsofts part is to blame. It's just a shame the fans aren't getting a say in it.

I've heard a few more things that make me hate on X-box more.

First off, the Blu Ray discs are obviously a lot larger than the DVD's used on X-box 360. I heard that if MGS4 were to be made on X-box, they would have to take about 8 (that's EIGHT) DVD's to make it. Also, X-box's controller is devoid of gyro-axis rotation AND pressure sensitive buttons.

SO, to make this game right, they'd essentially have to make two separate games. This had better be the reason why they're taking so long, or the ps3 peoples are gonna be SCROOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!

A dual layer DVD can store up to 8.5 a disc, so uncompressed it would require 6 discs at the most assuming they used the full 50GB on a dual layer Blu Ray, but I imagine they would compress quite a bit just like what's happening with an upcoming game called Rage (by the guys who did Doom).

MGS4 is 32gigs in size. My guess is that if they used compression it would take no more than 3 disks. MGS4 is also very linear so it wouldn't even be difficult to break it up. Kojima is completely against it, but I think that Konami still has the final say on what happens. They should just make a PC version since that would be the best platform for it and the easiest to port to (considering the game was created on a PC).

JRPGs are probably the most receptive games to the multi-disc system. They are usually very linear, and at the same time use most of the additional disc space for CG movies. My guess is that Europe will get screwed again with a delay since the game needs to be ported to many languages, but it will probably be released in states 6-12 after the Japanese release.

QUOTE

I heard that if MGS4 were to be made on X-box, they would have to take about 8 (that's EIGHT) DVD's to make it.

Because it's a ####### HD movie more than a game. There's probably less than 10 hours of actual gameplay if you go straight through skipping all the scenes. I'm not that impressed with filling a blu-ray disc with cut scenes. The gameplay itself would fit on a single DVD for sure. I'm not saying it's a bad game, but it's more of a cinematic experience than anything else, so it's not worth comparing it to the point of how much space a "game" uses.

Kojima said that they already used compression. Maybe not for the HD sound though since it sounded like he wanted to have that in the game, but who knows.


And possibly piss him off so that he leaves? I doubt it's worth losing Kojima and his future games just to release one game on an extra platform against his wishes.
Besides, he also said that the game was optimized for PS3 and "near impossible to convert to 360".

I highly doubt Kojima would leave Konami if they ported the game. He would simply have little to no part in it (similar to what EA did with the PS3 version of Half-Life 2). My guess is that Sony money hatted the game so that would be the biggest reason for them not to port (meaning Konami would have to pay if the game went mutlti-platform).

The game is definitely possible on 360. Graphically, the gameplay areas looked nice, but not something that was extra ordinary (the online graphics were pretty ugly in comparison to the single player btw). The biggest restraint would be the file sizes and the DVD memory limit. If the sound was already compressed, the compression must have been minimal. They had an extra +-18 gigs and they couldn't throw in the Japanese sound files? Don't get me wrong, the sound was incredible, but I'm sure at least 80% of players wouldn't even notice if was compressed to the level of most games. At worst the game would come on 5-6 disks intact (one for each act and then MGO; highly doubt that would ever happen due to MS license hikes on additional disks). Although I can see why many wouldn't want the game on 360, I still think a PC version would be great fit for the game.

I also believe the best version of FF13 will be the PC version. Best load times, resolution, and textures. Well that is if you have a powerful rig.

I mean if Kojima doesn't want the game to be ported for whatever reason. Not that he doesn't want to work on it. For example if he doesn't want to see watered down versions his work. The Xbox port of MGS2 had some issues. And he said that he didn't want to make another Xbox port after that.


Well according to Kojima: "MGS4 is nigh impossible on the 360 because the game was designed and optimized to be a PS3 title to begin with."

Earlier in the development he said that it could be converted and just put on more discs. But since then he mentioned that they've been able to make as much use of the PS3's hardware as possible at this stage. So it sounds like it's the technical differences between PS3 and Xbox 360 that makes a port near impossible.


It would probably look better, but I never did like playing rpg's on pc. I guess you could connect it to the TV, and somehow make use of a PS3/X360 controler though.

I miss the good old days when I could count on an FF game coming out without delay every year/two years...not it seems we have to wait for an extreme length of time for each game, understandable due to the scale of work needed for games on the current next gen systems.

But...urgh. Turning a previously PS3 exclusive game into a 360 game as well is something I can handle - but as a fan of the series, I can't help but feel betrayed if they really do intend to hold back the PS3 version for the sake of the 360 one. It's just...so unfair.

I know I've said that once already, but after dwelling on it for a while I'm pretty annoyed. >_>