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Final Fantasy 13 gets 1080p support on Steam next week
Square Enix will introduce a patch for Final Fantasy 13 on Steam next week that will give players additional graphics options. Slated to land on Thursday, December 11, the update will allow players to switch to custom resolutions, such as 720p and 1080p. The patch hits the same day that the game's sequel, Final Fantasy 13-2, will arrive on Steam as well. Final Fantasy 13 first launched in late 2009 in Japan, making its worldwide debut in March 2010 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game was followed by the aforementioned 13-2 in February 2012 and the final game of the trilogy earlier this year, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13. Those planning on picking up the Steam version of Final Fantasy 13-2 may want to pre-purchase the game, as it is 10 percent off at the moment ($17.99). [Image: Square Enix]
Final Fantasy 13's new portal page has a Steam logo
In suspiciously timed news, Square Enix launched a new portal page for the Final Fantasy 13 saga that conspicuously features the Steam logo. The site, launched today, features the Steam image next to logos for already confirmed platforms. FF13, FF13-2 and Lightning Returns all initially released on Xbox 360 and PS3, and the trio are also coming to Japan's Dive In mobile streaming app, as announced last week. So is Lightning about to strike thrice one more time? Square Enix's not announced any PC ports of the JRPG trilogy so take all this with a pinch of salt. That said, the publisher does seem to have a few things up its sleeve for the Tokyo Game Show, which begins tomorrow. Also, earlier this year, Final Fantasy producer Yoshinori Kitase told Eurogamer he was "definitely interested" in pursuing PC versions for future games, and he also touched on why the FF13 saga didn't come to PC in the first place.
Lightning Returns, bearing prizes for fan art competition winners
Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy series character designer Tetsuya Nomura has chosen three grand prize finalists for a fan art competition. The competition was organized by Square Enix and DeviantArt to celebrate the recent release of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13, and was the first time Nomura, who designed Final Fantasy 13 heroine Lightning, has acted has a judge. The winners, in no particular order, are Marga Donaire, Nicolas Barge and Randis Albion - or KarmaLizzard, ArisT0te and randis, as they're respectively known on DeviantArt. The three winners will receive an original sketch from Nomura, $1,000, a keychain, a shirt, a custom Xbox 360 and controller, and the complete Final Fantasy 13 trilogy. Each winner will also be the header image at the top of DeviantArt for a day. More than 4,000 creations were entered in the competition, which garnered more than 1.5 million views. We've included a smaller resolution of Donaire's piece, "Wilhelmina" at the top of this article, but you can see the full-resolution image, along with the other two winners, by checking out the gallery below. You can also check out the official DeviantArt contest page to see the rest of the entries. [Image: Marga Donaire]
The Mog Log: Lightning fizzles in FFXIV
There's something a bit odd about playing what amounts to a promotional event for a game you won't be seeing for several months. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII promises to conclude the two-part trilogy that its predecessor created, but it's not coming out in the US until February of next year, leading to a minor disconnect. Still, it matters only in the broadest sense; after all, most of the references packed in hearken back to the first game in the set, and I didn't need a pre-order to know that I wanted a gunblade. So I've been following along with Final Fantasy XIV's event and dutifully progressing along the quest chain for the week. But I wasn't terribly impressed all around. I think there were some very nice touches coupled with some really baffling decisions here and there, and the overall effect was rather lackluster. It isn't really the fault of the event so much as a problem with popularity.
The Mog Log: You got your Final Fantasy XIII in my Final Fantasy XIV
If there was any doubt about it before, it's a known fact now: Lightning of Final Fantasy XIII will be showing up in Final Fantasy XIV, and players can go so far as to earn a copy of her outfit to wear out and around Eorzea. Odds are pretty much absolute that it will be purely cosmetic, but that doesn't make it any less unusual. Aside from ruffling the feathers of anyone who particularly dislikes Lightning, the inclusion opens up the weird snarl of non-continuity along the entirety of the franchise. I like Lightning, but this certainly does feel unusual. Even without seeing the quest, I have plenty of questions about how the games tie together, what the possible explanation could be, and how this will affect both worlds (as Naoki Yoshida has said specifically that this is Lightning herself, not someone who looks and acts as she does). So let's talk about crossovers, let's talk about Final Fantasy XIV's existing fanservice, and let's ask ourselves if this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Metaphorically. I don't think there are camels in Eorzea.
Final Fantasy XIII's Lightning story to continue in a 'new direction'
On September 1, during a Final Fantasy anniversary event in Tokyo, Square Enix will present some kind of "new information about the direction of Lightning's story." The Final Fantasy XIII protagonist was last seen in XIII-2 DLC "Requiem of the Goddess," which at the time acted as a conclusion to her saga.The new Lightning material is currently in the care of "Key members of the FINAL FANTASY XIII development team including the Producer, Director and Art Director."Final Fantasy XIII was originally announced as a multi-part "Fabula Nova Crystallis" universe, consisting of FFXIII, FF Versus XIII (which we're still waiting for) and Final Fantasy Agito XIII – which was renamed Final Fantasy Type-0 and released last year on PSP in Japan. Though the Fabula Nova Crystallis thing hasn't quite panned out, Square isn't letting that get in the way of expanding the Final Fantasy XIII series.
What Square Enix learned from Final Fantasy 13's large-scale development
Square Enix had 180 artists, 30 programmers and 36 designers working on Final Fantasy 13, and that many people on board made its development complicated, director Motomu Toriyama told Gamasutra."With a large-scale development team, we didn't use our time well," Toriyama said. "How do you communicate to everyone in the department what the drive of the game is?"Toriyama and his team tried to keep the game as secret as possible within the massive workforce, which led to playtesting happening "way too late in the process," he said. Square intended to fix those issues with Final Fantasy 13-2, and implemented production-based milestones as opposed to story-based ones it used at the beginning of FF13's development. Still, more needs to change."We are also thinking that we will not do large-scale internal development any longer," Toriyama said. "We have a lot of great creators in Square Enix, but for larger-scale development we will be doing more distributed and outsourced development to reach our targets on time."
Final Fantasy XIII-2 purchases on Amazon net $20 gift card
Looking to do some time travel on the cheap? Amazon's not quite able to bend time just yet, but it can offer you a $20 credit on a brand new copy of the just-released Final Fantasy XIII-2, not to mention a digitized "mini strategy guide." We're hopeful that the strategies are bigger than the guide itself.Should you choose to go with Amazon's deal, you could always put the $20 credit towards a flux capacitor or something that might actually facilitate time travel. Maybe hallucinogens? We're not sure if Amazon's in that racket yet, but that's another potential avenue for seeking your desire to float across the pond of time. Maybe a Doors album is a better way to go?
Why Final Fantasy XIII just didn't work
This is a column by Jason Schreier dedicated to the analysis (and occasional mocking) of his favorite genre, the Japanese role-playing game. Whether it's because they're too antiquated or just too niche, he believes JRPGs don't get enough attention in the gaming industry today. It's time to change that. On January 31, Square Enix will release Final Fantasy XIII-2, a direct sequel to Final Fantasy XIII, which the developer shipped several years ago to mixed reactions. Some fans adored the game's gorgeous aesthetics and flashy combat; others cursed Square Enix for daring to defile their beloved series. Perhaps because of that fan ambivalence, a large part of Square Enix's marketing plan for Final Fantasy XIII-2 has revolved around the message "This is not Final Fantasy XIII!" During preview events and demos, the developer has been careful to show off all of the new elements that the first game did not have: towns, NPCs, sidequests, and so forth. Will Final Fantasy XIII-2 be worth playing? I'll tell you in a few weeks. But while we wait to see whether or not the newest Final Fantasy is worth our time, let's figure out why Square Enix is so eager to make it feel different than its predecessor. Just where did Final Fantasy XIII go wrong?
FFXIII-2 first week sales roughly a third of FFXIII's first week sales
Final Fantasy XIII-2, the latest sequel-sequel from the androgyny JRPG veterans at Square Enix, has closed its first week of sales in the land of the rising sun, with somewhat mixed results. The PS3 version of the title has sold 524,000 units according to Andriasang's translation of Media Create's extremely Japanese sales data, making it the number 1 selling title for the period. This is in stark contrast to the 360 version of the game, which entered the charts at number 48 with a comparatively minuscule 10,000 units sold. Having the number 1 game in Japan is definitely nothing to be ashamed of, but the accomplishment seems somewhat less impressive when compared to Final Fantasy XIII's combined first-week sales of 1,502,000 copies, nearly three times XIII-2's combined 525,000. Media Create attributes the drop in sales to a drop in interest among Japanese female gamers: 22.2 percent of women surveyed were interested in XIII-2, down nearly ten points from XIII's 31.3 percent Japanese female interest rate. It's also possible that the interest decline among Japanese women was negligible at best, considering that the game was the best selling release in the country.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 domain name registered
"Corporation Service Company" has registered the "Finalfantasy13-2game.com" domain name, according to Superannuation. The company has previously registered domains for Nier, Mindjack, and other Square Enix games, suggesting that this is also the work of Square Enix. This domain name could simply be Square Enix grabbing related names just in case, but it could also be evidence of a direct sequel to Final Fantasy XIII -- possibly, like Final Fantasy X-2, one built on the engine and assets from the previous, expensive game. Of course, unlike Final Fantasy X, the Final Fantasy XIII "franchise" is already somewhat crowded, with Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII on the way sometime before the end of the universe. Square is holding a "1st Production Party Premiere Event" in Japan on January 18, so if there really is a new Final Fantasy to announce, we'll likely hear about it, and any costume-change-based fighting it may contain, then. [Thanks, Vallanthaz]
Final Fantasy XIII launches on Japanese Xbox 360 to tepid sales
Final Fantasy XIII launched exclusively on PlayStation 3 in Japan last December, beating the multiplatform English release by just under three months, and the local Xbox 360 version by a year. The Japanese Xbox 360 game, dubbed Final Fantasy XIII Ultimate Hits International, arrived on December 16th, bringing with it an English voiceover track, an "Easy" mode and a bonus book. According to launch week sales figures, Square Enix's turnaround in supporting the Japanese 360 may have been overly optimistic. Producer Yoshinori Kitase told Japanese mag Famitsu in September that the redesigned Xbox 360 hardware had revitalized interest in a local edition of Final Fantasy XIII. "We feel that there are ... a lot of people in Japan who own nothing but 360s," he said. "Thanks to the new system and such, the situation's a lot different than it was in July 2008." In its first four days, Final Fantasy XIII sold fewer than 22,579 copies -- the cut-off point for that week's top 20 sales as tracked by Media Create -- and landed in the 39th spot. It's not an unsurprising outcome for a year-old title meeting a relatively small user base, but it raises an interesting question: Would Square have benefited more if it had launched its flagship property on both platforms last December, or was this tardy tradeoff its best shot at a small target?
Amazon gets critical hit on Final Fantasy XIII PS3 price for DOTD
Look, guys. Amazon really, really wants you to buy Final Fantasy XIII. For the millionth time this year, the retailer has cut the price of the PS3 version of the game for its Deal of the Day promotion -- this time around, you can grab the lengthy JRPG for $18.99, more than half off the usual cost.
Square Enix lowers six-month financial forecast, cuts expected sales by $100M
It looks like Square Enix characters will have to hold that spiky hair with generic product, as the company lowered its earnings forecast today for the six months (first half of its fiscal year) ending September 30, 2010. The publisher reduced new sales expectations by 10.5 percent to ¥68 billion ($846 million), which is far below the ¥90.6 billion the company took in during the same period last year. Squeenix also lowered its net income expectations for the two quarters to ¥1.7 billion ($21 million), a reduction of just over 29 percent from the original forecast. The company said that the declining figures were due to the "challenging operating environment" in which new games experienced "relatively slow growth." Squeenix's operating income remains high, however, thanks to "profitable carryover sales of major titles released in March of the previous fiscal year" -- i.e., Final Fantasy 13 et al. Square Enix will release its actual second fiscal quarter results in the near future.
Final Fantasy XIII postmortem talks about lack of shared vision on dev team
The latest Game Developer Magazine has a full postmortem of Final Fantasy XIII, featuring Square Enix developers Motomu Toriyama and Akihiko Maeda revealing just what went right and wrong with the thirteenth iteration of the classic series. The main issue with the game, they say, was a lack of "shared vision" among the developers for what the title should be. Some developers wanted to create a game to answer Western concerns about JRPGs, while others wanted it to serve as a showpiece for a crossplatform engine, and still others wanted to simply emulate the feeling of that first trailer back in 2006. In the end, what made the vision concrete was the creation of the demo available with Advent Children -- that demo changed the team's talks "from theoretical discussions based solely on abstract concepts to concrete dialogue," and helped the team realize the kind of work they'd have to do on the title before release. The few clips of the postmortem on Gamasutra don't mention the linear aspects of the game that turned quite a few players off, but the devs say that the more realistic picture of the production brought about by that demo helped them target what to work on by "keeping in mind exactly how the asset would be used in the game." In other words, focusing on one path was supposed to help them make sure that path was worth playing. But of course it's up to players to decide how that worked out.
Square Enix producers have more Final Fantasy 13 stories in mind
Despite the eventual existence of Final Fantasy Agito XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII, there's apparently still room for more "Fabula Nova Crystallis" games from Square Enix. Maybe. In an interview in the Final Fantasy XIII Ultimania Omega guide, producer Yoshinori Kitase expressed an interest in continuing the Final Fantasy XIII story. "I'd like to at some point make a story where Lightning ends up happy," director Motomu Toriyama said. Whether or not this becomes a game depends on demand from fans. The team also revealed content that was planned as DLC but cut from Final Fantasy XIII: an area called "Seventh Ark" that would have offered "free battles." This was axed for quality reasons, as well as for differences in PSN and Xbox Live.
Bonus item event in Final Fantasy XIV's beta
Final Fantasy XIV's open beta is only going to last until the 19th, which is just a stone's throw away. This would be worse news if not for the fact that the collector's edition of the game will be launching three days after that, meaning that the game's fans will have other things to do shortly thereafter. (The game's detractors don't really need the game to run one way or the other.) But if you'd like to take part in one last hurrah before launch, Square-Enix is hosting a special event on the newly-added Karnak and Narshe servers. All characters created on the special servers before 1:00 p.m. PDT on the 16th will have both the Onion Helm and Asuran Armguards added to their inventory. The former is the bonus for pre-ordering the collector's edition of the game, while the latter is the reward for also owning a copy of Final Fantasy XIII. It's not quite the potpourri of good news revealed from the pre-launch event yesterday, but it promises to still be a nice chance for Final Fantasy XIV beta testers to go out with a bang.
Amazon offering PS3 version of Final Fantasy XIII for $XX
If you're one of those people who performs complex time vs. price equations before purchasing a new game, Amazon's making an awfully hard sell for the PS3 version of Final Fantasy XIII. You can now lock down the 45-odd-hour adventure for $19.99, a full 60 percent off its usual retail price. Final Fantasy XIII -- $19.99, down from $49.99
Final Fantasy XIII Ultimate Hits International confirmed for Xbox 360 in Japan
Square Enix has confirmed the forthcoming release of FFXIII on Xbox 360 in Japan, dubbed "Final Fantasy XIII Ultimate Hits International." The game will be released in December and features English voice acting with Japanese subtitles (other subtitle options are also available). Despite early reports of the release, no additional content will arrive with FFXIII -- it differs from the PlayStation 3 version in Japan in that it will feature content originally only in the US release. It will also add an easy mode and "Final Fantasy XIII - Episode 1" (a short story book). Square Enix producer Yoshinori Kitase told Famitsu (via Gamasutra) that the new version was spurred by the launch of the remodeled 360 earlier this year, which aimed to bolster the console's install base in Japan. "We feel that there are ... a lot of people in Japan who own nothing but 360s. Thanks to the new system and such, the situation's a lot different than it was in July 2008," he explained. FFXIII will be the first Xbox 360 title released under Square's "Ultimate Hits" budget line, dropping at ¥4,980 ($59.50) on December 16.
UK authority bans Xbox 360 game ad for using PS3 footage (video)
It's a well-known fact that the Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII can't hold a candle to the one on PS3, and now the UK has formally banned an ad for allegedly pulling the ol' bait-and-switch on British TV screens. The UK's Advertising Standards Authority sat down with both copies of the game and noticed a variety of graphical discrepancies, notably that "video sequences appeared sharper and colours were more vivid" on PS3 than Xbox 360. That's all well and good, but the commercial itself is reportedly being banned on a technicality -- though game developer Square Enix admits the footage used was from PS3, it claims the UK ad consists entirely of pre-rendered cutscenes that look nigh-identical on either game machine. But don't take their word for it -- judge for yourself after the break.
