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E3 2014: FFXIV's Yoshida on 2.4, 3.0, new classes, and more
After the recent E3 2014 announcement that Final Fantasy XIV was getting a new class and a marriage system, fans have been understandably eager to learn more. And the best way to do that is go to the source! We sat down with producer Naoki Yoshida to discuss the content slated for upcoming patches and expansions. Before delving into the new, Yoshida spoke about the old. He noted that since last year's expo, FFXIV has enjoyed a successful relaunch, added a couple of major updates, and given millions of gamers around the world the opportunity to play. He then led into the new by saying, "We want to continue to grow the game from here. We have a lot of exciting content building up to 3.0." Part of said growing includes expanding the availability of the game by getting it into even more regions; this summer, for example, FFXIV will launch in China. Another part of the growth process is expanding the content and introducing new features, which is where patch 2.4 and the 3.0 expansion come in.
Final Fantasy XIV PS4 launch coming April 14th, details on patch 2.2 revealed
Yesterday, Final Fantasy XIV players had a field day with the 12th installment of the Letter to the Producer Live stream, during which they launched a bevy of questions at the game's producer and director, Naoki Yoshida, and received a slew of answers in return. For starters, the game will launch on the PS4 on April 14th and include a collector's edition. The beta will begin on February 22nd as previously reported. Patch 2.2, aka Through the Maelstrom, which Yoshida revealed will go live sometime in March, will bring with it an array of new content such as the Ruins of Amdapor dungeon, an expansion to the Binding Coil of Bahamut instance, and last but certainly not least, a new Primal to fight: the aquatic Leviathan. While the most die-hard of fans likely saw the livestream when it was... well, live, those who missed out need not despair because the entirety of the question-and-answer session has been transcribed in its own thread on the game's official forums.
Yoshida: Gran Turismo 6 would be 'hard to move' to Vita
Revving up Gran Turismo 6's engines on the Vita would be "really hard" on a technical level, Sony Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida told IGN last week. "As you can tell looking at GT6, it really is using PS3 to a very high level," Yoshida said. "In terms of Vita support, I don't expect the whole game to be able to run on PS Vita." Yoshida's statement follows Polyphony Digital CEO Kazunori Yamauchi's comments concerning the possibility of GT6 evolving into Gran Turismo 7 for the PS4 during its development cycle. GT6 will be tuned to race on December 6 for the PS3. In the meantime, fans can race to GameStop or Amazon for pre-order bonuses in the form of exclusive cars and in-game credits.
Naoki Yoshida discusses the upcoming beta for Final Fantasy XIV
It won't be long now until long-time Final Fantasy XIV players and eager test applicants can experience the beta of the game's new version. Producer Naoki Yoshida has understandably been busy with the ramp-up, but he's taken the time to pen a new letter for the game's players that starts off by displaying all of the racial creation screens for the revamped creator. That includes showing off genders that had previously been unavailable, including female Highlanders and Roegadyns. Beyond that, the letter talks about some of the restrictions in place from the beta that are still being developed, acknowledging that some character creation options will be held back until later in testing (the team is working to vastly improve hair color and style selections, for example). Yoshida goes on to talk about the production staff's New Year festivities and a visit from some of the Mythic staff members involved with Ultima Online. There are only a few more weeks until the beta stats, but Yoshida and the rest of the staff seems to believe that it's the first step to a better new year.
Sony rules out PS Vita price cut in 2012, works to lower the price later
It's time to get realistic about the prospects of a PlayStation Vita price drop. Sony Worldwide Studios' head Shuhei Yoshida dampened the fires of speculation at GamesCom this week by telling Eurogamer that it was simply "too early" to slash the price on the gaming handheld -- it was only just launched this year for every active region beyond Japan, after all. That's not to say Sony is determined to keep the PS Vita at $249 forever. Much like what it did for the PS3, the company is working to bring down the price by streamlining part costs. The cuts might be necessary given the mismatch between the warm reception to the quad-core, OLED-packing hardware and the actual sales; Sony would "like to see more uptake" than what's been seen to date, according to Yoshida. In the meantime, we'll have to be content with bundles like the European LittleBigPlanet combo if we want to eke out a little more value at the game store counter.
Final Fantasy XIV producer's letter looks back on 2011 and forward to 2012
In Final Fantasy XIV's latest producer's letter, producer Naoki Yoshida stopped by the forums to reflect a bit on 2011 and give fans a look at what's coming up in 2012. Yoshida notes that September 2011 marked the one-year anniversary of Final Fantasy XIV as well as the one-year anniversary of Yoshida's installation as producer and director of the title. He goes on to state that "2012 will see [the game] making even larger strides and will prove to be an even bigger test for FFXIV." Next year's first new patch, 1.20b, is already in development, and Yoshida says the team is working diligently on 1.21 features such as the job system, job quests, and two new dungeons. As his final announcement, Yoshida reveals that QA testing for the battle system for the 2.0 client will begin shortly after the new year. For the full details, click on over to the full producer's letter on the FFXIV official forums.
The Mog Log: Non-reactive
As pretty much everyone reading this column knows, there was a big bombshell dropped on the community on Friday of last week. As at least a few people reading this column also know, this column is written on Thursday. This isn't the first time that this has been relevant to the discussion, but what might seem a bit unusual is that last week's column did not discuss 2.0 or the billing cycle at all. It just continued on with my impressions of 1.19. To be quite honest, my actual Friday was spent at the local casino for dinner and some shopping. I could have, of course, written a new column for last week by virtue of that breaking news. Certainly it was big. But as it stands, I looked at it, considered it, and realized that I didn't actually have a strong reaction to what had been announced. I was vaguely excited about 2.0, of course, but for the most part all of the big sweeping announcements about the future of Final Fantasy XIV didn't make nearly the impression that one might think. And there's a good reason for that, I believe -- it's because these announcements weren't as sudden or shocking as they look at face value.
Sony must support indie developers, says Yoshida
Speaking to Develop Online, Sony Computer Entertainment's Worldwide Studio President Shuhei Yoshida said that the gaming megalith sees value in the continuously expanding world of indie development, and that supporting those developers is the key to industry growth. "We have to support those smaller teams," he said. "Without doing so, the whole industry will stall, in terms of innovation." Yoshida thinks Sony's forthcoming PS Vita will serve as a good platform for indie developers currently subsisting in the mobile-phone universe, citing the handheld's capacitive touch-screen and AR capabilities as an entry-level gateway for development on the platform. He also added that the Vita's development kit has been specifically engineered with affordability in mind, and that the system is "small and light and easy for developers to handle." With smartphones gobbling up increasingly larger slices of the mobile gaming pie, Sony seems to be positioning itself as the indie-friendly option for mobile developers looking to enter the world of dedicated gaming devices.
New armor sets previewed in the newest Final Fantasy XIV producer's letter
If you're a Final Fantasy XIV player excited by the promises of new content in patch 1.16... well, no one can blame you for the excitement, but you're probably more interested in knowing when exactly the patch will be going live. While we can't be certain that it'll be this week, the most recent producer's letter from Naoki Yoshida strongly suggests it as a possibility. In the opening paragraphs of his letter, he mentions the original intent was to have the new patch go live before the end of the month, but it was held back just a bit longer to give the localization teams more time to polish it. We may very well see it go live before the week is out. Of course, Yoshida has never simply dwelled on the known in his letters, and this one is no exception, as he previews two of the upcoming class-specific armors previewed. The armor will likely be familiar to Final Fantasy XI veterans, with the overall aesthetic strongly resembling the Dark Knight and Black Mage artifact sets. Yoshida also discusses a bit more of the upcoming content plans and the upcoming official forums, both elements that should make Final Fantasy XIV fans happy even in lieu of a specific date for the new patch.
New producer's letter and battle mechanic changes for Final Fantasy XIV
Naoki Yoshida has been bringing change to Final Fantasy XIV, and while the previous changes have been largely based around communication, there are more substantial alterations just around the corner. With the announcement that tomorrow will bring patch 1.15a (coinciding with the abandonment of the "version update" naming schematic), the development team has explained some of the changes coming to the battle system, including better damage and healing displays without overlap, better gains for parties, and larger gains for taking on enemies that outlevel the player. Solo players aren't left out, either, as the experience curve has been adjusted to help ease some of the more onerous level bands. Yoshida has also penned his second producer's letter, this one clarifying the coming changes in more detail for both 1.15a and the further future. As he notes, there are many things that both he and players in general want to change, which means there's a lot to discuss in a limited amount of space. Players who were upset by the somewhat flippant tone of the last letter will hopefully be mollified by his apology for same -- as Yoshida himself puts it, sometimes his personality gets the best of him. The full list of planned changes is available within the letter, with more due in the near future, a clear sign that Final Fantasy XIV is being worked on with vigor by its new team.
Sony's Yoshida says PS3 is now turning a profit, no plans for a price cut
We'd already seen some evidence that Sony was lowering the manufacturing costs of the PlayStation 3, and it looks like that's now finally starting to pay off -- Sony exec Shuhei Yoshida has confirmed to IGN that the console is at long last actually turning a profit. Of course, that profit is apparently still a fairly small one (and might just be breaking even), with Yoshida only saying that "this year is the first time that we are able to cover the cost of the PlayStation 3," and that "we aren't making huge money from hardware, but we aren't bleeding like we used to." That also unsurprisingly means that Sony still isn't planning a price cut anytime in the near future, with Yoshida instead saying that Sony will focus on more bundles like Move / Sports Champions package announced at E3.
Sony's Yoshida admits Japan lagging in games technology
The current generation of consoles are more powerful than ever. However, it appears that many Japanese developers are struggling to get the most they can out of the hardware. The real innovators of games technology appear to be coming from non-Japanese studios, from America and Europe. SCE Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida admits the disparity of development between East and West. "The technology base has shifted from Japan to the US and Europe," he told videogaming247.One of the main reasons why Japan has struggled in comparison with the rest of the world comes from the lack of manpower. Studios in other countries can top a hundred, but Japanese studios are still quite small. "That's not the case in Japan. Because they don't have a large base, like the movie industry; there aren't [a lot of people] in the high end of computer graphics. That's making the many great developers in Japan make slow progress."That's not to say great games aren't coming from Japan, of course. Developers like Kojima Productions and Polyphony Digital have created some real graphics powerhouses on the PS3. Upcoming games from Capcom, like Resident Evil 5, and Square Enix look to push Japan's tech further.[Thanks, nirolak!]
Space Invaders Extremely Expensive Luggage
Yoshida & Co. know how to sell bags to nerds: put game imagery on them. We've never cared enough about luggage to choose any but the cheapest and nearest-to-our-hand suitcases, but now we kind of want some luggage -- because of how it looks!There's approximately negative infinity chance of us getting any of the items in the "Porter" Space Invaders line. Judging by the prices of Yoshida's Playstation collection (PSP case and strap: $205), we'd be better off keeping Yoshida from invading our wallet. We'd choose a copy of Space Invaders Extreme over a bag with some invaders on it.[Via Kotaku]
