Interesting read: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3178056
Has the demand for cutting edge graphics gotten too insane for developers to realistically handle, or are they just going about it all the wrong way?
I think he’s blowing smoke personally… All the Assets are already there from Advent Children. I think game companies got to quit going cutting edge with the Graphics and just give me a good game. A lot of games anymore are just pretty tech demos with no substance or flash.
That’s bullshit 
Twelve years? Really? FF7 originally entered the planning stages in 1994, and including all the drastic changes (including a lot of rewrites and a major technology shift) was released in Jan 97. And at the time it was state of the art: nobody had done anything remotely like it before. It blew people away.
Sure, it’s harder to do state of the art now than it was a few years back. But twelve years? Come on, not even Duke Nukem Forever took THAT long. (They got swamped and ultimately buried by the weight of several reboots; the tech had only been frozen for a few years by the time they finally choked.) Now that they already have a game engine, I’d wager that they could recreate FF7 in … 2 to 3 years. They couldn’t really reuse any of the art assets directly. However, they already have a huge amount of completed work.
- The game’s script is done. (Of course, they’d want to translate it again up to modern standards.)
- The game mechanics are all done.
- All the maps are done. They need to be redone with modern graphics, of course, but the actual maps themselves are done.
- The engine by and large is done (never mind it would need significant tweaking, they have got one that is usable).
Furthermore, if this 12 years number was accurate, then how does he figure Mass Effect 2 got made in a couple of years? I suspect that 12 years is an exaggeration, but resource constraints are the genuine reason it won’t happen. They did have a plan early in the PS2 era to remake all the PS1-era games up to the PS2 standards. That plan got shelved without explanation, but almost certainly it’s that it would have been too expensive to commit to.
Or if it really IS the PS3’s fault for being so much more difficult to write good code for … well, there’s always the 360. Sure, in Japan, it’s a non-starter, but even at this late date, they might have some luck saying “Look, it’s just too hard to make these games for Playstation” and saying “We’re throwing our weight behind the 360”. Don’t think it will ever happen, but it’s possible.
I don’t think he means it would take 12 years literally: just 12 years of work hours using the number of people Square-Enix devotes to a single title, working their normal daily routine. I’m sure if they threw thousands of people and five hundred million dollars into the project, they could get it done within a year. However a corporation exists for profit: nothing more, nothing less.
Time = Money. More money, less time. Less money, more time.
Of course technology is a factor as well. Someone could remake the original FF7 from scratch in a few months with a fraction of the people/resources, because it’s cheaper to do it now. So what’s impossible right now, might be possible two years down the road.
And there is still the old good for everything Windows PC. FF VII was also released as PC game, so there shouldn’t be too much problem for releasing a tuned up version.
Yet, unless they insert an incident which (accidentally?) willresurrect Aerith from her grave, I’ll stick to newer games.
Beh, why don’t they look at Wii, that would be interesting.
Well I think it was a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. I also think he meant the manpower of 12 years with the current levels of staff for FF13, not that they’d do a 12 year planning. It probably would take more than 3 years even if they tripped the staff though, but closer to 4-5 years.
Production costs are higher for newer systems, especially the PS3; the quality of everything goes up. Take a look at games for PC like Fallout 3 as comparison and then tack on production cost of usually a minimum of 3 full-length high-quality CGI movies. Even for systems that are easy to program for, that’s an expensive task. You have to make certain not only everything runs and looks good on your dev version, but also on the consoles else you get problems like several PS2 games had where they’d stutter when overloaded (original .hack data drain ability is a good example of this).
You know, in spite of all this talk about making a remake for FFVII, I find it highly perplexing how the possibility of releasing the original PS1 game for download on PSN/XBLA/Wii Shop Channel has never crossed their minds even once.
That’s simple enough. They’ve been remaking the old Final Fantasies for DS in order for a few years now. They’ve released FV2-5 so far. And FF7 is one of the best-selling FF games on record. It’s the game that made RPG’s not be niche anymore.
You don’t put up on the virtual console games that you think you might be able to sell for full price as an enhanced remake.
FFVII is up on the PSN though…
It wasn’t for a very long time, though. I think that Square was still kicking around the idea for a remake, but when they decided (again) to kill it, then there’s no reason not to put it out. Of course, this whole thing is speculation anyway … could be any number of reasons.
Some companies seem to be experimenting with whetherfocusing on handheld games is a better idea. Both Valkyria Chronicles and the .hack//GU trilogy are getting their sequels on PSP.
It’s probably a bit of both. With cutting edge graphics, you can’t expect the same volume as before. However, it’s also known that Japanese developers are way behind their western counterparts (long outdated methodologies, conservative attitudes regarding ownership, poor technology base due to the lack of a PC-oriented development culture) and are struggling to cope with the demands. There’s also little money to go around since their market has shrunk for the past decade, while costs have increased by several times.
They’re going through a painful transition now, and many developers have simply opted to bow out of high end development.
That was just Hironobu Sakaguchi’s idea, and his plan was to develop enhanced ports with 5.1 channel sound and improved FMV. As a company, Square had no such project on the drawing board.
Anyway, you can probably guess why the idea never went anywhere (i.e. Sakaguchi was relieved of his duties less than two weeks after he made those comments).
Well west has its own problems with ownership rights, being too focused on eye-candy over plot (and sometimes even gameplay), etc.