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Final Fantasy 13 launches

PostPosted:Fri Dec 18, 2009 5:36 am
by Julius Seeker
Well after a very long wait Square's biggest project to date finally launches and sells over 1 million despite a very small userbase in Japan for the PS3. This number doesn't include bundle sales. So it is likely this title has pushed up PS3 sales considerably.

This number comes in significantly lower than Dragon Quest 9 and Final Fantasy 8 which sold 2.4 and 2.7 million respectively on their day 1's making them the top 2 selling day 1 titles in Japan. The Japanese have a tendency to crowd to the front line and buy it day 1 when it comes to RPGs. I wonder if FF13 will suffer similarly in the coming weeks; or if it will break that trend and be a longtime seller?

PostPosted:Fri Dec 18, 2009 12:49 pm
by Don
It's hard to compete on sales record against a system that may have 5 times the installed base. I don't see FF13 doing anywhere as well as the other FF games simply because of the installed base issue.

PostPosted:Fri Dec 18, 2009 1:43 pm
by Zeus
The real question is: will the game sell systems? It'll likely reach half of the 4 million current userbase, but will they sell a million more for new adopters who really want it?

PostPosted:Fri Dec 18, 2009 4:26 pm
by Julius Seeker
I think some of those 4 million were bought for FF13, an I can see a few hundred K being sold this week as a result. Some maybe years earlier knowing this game would be on PS3.


This is just one unit, but, my PS3 is for this game, if FF13 wasn't coming to PS3, I wouldn't have bought one.

PostPosted:Mon Dec 21, 2009 4:44 pm
by Julius Seeker
In a matter of days it has a 35% PS3 market penetration rate =P

It sold ~250K PS3's, which isn't that high considering the ones bought that week for the system. Consider that the rest of the 1.5M+ bought their PS3's earlier.

PostPosted:Mon Dec 21, 2009 11:05 pm
by SineSwiper
Well, the PS3 is still far bigger in Japan than the 360, but I think the 360 has grown in the past year over there.

Also, where is the 360 version? Are they going to delay it that much with the PS3 version?

PostPosted:Tue Dec 22, 2009 12:17 am
by Zeus
360 version ain't comin' to Japan. That's a non-Japanese release only to take advantage of the significant user-bases of the system outside of Japan.

The 360 has sold WAAAY better than the original Xbox so yes, they have gained market share. But they're still negligible with the PS2 and DS Lite still soundly beating it on a week by week basis. Relatively speaking, it's still barely anything.

Kinda like the PSPGo which is why Sony won't separate the figures from the PSP 3000 when they announce sales figures.

PostPosted:Fri Dec 25, 2009 1:40 pm
by Eric
http://kotaku.com/5433455/final-fantasy ... 5-hours-in

"Let's be as positive as possible for a minute: No towns means that the story doesn't ever stop and stick. It means no wandering around a town, talking to every NPC until the least likely one gives you the perfect piece of information you need to proceed. No towns means that no caves to the north of town that are locked and inaccessible until you talk to that least likely NPC who tells you that there's a cave to the north full of monsters. With no towns, all actions in the game are seamlessly linked to the story. We are moving forward. Why are we moving forward? Because the enemy is behind us. Why are they behind us? Because they don't like us. Or: Because we miraculously managed to escape in the first place. Why the need to escape; how did it all get started? The chase is so exciting, after a point, that we don't bother answering this question.

Square-Enix's market research must have yielded the result that fans' favorite parts of RPGs are the fighting, the dungeons, the interactions between the characters, and big-budget cut-scenes. By cutting out the towns and focusing on dungeons and fights, they give the game a breathless and relentless pace. They also make the cut-scenes feel more plentiful and closer-between. In short, funneling the player down one straight path gives the game developers more (and bigger) opportunities for entertainment. Also, there's the "artificial" "difficulty" issue — have you ever gotten stuck in an RPG because you didn't know where to go or what to do, probably because the game developers didn't signpost it clearly enough? Well, that won't happen in Final Fantasy XIII.

Now, to be negative: It feels empty. Without some concrete clues that there is a world worth saving, this weird, headache-like feeling of nihilism falls down over the experience like a curtain of ash. You start to feel like the janitor at Disney World — sweeping up empty Coke bottles beneath motionless symbols of dead splendor. I suppose this is a positive as well — the game exudes atmosphere and hokey tension; the "world worth saving," as embodied in a floating utopia seen mostly in beautiful CG cut-scenes, is less a thing we know and more a thing we believe in. The game suspends your disbelief in a religion-like way. It's kind of neat, after a while, and as the characters inevitably whine their little heads off, you think, hey, I'd be whining, too. Then there's the no-freedom-like no backtracking thing: Is this the game telling you not to look back, encouraging you to enjoy the story as presented, or is it the developers fearing that to let you linger is to potentially kill your interest in the game?"

PostPosted:Fri Dec 25, 2009 2:19 pm
by kali o.
Eric wrote: Square-Enix's market research must have yielded the result that fans' favorite parts of RPGs are the fighting, the dungeons, the interactions between the characters, and big-budget cut-scenes
Those aren't RPG elements...those are action elements more than anything. And eye candy. Sounds more like an attempt to emulate WRPGs....but missing the key point that you still need to give the player some connection with the world/characters -- ie: freedom of choice, customization, solid (culturally relevant) story and writing, etc.

Certainly doesn't make me excited for Final Fantasy 13. But it is cool to hear they are really trying something *new*, so I'll reserve any real judgement.

PostPosted:Fri Dec 25, 2009 11:40 pm
by Kupek
Parish said similar things about FF13: http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=9013960

PostPosted:Sat Dec 26, 2009 6:11 am
by Julius Seeker
If it is well implemented/executed there shouldn't be too much of a problem. I am not sure if I would put my trust in a Kotaku article because I was years ago convinces that the staff were insane.

Xenosaga was fairly similar, but there were "towns" along the way. They sort of existed as a hub for a certain section of the story, until something happened to make them inaccessible and then another "town" would open up somewhere else.

Towns have alway been one of my favourite aspects of RPGs though. I really enjoyed FF8's towns, they largely were places I would have liked to vacation in, or even live.

Of course, Chrono Trigger didn't have much in the way of towns, and that game was excellent.

On being linear. That's not really a problem. As I mentioned above, Xenosaga. It's a game that essentially moves you through the story, the worst parts of it were the parts where you weren't moving forward or acquiring new knowledge. There is no game I have yet played that offers so much information, in a small period of time, as Xenosaga episode 3 (barring xenogears disk 2, which was poorly executed in a lot of places) Xenosaga 3 is like a very well executed disk 2 of Xenogears; and it worked well.

PostPosted:Sat Dec 26, 2009 11:53 am
by Kupek
From what I've read FF13 is linear in a much more literal way: the game is one long hallway. I would call FF4 a very linear game in that everything had to happen in a prescribed order. But you still had freedom to explore, and had to figure out what to do next.

FF13 sounds like you don't even have that amount of freedom. You're shuttled down hallway after hallway, even more so than FF10.

PostPosted:Sat Dec 26, 2009 12:53 pm
by Anarky
Kupek wrote: FF13 sounds like you don't even have that amount of freedom. You're shuttled down hallway after hallway, even more so than FF10.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIVKusB4NeI

PostPosted:Sat Dec 26, 2009 1:09 pm
by Eric
Don't really mind if it's linear if I enjoy the ride heh.

PostPosted:Sat Dec 26, 2009 1:47 pm
by Lox
Yeah, if it's fun, I don't mind it being linear. Whether how linear it is reduces the fun waits to be seen. I guess I'll know in the spring.

PostPosted:Sat Dec 26, 2009 3:18 pm
by SineSwiper
Anarky wrote:
Kupek wrote: FF13 sounds like you don't even have that amount of freedom. You're shuttled down hallway after hallway, even more so than FF10.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIVKusB4NeI
Full of awesome.

PostPosted:Sat Dec 26, 2009 3:47 pm
by Julius Seeker
Kupek wrote:From what I've read FF13 is linear in a much more literal way: the game is one long hallway. I would call FF4 a very linear game in that everything had to happen in a prescribed order. But you still had freedom to explore, and had to figure out what to do next.

FF13 sounds like you don't even have that amount of freedom. You're shuttled down hallway after hallway, even more so than FF10.
Like Eric said, linear isn't a big deal. If it is well executed like Xenosaga 3 then it will be an excellent game. I am guessing by the reviews that it is better executed. If you must have exploration elements, I recommend Skies of Arcadia; the world is huge and full of wonderful locations.