SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

[Armando]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

You want to talk about sitting on a proverbial gold mine...

That would probably be true if they hadn't milked FFVII to death first and the game didn't have a notoriety for being overhyped. No one's starved for more FFVII any more.

[Neverslip]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

if the PS3 add campaign goes well.

That's one of Sony's strong suits... er

Oh wait...

[Firewind]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

For the sake of my own education: what are the hurdles a European gamer has to go through to import an American game console and the US versions of games? I.e. What's stopping people from eBaying US games?

Consider that until the current generation, only handheld games consoles were region free (there was a MASSIVE backlash against the 3DS here among the gamer community due to it being region locked). Thankfully with the PS3, Wii, DS and PSP being region free (and from the look of things, the PS Vita may be following suit), Europe has been less screwed over in the "No Export For You" department in the current generation. It still sucks for people who don't speak/understand English, Japanese, French or Spanish though.

So before 2007/8, and assuming you are against using not illegal console modifications to remove the region locking, you would have to do the following:

1) Buy a TV that is NTSC compatable (this isn't an issue anymore but back in the 90's/early 00's, this may well have meant somehow buying and importing an American TV)
2) Obtain an American Console in some way (see below for import issues in general)
3) Rewire and refit the plug so that it works in your country or buy a US to UK or US to EU travel adaptor.
4) Make sure that you have the right fuse so you don't just blow up yourself or your console
5) Make sure you have a damn good surge protector so your console doesn't randomly blow itself up
6) If you live in the UK, investing in a step down transformer is also a good idea

7) As there are very few dedicated import stores still going in the UK, find a website that will ship to the UK/EU. Usually it's Canadian but some developer websites will ship to Europe. This is a pain since some sites, such as Play-Asia will only ship to non-EU countries due to shipping and tax issues (a lot of sites now have some sort of EU based base, usually in Germany to get around this).
8) Prepare to pay through the nose for shipping costs for an import game. A lot of Canadian sites that import to the EU do have a building in the EU, usually in Germany, to get around shipping costs and tax issues.
9) If you live in the UK, prepare to be hit by all manner of import taxes and duties and also customs fees and admin fees if customs get your hands on the game. My Pokemon Platinum import for example went from costing $40 to the equivalent of $80
10) Pray that the game arrives on a day off, otherwise it's a trip to the courier's nearest centre which could be anything from less then an hour to several hours away depending on where you live. There will sometimes be a charge depending on the company
11) Bang your head against the wall when you find out you were sent the French version of the game, because you had to order from Canada due to US retailers rarely shipping to the UK (Happened to me with Radiant Historia, thankfully the retailer was nice enough to send me a copy of the game in English).

[Feba]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

It still sucks for people who don't speak/understand English, Japanese, French or Spanish though.

Eh, they're all pretty much the same language anyway.

[Malacite]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

That would probably be true if they hadn't milked FFVII to death first and the game didn't have a notoriety for being overhyped. No one's starved for more FFVII any more.

True enough. If it had just been Crisis Core, that would have been fine - but AC and DoC were overkill (and complete crap on their own merits)

@Neverslip - other than the approval process, Sony is in no way responsible for the content of SE's adds >_>

Also, as for Sony themeselves, I have 2 words for you:

Kevin Buttler

[cidbahamut]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

hell, these stories might be like the first pages of old school video game manuals, that actually gave you some details into the game world you were about to set foot in.

I miss that part of instruction manuals so goddamn much.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

I really can not understand for the life of me just what the hell they're waiting for with the FF7 PS3 remake. You want to talk about sitting on a proverbial gold mine... but no, let's making FF13-2 instead, because everyone absolutely LOVED 13, and the last direct sequel you made totally wasn't a spectacular failure or anything. Oh wait...

Its amusing you think one fucking remake is the cure of all SE's ills.

I'll concede there is demand and its easy money, but that's all it is. There's also a digital version that sells on PSN and apparently sold rather well. That's not a barometer for whether you remake something or not and if that remake will sell.

Also, I'd argue 5 million in sales around launch the west sealed a sequel for FFXIII. Why make FFVII from the ground up all over again when you can reuse existing assets to make a sequel. I'm not a businessman here, but there's a logical conclusion to be had here. There's no reason not to make a sequel because a vocal minority disapproves and is butthurt the other primary rivals to FFVII from its time period have gotten remakes

Plus MGS: Twin Snakes kind of proves not all remakes are golden. Sometimes you can touch things up too much and MGS:TS went so far it changed the MGS experience in terms of gameplay, making it too easy. Resident Evil showed us you can embellish a little without doing damage so long as you keep it within the canon. Zelda: OOT 3D decided that maybe its just better to leave well enough alone - touch up the graphics to par with the art direction, clean up the ugly and keep the good.

I keep getting the impression SE would want to bring the visuals of FFVII to FFXIII's level. Some people would want that, I think the FFIII/FFIV DS route would be wiser. Keep the design strictly 1997, but upgrade the character modeles, monsters and towns. Make new HD pre-renders, don't make it a full 3D world.

But this would also mean updating the CG to Advent Children levels and for some people that would be a loss rather than a gain. I don't quite see it myself, but some people are partial to those old polygon models. I can at least see their point, given even with the idea of an FFVI remake being appealing, that laughing Kefka sprite is a classic difficult to replace in 3D modeling.

But the fact remakes SE has run FF into the ground. They need some new IPs and we're getting a few, but as usual, the proving grounds will be the handheld market rather than consoles. Not a problem for me, but it will still leave the west with the impression SE isn't doing anything.

I want Bravely Default pretty badly. but are a few 3DS games going to turn it all around? Probably not.

[Icemage]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

Square-Enix's problems have nothing to do with FF7 and everything to do with absofuckingterrible internal management. FFXIV being a train wreck didn't happen overnight - they've been working on the title for a number of years.


Icemage

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

I still think SE's in a panic over the fact that other studios are becoming more prominent. Capcom outflanked them in some areas, Atlus is getting a pretty strong reputation for a small fry and then there's Level 5 who likes to be friends with everyone.

They're not ruling the block anymore and I think that has them scrambling for answers, really.

[Raydeus]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

SE is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too rigid to react to stuff like this.

The only thing they could possibly do that is within their capabilities would be making Versus and Type-0 very, very good games. Other than that their PR'ing is pretty much guaranteed to be a disaster.




No expectations whatsoever about lolXIII-2, of course.

[Icemage]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

SE is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too rigid to react to stuff like this.

The only thing they could possibly do that is within their capabilities would be making Versus and Type-0 very, very good games. Other than that their PR'ing is pretty much guaranteed to be a disaster.

No expectations whatsoever about lolXIII-2, of course.

Their PR for Versus is going to be another train wreck too if the rumors about it going multiplatform instead of PS3 exclusive turn out to be true.

Though honestly FFXIV is the albatross around their neck right this moment. Every day that game continues to be terrible is another day when people are going to just continue to point and laugh at Square-Enix. How that project ever got green-lighted, I'll never fathom. No one was asking for FFXIV, no one really wanted it even after it was released, and frankly if anyone actually had to pay for a subscription to play it today, it would have effectively no playerbase overnight. It seriously makes the money pit also known as FF: The Spirits Within look good in comparison.


Icemage

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

I really wonder if they would have been better just suspending the FFXIV service while continuing to work on it and then relaunch it when it is polished on both the PC and PS3. I really don't see a PS3 launch anytime soon and even when/if it happens the interest will be grossly diminished due largely to its notorious reputation but also the established playerbase who will have dug their heels in to the crafting market/NM camping scene.

As an aside, if I were still an FFXI customer I'd be less than pleased at the amount of attention FFXIV is receiving for a game that isn't being supported by subs compared to the amount of focus being channeled towards FFXI.

[Kailea]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

I fell bad for the people who are like me.... we want to play FFXIV but it is still pretty bad... and we cant/wont go back to FFXI because SE screwed that up with their last 3 mini-sods -.-


so we are stuck in FF online limbo.

[Raydeus]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

Remember when SE was like "Hey, we'll help you guys make the transition very easy. Since you know, XI is going to lose all it's players now that XIV is almost here!!"?

Good times.





PS > XIV only makes sense to me if they pitched it as an HD upgrade for XI and then "/ja Bait&Switch <me>" or something. Other than that only plain old fraud comes to mind as a reason for all of this.

[Armando]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

I still don't understand your freakish obsession with FFXI HD. HD graphics is the last thing FFXI needs.