Nintendo Vs. Squaresoft ??

[thread_of_fate]

LOL, I just had to post this. In one of my playstation mag's, they were saying that since Square and Nintendo's alliance, they haven't done much but argue and scream back and forth ideas. It's been nothing but conflicts. Nintendo was concerned with FF11's first week of sales in Japan and square argued back by saying that not all people can just go out and buy the game, a good pc (or PS2 ), pay internet fees, and pay the PlayOnline fee just like that (which I can understand). They predicted a 500,000 unit sale in the first week but instead ended up with a mere 250,000 units sold. . Tell me what you think.

== hread of Fate
=

[Jimmy Onestroke]

Heh, that's interesting. People seem to like to think that the alliance of Nintendo and Square is a great sign of old-skool gaming's return, when really it's just another business decision for them.

[TMC]

What there is a play online fee man i thought it would be free online. But still that is true that not all the ppl in Japan can go out and buy a good comp or PS2 but shouldn't most of them already have internet connection if they bought the comp version. I guess that it won't be so easily sold since it cost so much to them. I wonder what the sales will be when it comes out in the US.

[Christopher Time]

Square announed FFXI would be pay-to-play quite awhile back.
Same deal with PSO, although.. that was free at first.. meh.. They just want to be greedy.
As for all this jibberish about them fighting, I wouldn't call any of that fighting.
That sounds like what any other buisness or company would say to each other, nothing to make a big deal out of.. But I wouldn't be surprised if they are a bit "uneasy" with each other,
they did sort of peev each other off back in the day..
I believe it all started with FFVII if i'm correct.. Geez how companies can be so stupid.

[Cyberxion]

The "arguing" Nintendo and Square had between themselves was regarding Squares online strategies, and online gaming in general. They basically went back and forth as to wether or not online gaming is really viable even today.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that Nintendos beef with Squares online plans has mainly to do with FF11's poor sales in Nihon. We have yet to see how well this game does here in the US...

[Jimmy Onestroke]

I would agree that what went on sounds like normal business practices.

The falling out of Squaresoft was due to the fact that they prefered the Playstation over the Nintendo 64, because of the storage qualities of CDs. As soon as they found out that Nintendo was using what Square considered to be outdated technology that would hinder their work, they left. It's kind of odd that they didn't think about joining Sega, although it turned out to be a smart business choice, at the time it must have seemed odd.

[Laguna]

That arguing stuff is good material for the magazines. No, I think it's just them going about their basic business practices. Squaresoft was trying somewhat new strategies, and whether they turn out to be a success or not will dictate their future strategies.

Perhaps FF11 will sell better in North America than Japan.

[battousai]

maybe... but in most cases, the sales in japan foreshadows the sales in North America

[Zuljin]

Usually yes, but then again online games never have become so very popular in Japan as in US or Europe.

[MasJ]

Hmm.. well, I don't think FF XI would be THAT popular incase you need a high bandwidth connection since we all know that a majority of FF fans still don't have broadband..
About Nintendo and Square fighting, well, there's nothing like that, they were probably going over the possibilities and maybe looking for a better solution.. so there !
Anyhow, an online FF still isn't THAT good of an idea, I mean, ragnarok couldn't ever get as many fans as FF (offline) did, and ragnarok was free!!

[EGGO]

True, and in a lot of ways, I dunno, it's just that after seeing stuff about FFXI, I dunno if it should even be called FFXI. Maybe something else, it'll be another Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within IMO.

[Christopher Time]

FFXI shouldn't be a FF no, I think it would have been smarter to have given it a different lable all together..
It looks to be an alright game.. But nothing i'm going to spend my money on.

[Magus]

Well, if there were server problems in Japan, the same will happen in the states as well. Why? Simple. Sony does not have a set up server run for all games like Microsoft will for the Xbox. Square has to provide the server themselves using the PS2 as a platform, not a provider. I do not think FFXI will sell very well here so the chance of a server crash is slim. My above statements only apply if the game sells very well. It is just too early for online gaming in my opinion. I think there is a market for it, but Sega proved with the Dreamcast that it is best to sit back and see what develops first. That is why I think Nintendo is making the smart decision by not fully embracing online gaming with the Cube. Maybe in five years or so when the next wave of consoles hit and more of the world has the internet, specifically broadband, online gaming will become commonplace. I think both markets should be treated differently though. I do not want to see developers just throwing online components in to a video game just because it is the "thing to do". It would cause for less detail in the game and more spent on developing online capabilities and that would really suck.

[Zuljin]

I'm not exactly for an online FF game either...but i wanna try it to see how it works etc. etc.
But it is right that if they put less work on gameplay and stuff like that and more on the online content the game will not be very good i think.........
And it's true not that many people have broadband to support online play in that scale.
I only have a 56k modem
Well not at the moment is sitting at a friends place with my computer and broadband
well back to the case.......i think the consoles should stay offline form the moment, as said earlier it should wait until the next wave of consoles hit us.
I'm no big console fan mostly because they're getting all the good games and the pc less and less........
note: only the new consoles.........not the classics

[Laguna]

Well, frankly, integrating online components into a game is the "next thing to do" and the next step, and I agree that Squaresoft might be progressing too quickly with such an integration. But without this online component, another Final Fantasy would just be another Final Fantasy. Due to the difference of this Final Fantasy from the traditional ones, I agree that it should not be called Final Fantasy XI. Furthermore, I agree that Final Fantasy XI probably will not sell very well - an online RPG just isn't "in style" yet.