Six reasons Final Fantasy Versus XIII is coming to Xbox 360

OXM UK: "Final Fantasy Versus XIII is coming to Xbox 360. Believe it. PlayStation's grasp on the glittering jewel of Japanese role-playing franchises has been gradually eroded over the past half-decade, with first Final Fantasy XIII then its sequel quietly exiting Sony's party. Versus XIII is supposedly the last bastion, the final defensive ring, but word on the ground says otherwise."

[stonecold3]

its ps3 excluisve good luck for a 360 port?

[waltyftm]

Well said.

[DatNJDom81]

I hope it doesn't go multiplat. If it does I won't buy it. FF13 took a hit in quality thanks to the 360. I wouldn't put it past square to actually make it multiplat though. If Versus goes multi, ill pass on that one too.

[Peaceful_Jelly]

Can't wait for FFvsXIII-2! \s

[DragonKnight]

1 reason to not believe a word of this "article"..

It's from Official Xbox Magazine.com

The likelihood of a 360 version is not 0% so I'm not going to rule it out personally. However, if a 360 version is released on or close to the release of the PS3 version, we will then know that it was once again THAT version that delayed the release of an FF game and exactly who to blame for it. Wada and MS' anti-competition clauses.

[DaTruth]

Maybe, but why don't we save the articles about it until they announce it!

Revenues are way down; what do we do!

I know, I'll take a popular game, write an inflammatory article about it, cause a flame-war for hits and problem solved!

Best thing is, I can write the exact same thing in 6 months again!

[Blacksand1]

That's the reason i don't buy FF13 because it went multiplat. If versus not a exclusive i'm not buying it. When the game is a Sony exclusive you can see the Power of the console.

[Sarcasm]

I belive the article only in the reason SE will make more money.

[boommuffin]

some ppl just take fanboyism too far

[bakasora]

Looks like $E is going piss off a lot of people AGAIN.

[Legion]

So funny at some of the comments here.... I won't buy it if they let others play with it too. Whaaaaaa....

[ApplEaglElephant]

that they are not getting any exclusives.

[Jamzluminati]

I thought this was real, then I saw the source website.

[ssb3173]

LOOOL same

[KingPin]

final fantasy 13 was also a ps3 exclusive, and then BOMBSHELL DROPPED at E3.

at this point i dont give a crap if it goes mulitplat, im not going to buy it either way.

they probably working on x360 version at the moment and will release both at the same time. thats why its taking forever to get released.

this could also be why we dont hear any news on it. instead its all ff13-2.

[Tanir]

difference is tetsuya nomura wants it to be ps3 only on this game, though in the end the president has the final say. but eitherway its built for the ps3 and will look, play and run best on the ps3 even if it was on the 360 with 4 discs in Sub hd

[Eu]

And it led to the WORST received FF since, well, forever....untill FFXIV anyway...

SE leting go of their userbase is what screwed FF name this gen...praticaly everyone that is interested in this game and have hopes for it is a PS3 owner. If it goes multi, and it end being another FFXIII screw up (I like the game by the way, just saying what the majority of the fanbase says), Wada is either geting a boot out or SE is going bankrupt this time over....lots of hopes going on this game....

[forevercloud3000]

While no one can deny the strong possibility that this game might go Multiplatform we all know if it is to be the best it can be it really shouldn't.

1.The Kotaku stated ad from SE for someone with PS3/360 experience is normal. Sony First party devs also hire ppl with 360 experience, that is nothing out of the ordinary. And if you look at the wording, it doesn't sound like they were really pushing that fact, if they were we would see them specify for it. It was more like a "We need someone with PS3 exp but we will settle for 360".

2. The game is being designed as a PS3 exclusive as far as Tetsuya is concerned. You can tote the "fantasy" that going mp won't change the game and will boost sales but you would be wrong. We all know of the multiple disc debacle for 360 and how the idea of a game being on both HD consoles keeps them from having MORE content on disc. We have heard of MS's anti competition clauses that impede games(FFXIII,RAGE,LA Noire,Battlefield) and from what we know this game is asking, 360 will assuredly crush it. As for sales, explain to me why FFXIII sold less on a 2console base than previous on one? Because the userbase doesn't matter when the FANBASE lies elsewhere, (see Monsterhunter on Wii in comparison to PSP, or Star Ocean on 360). If FF Versus XIII is to release as an exclusive, it will sell just as well if not better than FFXIII Multiplat on PS3 alone because the FF fanbase resonates with Playstation and it has for decades.

Things that point out of Exclusive's favor...
1.Yoichi Wada: the bane of Square Enix's existance. He has ruined them at every turn and rushed key products before they were ready, effectively sending them to die. Not to mention allowed rediculously long dev times without regular updates due to him spreading SE so thin. It will be his money grubbing say that makes Versus go Multi

2.Microsoft's ultimate goal is to destroy the PS brand name sake. The more games they brought to 360 that were originally exclusive, the more they tarnish the PS name later on. They would pay immeasurable money for this.

3.Super quiet on Versus front. No new trailer in a year, which the last wasn't really all that new to begin with. If anyone remembers correctly, FFXIII got quiet right around the time MS was handing SE that check to make it MP and they pretended as if it was a new development but it had been started already, anyone with common sense can see.

4. Third Party complete abandonment as exclusive game creators(without monetary consent). Gaming has finally become one step closer to the movie industry, soulless.

We will all just have to wait and see what happens nxt from here.

[Reibooi]

What Tanir brings up is something key to this whole debate. Nomura want's the game on PS3 and PS3 only. He is building the game around the PS3 and taking every advantage of said platform. The thing here is that even if Wada has the final say he would be a absolute idiot to demand a multi plat release from Nomura. Nomura is arguably the only TRUE talent left in SE and they cannot risk pissing him off and having him leave and something like making him gimp his masterpiece he has been working on for so long would likely do just that.

360 fanboys need to realize that the 360 DID in fact negatively impact FFXIII. Those who played the Japanese Advent Children Demo will know this. The games Graphics took a massive hit and the 360 version of the game was sub HD and had extremely compressed and tinny Audio. The 360 basically changed what FFXIII was intended to be. Would the game have been great had it stayed PS3 exclusive? No it was clear it had it's issue regardless of platform(although I still enjoyed it) But it would have been a much more solid and much more polished game(again the Advent Children demo confirms as much)

Nomura is pushing the PS3 to it's limits with 360. From the small amount of in game footage we have seen we can tell that graphically it's miles ahead of XIII and if XIII took a hit from going to the 360 then VS certainly would be destroyed by doing such. On top of the fact that the PS3 version of FFXIII outsold the 360 version by like 3 to 1 with almost no advertising. It's clear where the market for the game will be and making the best game they can make instead of gimping it with a MP release is the right way to go. If Wada can't see that he is a moron(which we all know is the case anyway)

[narutogameking]

They are not working on a 360 version. Nomura confirmed months ago that the game is being developed exclusively for the PS3. He said that if a 360 version is released it would be a port.

[Redempteur]

LOL Versus 13 is using LUMINOUS engine assets for environnement lightining ..

THAT alone show that a 360 version can't be done ATM

[baodeus]

@forevercloud3000

"explain to me why FFXIII sold less on a 2console base than previous on one? Because the userbase doesn't matter when the FANBASE lies elsewhere"

ahh...it is a multiplatform game and IF fanbase resonate with ps3 only, well they can still get it. If it is on x360 only then i can see the point, but it isn't.

".Microsoft's ultimate goal is to destroy the PS brand name sake. The more games they brought to 360 that were originally exclusive, the more they tarnish the PS name later on"

1. ah...do u know anything about business and competition? Do u think Sony doesn't want to bring as many games as possible to their console? Same with MS.

2. Developers going multiplatform because of money. The more the better. If Sony is dominant like they used to be "70-80% market share", then 3rd party staying exclusives might be a good idea, but they aren't. What is Sony gaming market share right now?

3. Give me one good reason why 3rd party developers should stay exclusives if they want to make more money?

[gamingdroid]

The fact that FF XIII was released on Xbox 360, makes it almost that more certain that any other game is going to be multi-platform.

SE would almost be stupid not to release it on the Xbox 360. It's just business 101.

[forevercloud3000]

@baodues

I am not saying whether MS's tactics are right or wrong, was just saying that is what they are trying to do, simple fact.

And as far as MP goes there is not a single MP game that existed before this gen as an exclusive that all of a sudden sells more as a MP game. They sell just about the same ore LESS! I am simply saying the idea that a game needs to sell on as many consoles as possible in order to get sales period is false propaganda brought in by MS because they wanted what the 3rd parties were offering Sony exclusively. That is why MGS4 sold just as much as older MGS games on PS3(40million) as they did on Ps2(140million). This proves its not about how many a console's userbase has, its about where the "fanbase" of that particular game is.

Best believe if FFXIII was exclusive, all 6mill sold would have been on PS3, because that is where the fanbase lies. This gen has lost the strongest reasoning to buying all consoles, the exclusives(that utilize the hardware to the fullest). Now many just went for the cheapest...

[gamingdroid]

***This proves its not about how many a console's userbase has, its about where the "fanbase" of that particular game is.***

So basically your claim boils down to:

a) games are only bought by fans

b) having a bigger user base doesn't help sales

Whatever you do for a living, I sure hope it isn't business management!

[Noctis Aftermath]

I hope it stays exclusive, any games after it can be multiplat as this has always been advertised as PS3 exclusive, even after the FFXIII debacle everyone was(and still) told that versus will remain exclusive, it will only make SCEJ look extremely incompetent.

And no, exclusive in japan does not = exclusive, exclusive worldwide and not for a limited time either.

[Kurt Russell]

I don't care... Final Fantasy has been on a downward slope longer than this console generation.

[Jappy-k7]

if it's true why not...Sony does not own Square Enix nor the FF franchise

[Disccordia]

They own around 10%

[Malice-Flare]

we only need one reason that counts: Wada...

[MariaHelFutura]

I don't care what anyone says I'm still hype for this game. It had/has a small team working on it, it seems small studios that take a while crank out gems like team ico, pd, incognito as a few examples.

[ash_divine]

Exactly. I mean, I sorta like the idea of it being exclusive. But it definitely wouldn't phase me if it went multi.

I think the fear stems from people blaming the 360 for XIII's shortcomings. But in reality, XIII would have had the same story, gameplay, characters, etc. whether exclusive or not.

[Crystallis]

What I think will happen is that it will be a launch ps3 exlcusive, then 6 momths later be a port for the 360. Wada might want to see how well the game does on the market before deciding on a port for the 360.

[Megaton]

Yoichi Wada loves money. Microsoft loves giving him money. Versus 13 will be multiplat.

[Prophet-Gamer]

I don't know man, the thing is, MS is really focused on Kinect right now and they don't seem to care about anything else. It's not like when they got FFXIII to go multiplat, back then they were trying to do everything the could to slow down SONY, right now, MS has completely changed their identity. They got FFXIII because they wanted to penetrate the Japanese market, but that's no longer their goal as it's clear that the Japanese don't want them. It's all about Kinect now which is good for business, but bad for us gamers.

Then again, we won't know till the game comes out and who even knows if it's gonna come out at all, lol.

[Gamer3000]

i don't care if the game went to xbox as well
good let every one play

but as long the ps3 version have every thing and nothing cut from it or gimped down then i'm good

they can make it on 6 dvd's on xbox
i don't care

[forevercloud3000]

You can't have both. If a game has to work with the lowest common denominator(last gen it was PS2,this gen its 360) then it only is as good as that console allows. PS3 offers things 360 can't compete with, the most indisputable of them all is BluRay. It has more than 3x the space allowing more content per game. It cost devs money to release a game on multiple discs and MS has clauses that severely punished devs that abused the Multiple discs. This means that they would go with only what was necessary and not everything they wanted.

[Gamer-Z]

@Gamer3000

It would be great if it went to the Xbox360 without damaging the game but because of the X360's disc limitations a lot of content would have to be cut out and dumbed down thanks to Microsofts Multiplat policies. SE themselves said in an interview that they had to cut out so much content from FFXIII that they could have made another game with it and they did - Final Fantasy XIII-2. Basically they took the left overs from FFXIII and made it into another game, that explains why development time for FFXIII -2 was so fast.

[zeddy]

i wouldnt mind this if they didnt have to nerf the 360 version due to storage plus we've been waiting ages for this, how long will it take to port and seperate everything onto 3 disks? this will be the end of square enix as we know it.

[Prophet-Gamer]

1 Reason it probably won't: Nomura. The guy has always been stubborn about keeping it on PS3, and I'm pretty SE wouldn't want to anger him. Besides, SE has pissed off their audience (especially the Japanese crowd) enough as is, even though they may get 1 million units from the 360 version, it wouldn't make sense. They'd just piss everyone off and probably loose out on sales that people will boycott.

[geddesmond]

I love the part about Sony won't pay for the exclusive. For starters what these people obviously don't know is that Sony owns 10% shares in the Square Enix company.

Both companies are Japanese and both companies have a good friendship.

They don't know what conversations these two companies have together. For all we know a deal has already been put into place. Sony could have said look yous owe us such and such from our shares in your company so give us exclusivity on FFV13 and we'll call it quit.

I mean deals like this are made everyday in the world. How many third party developers could have gone multiplat with an exclusive which would open it up to more sales but they chose to stay exclusive.

Also FFV13 is a long time in development. Sony could have had a contract that was writen at the start of this generation.

This is the MGS4 is coming to Xbox shit happening all over again.

[Gamer1982]

Indeed it will get a port maybe at a later date and well we all know ports never sell as well as the original especially RPGS Star Ocean 4 was proof of that.

[derek]

One way or the other the ridiculous amount of development time has killed any anticipation i had for the game. If they were to announce that versus was no longer in development i wouldnot even care, squares foot dragging has killed it reputation this gen.

[Foliage]

Learn to read Legion. People are stating that they will not buy it if it goes multi-plat, since judging from FF13, Square is more than willing to gimp the PS3 version to cater to the weaker 360 console. Although the 360 version still came out much worse, they have gone on record stating many times that they removed features from the game, because it would not fit in the 360 version.

P.S. Is your username "legion", hinting at Mass Effect? I played ME2 on the PS3, and it was a great game. There were some weak areas, but I'm glad multi-plat titles exist. I'm not glad that companies like Microsoft take multi-plat titles and dump millions on them to keep them exclusive for 1 year. It does nothing to aid the industry. Not to mention their horrid business practices of forcing devs to agree to terms that would see other consoles get gimped, because Microsoft happens to have a terrible hardware setup in their 360.

[Ezio2048]

i wanted to read the article but the moment i laid my eyes on the website.....>_>

[refocusedman]

Lol I can give u six reasons why no one cares anymore. How abt we start with ff13 or 14

[Tanir]

you obviously dont know what FF Versus is then if you are disregarding Versus just on an mmo and one fail FF game.

creator is Tetsuya Nomura, Creator of Kingdom hearts and world ends with you.

Open world, vehicles, airships, Kingdom hearts style gameplay, swap characters on fly, main character has multiple weapon types, teleports at will, blood, battle transitions, interactive enviroments, real time weather etc etc. the game is a beast

[Voxelman]

He didn't create The World Ends With You that was Tatsuya Kando, Nomura just did some character design.

[Wizziokid]

that's a shame I was going to buy it, after the whole FF13 flop I lost hope in the franchise

[tiffac008]

Knowing Wada and the delays upon delays his dev shuffling has caused this game. SE needs all the sales they can to make a profit and nothing beats an FF multiplat to make your investors fat wallet happy.

Here is the translated SE job hiring link that Kotaku is linking btw:

http://translate.google.com...

[MaideninBlack]

You know what's more annoying is the fact that 5 years later SE still is trying to hire ppl to work on this game.

[zerocrossing]

I would find it incredibly ironic if the the FF game franchise that saved Square from bankruptcy ended up being the cause of Square Enix's downfall, If that does happen they really have no one to blame but themselves... well mostly Wada.

[zerocrossing]

"@zerocrossing

I don't think FF will cause SE's downfall. We gamers are a forgiving bunch when it comes to our beloved titles."

Yeah I guess that's true. I really doubt Square Enix will be going anywhere, I just thought it would be very ironic since the game franchise that spurd Squares success is really giving them a lot of agro lately.

[modesign]

also, "who cares", this game would of been relevant if it launched with FFXII, but years later people will say "really" by the time it launches we will be playing FFXX. Versus is the new Duke nukem.

[Ron_Danger]

So how many of these websites that write these articles are going to write another article in the future admitting that they were wrong when FFvs13 comes out only on PS3?

Also... Any one else remember 2 years ago when Naughty Dog posted a job listing for someone with PS3 & 360 experience and that article shot up to like 1300 degrees in 10 minutes?

[Micro_Sony]

ND is a first party studio? Why would anyone expect a 360 game from them?

[EVO-OM3GA]

Man anytime there is a FF or Square article its always the same negative comments, too many cry babies.

Why cant anyone just wait for an Official announcement instead of all of this opinions and rumors making them get all upset.

FF13vs is still a PS3 exclusive until its announced otherwise stop your crying

[dafada]

thank you!........this article IS NOT THE OFFICIAL WORD......its just some random dude from an xbox site using kotaku information ......,really!?

[Quagmire]

I dont care if it does or doesnt to be honest. My anticipation for this game ran dry years ago.

I just dont care about Final Fantasy anymore.

[Deadman_Senji]

You're only one person. A lot of people still give a shit.

This isn't a typical "square" game. It's a nomura game. I don't think his soul is up for grabs. If it was he would have cashed in a long time ago and wouldn't even care to take as much time with Versus as he is.

Nothing's going to make him cave. These articles full of denial and spite are just going to have to fall on deaf ears.

[MysticStrummer]

He's only one person and so am I. All the gamers I personally know are each only one person, and none of them are interested in FF anymore.

[jacksonmichael]

I don't feel like caring about Versus XIII counts as caring about Final Fantasy. I think it counts as caring a lot about Kingdom Hearts.

[ignorantsonsof_]

Definitely, the fact that the gameplay was going to be similar to kingdom hearts is what interested me the most about this game.

[Arnagrim]

Didn't they already say they weren't using Crystal Tools as their Engine for Versus XIII?
http://andriasang.com/comy9...

[dirigiblebill]

Crystal Tools is a company-wide 3D toolset. Do you really think they started from scratch with the Versus engine? That's pretty terrible economics.

[dafada]

i think they are using a new different action oriented engine for vs13 thats why its taking so long......new engine built around the ps3 strenghts not the multiplat crystal tools engine

[LightSamus]

I don't care what console it's on, I just want the best game possible. If you can deliver a great game on multiple platforms, great. If it has to be PS3 exclusive to get the most out of it, so be it.

[Shojin1]

6 reasons... I can give you 1 = $$$$.$$

[zeddy]

if they announce this at e3 2012 they will get boo'd at for sure.

[Fanbot]

no way, it should come out in 15 discs. also, it's optimized for PS3 hardware.