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Renoistic posted:Siliconera posted some FFV and V sketches made by Nomura at the time. They look so 90s I almost got sentimental. http://www.siliconera.com/2013/10/28/rare-tetsuya-nomura-art-sketches-final-fantasy-vi-era-unearthed/ Hmm, so even back then, he gave everybody the same face. Interesting.
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Oct 29, 2013 02:46
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dis astranagant posted:If your first film is a massive failure despite bringing in $85 million at the box office you set your sights way, way too high. I would say it's a safe bet it wasn't anywhere near profitable considering technology to animate and mo-cap back in the day it was made.
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Oct 29, 2013 05:27
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It had at least a $130 million dollar budget and didn't even make $40 million domestically. It was a bomb in every single sense of the word.
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Oct 29, 2013 05:28
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Mega64 posted:On the other hand, while Nomura's FFVI sketches are kinda meh, I like his FFV sketches. Amano and FFVI go well together. They've both got a very particular and very specific aesthetic to them. FFV? It has many things you could say about it that are positive, but a unique and distinctive art style is not one of them. Nomura, meanwhile, designed the most generic-looking guy in FFVI (Shadow) so it's not really a surprise that his art style is more suited to a game full of generic guys.
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Oct 29, 2013 06:13
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ImpAtom posted:It had at least a $130 million dollar budget and didn't even make $40 million domestically. It was a bomb in every single sense of the word. It more or less started a whole class of retardedly overbudget CGI movies going broke over otherwise decent box office takes. Hardly any movies make the kind of money a $100+ million budget needs to be worth making.
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Oct 29, 2013 09:29
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Someone took the horribly unfunny The Big Bang Theory and replaced its laugh track with the equally horrid laughter of Tidus in FFX. It works really well.
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Oct 29, 2013 18:13
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Hedera Helix posted:Hmm, so even back then, he gave everybody the same face. Interesting. I mean, it didn't matter then, cause they were all gonna be compressed into tiny sprites anyway. I'm always struck by how similar JRPG concept sketches look to, i dunno, an unusually talented 14-year-old's JRPG fanart:  Robo and Magus have so much god drat spikes on them
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Oct 29, 2013 21:47
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Robo looks exactly like the Mammon machine. 
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Oct 29, 2013 21:51
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Krad posted:Robo looks exactly like the Mammon machine.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:01
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Yup that's 90s fantasy anime character designs right there.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:02
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Krad posted:Robo looks exactly like the Mammon machine. Wait... that's Chrono Trigger?!?!  Wow I didn't recognize that at all. Hah, Lucca looks like Marvin from Sailor Moon (was that his name? Oh god why did I remember that  )Magus has some kinda Sephiroth thing going on. (End result looked more like Vegeta  lol Akira Toriyama)
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Oct 29, 2013 22:28
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swamp waste posted:Robo and Magus have so much god drat spikes on them Is... is the weird old man on the far right supposed to be Frog? I can't think of who else it could be, but even that really doesn't fit.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:41
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Dragonatrix posted:Is... is the weird old man on the far right supposed to be Frog? Since this is concept art there's good odds on the art predating Frog.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:42
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Dragonatrix posted:Is... is the weird old man on the far right supposed to be Frog? Better money's on one of the three Gurus- Gaspar, Belthasar, or Melchior, if that character survived in any form at all.
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Oct 29, 2013 23:08
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Frog is almost invisible in front of Robo - according to the blurb at the bottom, this was before he was Frog, and was instead Beastman. I'm pretty sure the label on the far right old guy just says "sage".
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Oct 30, 2013 16:56
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OXM Interview posted:Square Enix has "discussed" letting Eidos work on Final Fantasy - could be "very interesting" http://www.oxm.co.uk/65029/square-enix-has-discussed-letting-eidos-work-on-final-fantasy-could-be-very-interesting/ The idea isn't anything new. SE previously worked with the now defunct GRIN on a FFXII spin off before cancelling development. Going further back, Parasite Eve and Final Fantasy IX were collaborative efforts with developers in America. While I'd like the bulk of the development to stay in Japan, I think working alongside Western studios would help in creating game that appeals to multiple regions. In more practical terms, the development costs would be higher if the grunt work was done in America/Canada as opposed to Japan. Early testing by Western studio could help identify issues that affected the development and reception of the previous games. The Luminous Engine had input from Crystal Dynamics since their previous engine suffered from being tailored to one particular style of game.
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Oct 30, 2013 19:24
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Sunning posted:Possible Eidos involvement with future FF games Come on Deus Ex/Final Fantasy hybrid. "What did you do to me?" "We've augmented you with the crystal's power. No longer are you a freelancer, you can change to any job you need." "I never ... for this" Also count me as one of those people still disappointed Grin's FF12 spin off never got very far. I absolutely would have loved to wander around Cold-War Ivalice and you know maybe play two games in the setting that shared some coherent and connected locales, time period, culture, and you know pretty much anything but spell names.
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Oct 30, 2013 19:35
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Barudak posted:Also count me as one of those people still disappointed Grin's FF12 spin off never got very far. I absolutely would have loved to wander around Cold-War Ivalice and you know maybe play two games in the setting that shared some coherent and connected locales, time period, culture, and you know pretty much anything but spell names. FFX-2 not good enough for you? 
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Oct 30, 2013 19:43
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:FFX-2 not good enough for you? Yeah I totally blanked on FFXII: Revenant Wings. Whatever, not a good game so I don't feel bad skipping it from my criticisms. X-2 was great though. Best FF sequel.
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Oct 30, 2013 19:45
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Sunning posted:While I'd like the bulk of the development to stay in Japan Why? SE can't produce AAA games on any reasonable time scale, if anything the bulk of development should stay in the United States with art/story management/direction coming from Japan. Leave all the project management and execution for the USA side please.
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Oct 30, 2013 19:52
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Sunning posted:http://www.oxm.co.uk/65029/square-enix-has-discussed-letting-eidos-work-on-final-fantasy-could-be-very-interesting/ I wonder when the Luminous Engine is going to be finished? We saw a tech demo at E3 last year, but apparently XV still hasn't shifted entirely to it, and is still using the part Luminous (for lighting), part middleware, and part bespoke engine from the PS3 version. This could mean that the final game could absolutely blow away what's already been shown of the PS4/X1 version, but also that it's still nowhere near finished. A Western Final Fantasy in the meantime would be appreciated, though. SE really need to use the talent at Eidos for more than just propping up the financial failings of their Japanese studios. Getting their help for designing their new engine is a great start, though.
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Oct 30, 2013 20:04
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Sunning posted:Going further back, Parasite Eve and Final Fantasy IX were collaborative efforts with developers in America. Wait what? What happened here?
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Oct 30, 2013 20:25
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Arbite posted:Wait what? What happened here? A bunch of work on FFIX was done by the Hawaii office before it was shuttered*. *If my memory servers
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Oct 30, 2013 20:26
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Arbite posted:Wait what? What happened here? Yeah, a lot of the work was done in Hawaii. If memory serves, Secret of Evermore was made at some Western branch of Square before it, too, was shuttered after one game.
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Oct 30, 2013 20:27
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1st AD posted:Why? SE can't produce AAA games on any reasonable time scale, if anything the bulk of development should stay in the United States with art/story management/direction coming from Japan. Almost all of SE's of big budget games have problems from both sides of the map. Thief 4 was stuck in development hell and rebooted several times. Tomb Raider/Hitman/Kane and Lynch failed to meet expectations due to their high costs of development. The new Legacy of Kain game was cancelled late into development and rebooted as a F2P multiplayer game. These big budget games take so long to make that the market and company's needs will have changed dramatically by their time of release. Even a well-disciplined team can falter when budgets and team sizes balloon past their comfort zone. While their Western studios get games out at a steadier pace, they still suffer from management issues and high costs of development. A Final Fantasy game developed by Eidos could run into same issues as their previous AAA games while being a much more expensive game than what it would be if developed domestically. In spite of its lengthy development, a Realm Reborn shows that a focused core Japanese team under a well-rounded designer can create a globally minded game with the subsystems typical of their Japanese games. Of course, this is assuming Square-Enix has the moxie to pursuit as opposed to some PR Talk. FFXII was probably the closest they got to pulling this off and that took four years and $40 million to make on the PS2. That loving Sned posted:I wonder when the Luminous Engine is going to be finished? We saw a tech demo at E3 last year, but apparently XV still hasn't shifted entirely to it, and is still using the part Luminous (for lighting), part middleware, and part bespoke engine from the PS3 version. This could mean that the final game could absolutely blow away what's already been shown of the PS4/X1 version, but also that it's still nowhere near finished. The engine was still a work in progress when last shown since the toolset focused running a typical Final Fanatasy CGI in real time as oppose being optimized for game development. That's why you had toes rendered in shoes. The initial plan was to leverage the strength of the Visualworks CGI studio in creating game assets. Crystal Dynamics was involved in the development on Luminous Studios right from the very beginning. However, I think one of the leads on the Luminous development team was recently poached by Kojima Productions to work on the Fox Engine. Arbite posted:Wait what? What happened here? You can read about some of their contributions here and at the links at the bottom.
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Oct 30, 2013 21:10
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I'd kill for a Final Fantasy developed by Eidos. I've mentioned before on this thread that I'm fascinated with Western developers making Japanese-styled RPGs and Eidos taking on a Final Fantasy would be at least interesting.
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Oct 30, 2013 21:46
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Eidos handled the PC ports of FF7 and FF8, so I could see Square trusting them. That said, they weren't the best ports  but that was a different time.Apparently FF8 is being remastered in HD for PC?! I didn't hear about that. Huuh.
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Oct 30, 2013 22:39
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The PC port of FF7 is pretty bad. Would it have been so hard to make stick controls not suck? Or was it just a case of packaging the PS1 disc image to run in Windows and that's it?
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Oct 30, 2013 23:10
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What was that outsourced Final Fantasy game where Square kept making unreasonable demands to the studio? I remember reading that they eventually got so fed up they sent screenshots back to Square that were actually from a previous Final Fantasy instead of what they were working. The response from Square was still "this doesn't look like it belongs in a Final Fantasy". What I'm saying there might be a reason why there's a bunch of co-development projects that never made it. BioMe fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Oct 31, 2013 |
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Oct 30, 2013 23:39
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BioMe posted:What was that outsourced Final Fantasy game where Square made kept making unreasonable demands to the studio? I remember reading that they eventually got so fed up they sent screenshots back to Square that were actually from a previous Final Fantasy instead of what they were working. The response from Square was still "this doesn't look like it belongs in a Final Fantasy". Thats Grin's FF12 spin-off game. It was I believe going to be an open-world title and the few design documents we have would place it after FF12 with Ashe as queen but still alive and a little aged.
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Oct 30, 2013 23:44
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1st AD posted:Why? SE can't produce AAA games on any reasonable time scale, if anything the bulk of development should stay in the United States with art/story management/direction coming from Japan. There honestly needs to be a game done this way at least once. The guys in Japan can write up their crazyass story for the game and then let Eidos build the game with it as reference material. Deus Ex Crystalis: Final Fantasy 16 Schwartzcough posted:Yeah, a lot of the work was done in Hawaii. If memory serves, Secret of Evermore was made at some Western branch of Square before it, too, was shuttered after one game. I really wish Secret of Evermore would've been the dark game it looked like it was originally going to be. The game just had some really odd and out of place goofiness to it.
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Oct 31, 2013 01:09
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Once again, Deus Ex predicts the future: Eidos doing a Final Fantasy game would be pretty awesome. I want to imagine it being like Anachronox but with an ending.
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Oct 31, 2013 01:53
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Armor-Piercing posted:Once again, Deus Ex predicts the future: I look forward to the future adventures of [Insert Meteorological-themed Name Here] and co. But the question is, will it be the best/worst FF in the series? 
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Oct 31, 2013 02:12
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Sunning posted:Almost all of SE's of big budget games have problems from both sides of the map. Thief 4 was stuck in development hell and rebooted several times. Tomb Raider/Hitman/Kane and Lynch failed to meet expectations due to their high costs of development. The new Legacy of Kain game was cancelled late into development and rebooted as a F2P multiplayer game. These big budget games take so long to make that the market and company's needs will have changed dramatically by their time of release. Even a well-disciplined team can falter when budgets and team sizes balloon past their comfort zone. Tomb Raider didn't fail to meet expectations due to high development costs, they failed to meet expectations because the sales expectations for Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Sleeping Dogs were "make up for all the money the Japanese branch is losing on FF13 and 14," and so in typical fashion, rather than say "we lost money because the Japanese studios are a sucking chest wound" it was "we lost money because Eidos didn't meet our ridiculous expectations." It's not Eidos' fault that their high-quality games that were received well both critically and financially can't prop up Square-Enix from failing. Also, speaking of sales figures and S-E being hilariously inept, the company doesn't factor digital downloads into their "meeting sales figures" goals. The best part of that is that the PC version of Sleeping Dogs is digital download only.
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Oct 31, 2013 02:14
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Yeah, SE was expecting Tomb Raider to be among the fastest-selling games ever, and apparently that was a "conservative estimate" compared to their internal expectations. That sort of estimate, especially for a game that does not have a huge established base of rabid fans (like Halo or GTA or Call of Duty) is stupid and also dumb. I don't think the cost of making the game had anything to do with it.
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Oct 31, 2013 02:21
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Defiance Industries posted:Tomb Raider didn't fail to meet expectations due to high development costs, they failed to meet expectations because the sales expectations for Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Sleeping Dogs were "make up for all the money the Japanese branch is losing on FF13 and 14," and so in typical fashion, rather than say "we lost money because the Japanese studios are a sucking chest wound" it was "we lost money because Eidos didn't meet our ridiculous expectations." It's not Eidos' fault that their high-quality games that were received well both critically and financially can't prop up Square-Enix from failing. Tomb Raider was in development for four years, received an extensive marketing campaign with a Visualworks trailer, involved hundreds of people, and had multiple development teams working on it. If it wasn't going to hit multi-million sales out of the gate, then SE was stupid to have continued to develop such an expensive game after their acquisition in the first place. It costs a lot of money to have hundreds of people work on a game for several years. People have this narrative about SE Japanese studios being a money vortex while Eidos is some gold mine keeping the company afloat. However, Eidos got the resources to make their games because SE bet big on these games becoming huge hits. This came at the expense of their Japanese development when $55 million/4.5 billion yen worth of games were cancelled in Japan in 2011. During this time, they bulked up the headcount at Eidos for Thief and other games. They spent a lot of money on their Eidos games and made lavish CGI trailers for them. They thought AAA games in North America/Europe would grow to counteract the contraction in the Japanese console market. The company tried to compete with the big four publishers + Bethesda but failed to duplicate their success since the failure threshold for AAA games is so high. They realized their focus on packaged goods for consoles was a bust and have now shifted their focus on mobile gaming. Most of their money comes from intensive cost cutting measures in Japan (now in Eidos as well) and the growth in their mobile division.
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Oct 31, 2013 03:21
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But they did have multi-million sales right out of the gate. They were good, polished games, but if they sunk so much money into them that selling 3.5 million units in the first month is a huge failure then, once again, their structure and production methods are deeply flawed. The difference in production quality between Eidos games and other Western games isn't so vast that there should be this weird huge expectations (or spending) gap. You don't see other publishers crying big salty tears and pointing fingers at development houses for games that "only" sell 3.5 million units in a month.
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Oct 31, 2013 03:52
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All those games DID become multimillion sellers, though. Even Sleeping Dogs moved like 2m. Tomb Raider sold over a million in 24 hours, something like 7m in the first couple months. E:f;b anyway Eidos' games were like the only thing that made a profit that year and S-E pointed fingers at them for not making enough money to put them in the black. Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Oct 31, 2013 |
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Oct 31, 2013 03:54
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Maybe SE will now try to copy Rockstar, since they sold something like 25m copies of GTAV. Can't wait for GTA: Midgar: Lightning Strikes Twice.
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Oct 31, 2013 15:33
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Schwartzcough posted:But they did have multi-million sales right out of the gate. They were good, polished games, but if they sunk so much money into them that selling 3.5 million units in the first month is a huge failure then, once again, their structure and production methods are deeply flawed. The difference in production quality between Eidos games and other Western games isn't so vast that there should be this weird huge expectations (or spending) gap. You don't see other publishers crying big salty tears and pointing fingers at development houses for games that "only" sell 3.5 million units in a month. Defiance Industries posted:All those games DID become multimillion sellers, though. Even Sleeping Dogs moved like 2m. Tomb Raider sold over a million in 24 hours, something like 7m in the first couple months. Square-Enix utilizes price protection in order to ship more copies to retailers. Price protection is an agreement between the publisher and the retailer (in North America and Europe) about how the latter would be compensated if the game in question underperforms. The retailer will order more copies of the game under this agreement. In exchange, the retailer will be compensated for quick price cuts that are needed to move inventory. Square-Enix has repeatedly said they lost money on poor upfront sales and price protection:  This is a common issue for publishers who publish AAA games. For example, a game that ships millions of copies may not make much of a profit for the publisher since price protection required them to reimburse retailers. Some publishers, such as Nintendo, do not engage in this but many others do in order to ship a lot of copies to stores. It's how several publishers tout how many copies they've shipped when they actually lost a lot of money on price protection due to poor sales performance. This is why SE is pulling out of packaged good and AAA game development. We'll see sequels to Tomb Raider and Hitman. However, we saw that the company cancelled several projects at Eidos due to poor sales. The cost of competing with Ubisoft/EA/Take2/Acti-Blizzard is extremely high. For example, Watchdogs, a new IP by Ubisoft, was slated to sell over 6 million copies and its delay was a major factor in Ubisoft going from a profitable year to a loss. Back in 2012, Max Payne 3 underperformed expectations in spite of shipping 3 million copies out of the gate because of price protection and high development costs. It takes a lot of money to compete in the AAA market beyond just throwing a lot of money at game development.
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Oct 31, 2013 15:43
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