PS2 Devkits: Are the Devs still keeping an eye out for more machinery?

From time to time, equipment still pops up on places like Ebay-

Example-

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Playstation-2-PS2-DEV-TOOL-Developer-Development-kit-/181852000067?hash=item2a57394f43:g:zM8AAOSw~gRV410u

Are they still actively attempting to acquire replacement equipment? At this point, $1000 seems a small price to pay to extend the life of the game- and outside of stuff like "Freshly Picked Vana'diel" I haven't seen mention of the hardware issues that are ending updates for the game.

A little public advertising in the right places might actually help.

This is a business. Not a bunch of hobbyists. They don't buy secondhand equipment from auction sites.

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Originally Posted by Zarchery

This is a business. Not a bunch of hobbyists. They don't buy secondhand equipment from auction sites.

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Considering there's no source for further replacements otherwise, secondhand is precisely how you get more equipment- odds are any previous replacements were sourced from now-defunct companies getting rid of used devkits they no longer used/bought from same going into liquidation from...you guessed it, auction sites.

Every usable piece acquired extends the lifespan of FFXI.

It is just a scapegoat man. This is a billion dollar company... you really think something silly such as PS2 devkits is holding them back? They have the capability to put this game on PC only but it would cost them much more than they are willing to invest. Sadly they want the game to be in this position as they feel the dev's would bring more revenue in through other projects.

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Originally Posted by Angemon

It is just a scapegoat man. This is a billion dollar company... you really think something silly such as PS2 devkits is holding them back? They have the capability to put this game on PC only but it would cost them much more than they are willing to invest. Sadly they want the game to be in this position as they feel the dev's would bring more revenue in through other projects.

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This, it's just another excuse they are using, and FFXI's devs love using the PS2 as a reason one way or another.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

Considering there's no source for further replacements otherwise, secondhand is precisely how you get more equipment- odds are any previous replacements were sourced from now-defunct companies getting rid of used devkits they no longer used/bought from same going into liquidation from...you guessed it, auction sites.

Every usable piece acquired extends the lifespan of FFXI.

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I don't think you understand. No major corporation is going to turn to ebay for development equipment. If ebay is the only option, then they don't get more development equipment. Especially considering it would probably cost much more to buy the equipment there than directly from another company with old units to get rid of.

Frankly, I believe the producer and his team want to keep FFXI going in any way possible, it's the bean counters that are getting in the way.

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Originally Posted by Angemon

It is just a scapegoat man. This is a billion dollar company... you really think something silly such as PS2 devkits is holding them back? They have the capability to put this game on PC only but it would cost them much more than they are willing to invest. Sadly they want the game to be in this position as they feel the dev's would bring more revenue in through other projects.

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It's not a scapegopat. PS2 devkits are absolutely the problem. They can go PC only but they can't develop new content unless they completely and properly port the ps2 game engine code over to native PC code. That would be a monumental undertaking and probably their remaning dev kits would fail before they could complete the task. The devs themselves said they've obtained many of the last few working dev kits. There are probably legal reasons why they can't or aren't buying the odd ps2 kit that shows up on ebay, partially because the people who have them aren't really supposed to have them in the first place.

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Every usable piece acquired extends the lifespan of FFXI.

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It would but are you content with the game simply being on life support and every new update depending on whether or not they can find another useable dev kit? It makes more sense to just stop updating it now, rather than say "we have this update in progress but we have no idea when we can get it to you because another devkit failed and we have to search ebay to find another one."

Eventually they will run out and if they haven't ported the game (properly) by that time, we'd still be SoL.

The best solution logistically would be a compatible remake that can use our existing character data. But that was ruled out as too expensive.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

Considering there's no source for further replacements otherwise, secondhand is precisely how you get more equipment- odds are any previous replacements were sourced from now-defunct companies getting rid of used devkits they no longer used/bought from same going into liquidation from...you guessed it, auction sites.

Every usable piece acquired extends the lifespan of FFXI.

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The link you posted is to exactly ONE development kit. Something tells me that occasionally finding one development kit here and there is not going to cut it for a working, multibillion dollar company.

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That is what I said. PS2 Devkit is just an excuse

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No, it's not just an excuse. It's a legitimate reason for SE's current predicament- A predicament they'd be in even if FFXIV never existed (though it could be argued that a remake would have been more likely otherwise).

You know what would be nice but will never happen?

/pipedream on

If once SE finally turns of the servers in a few years they make the final version of the ps2 coded xi open source to be coded over for free by coders somewhere like a sourceforge project with the normal requirements (can't profit from any of the code etcetc). I am 99.9% sure they would never do it but man it would be fun to dig into the code and see how close the communities calculations and assumptions were over the years lol. Not to mention being able to keep this game alive indefinitely.

/pipedream off