Square Enix Looking Into Final Fantasy XI Port For PlayStation Vita, But Not PS3

[Luso]

Your theory about the 720p HD requirement shutting down the chance for XI being on the PS3 is not true, because it was ported to the 360 and HD is also a requirement for that system. On my box for the 360 version of FFXI, it lists 720p/1080p as compatible HD options, not that they mean much. It's mostly just upscaling the resolution by my knowledge, not true anti-aliasing or HD.

The PS3 can do this, but the CPU is much more complex than the 360 to develop for, and, like the PS Vita, the 360 was the prime choice to port it over to because of the ease of development (and this was before Microsoft changed their Live ToA when SE attempted to develop XIV for it and didn't make a deal with them based on that change).

The PS3 is just too costly to develop for, and, without the PS2 compatibility option on recent consoles, we won't be seeing XI on it anytime soon.

[Atomic_Skull]

Your theory about the 720p HD requirement shutting down the chance for XI being on the PS3 is not true, because it was ported to the 360 and HD is also a requirement for that system.

He's talking about Sony's official policy that PS2 to PS3 ports must receive an HD graphics update. Any PS2 game ported to the PS3 must have improved graphics (as in higher detail models and textures) or Sony will not allow it. It doesn't have to be state of the art for a PS3 game but it does have to look significantly better than the PS2 original, and merely increasing the resolution isn't enough to meet Sony's standard.

[Luso]

I know that, but he said 720p HD was needed. That's all he said. If he was talking about a remake, then yeah, that's an issue there.

[StingRay104]

Your theory about the 720p HD requirement shutting down the chance for XI being on the PS3 is not true, because it was ported to the 360 and HD is also a requirement for that system. On my box for the 360 version of FFXI, it lists 720p/1080p as compatible HD options, not that they mean much. It's mostly just upscaling the resolution by my knowledge, not true anti-aliasing or HD.

The PS3 can do this, but the CPU is much more complex than the 360 to develop for, and, like the PS Vita, the 360 was the prime choice to port it over to because of the ease of development (and this was before Microsoft changed their Live ToA when SE attempted to develop XIV for it and didn't make a deal with them based on that change).

The PS3 is just too costly to develop for, and, without the PS2 compatibility option on recent consoles, we won't be seeing XI on it anytime soon.

My statement wasn't speculation it was fact. Sony had very strick policy at the time the talks about a PS3 port was goin about regarding games on the PS3. In turn they wanted games to have much better graphics and be full HD, example: Atlus makes a very popular series called Shin Megami Tensei Persona on the PS and PS2 (and now PSP), but people were expecting this series to go to the Wii because Atlus doesn't make enough from this series to put in all the graphical work that Sony would demand for a PS3 game. SE wasn't about to spend all the money at the time to upgrade this game to Sony's standards and thus the deal was delayed and eventually dropped due to Sony's lack of interest. Nowadays tho games with lower graphical content example Sengoku Basara are allowed to come out on the PS3. I have no clue what requirements Microsoft and Xbox have for games seeing as how Microsoft only cares about money and the Xbox was an extremely failed system (RRoD since launch and spanning most its life, nuff said). Thus if Sony truly entertains the idea of putting FFXI on the Vita, which seeing as it was a MMO designed for 56k modems would make it a more viable option with the 3g Vita, perhaps they will make some form of PS3 version also available. Btw I play FFXI on my backwards compatable PS3 so I get to see the games lower res features on my high res system.

[Luso]

Xbox 360 has had recent leading sales in the US right now, so it isn't failing at all.

Like I said, 720p HD isn't much to do when converting games, but a reworking isn't what I thought you meant by just stating that alone. It would've been nice, yes, to see better textures and actual anti-aliasing, but I doubt that'll happen unless the development team for XI grows a bit more in a number.

[Amperage]

He's talking about Sony's official policy that PS2 to PS3 ports must receive an HD graphics update. Any PS2 game ported to the PS3 must have improved graphics (as in higher detail models and textures) or Sony will not allow it. It doesn't have to be state of the art for a PS3 game but it does have to look significantly better than the PS2 original, and merely increasing the resolution isn't enough to meet Sony's standard.

A HD texture pack would go a long way towards updating the aging "look" of the game and honestly should have been included with the 360 release and avail as a download for PC. I wouldn't be surprised if SE has a complete high resolution texture set laying around they used as a source for the dumbed down version in the game. It's fairly typical for digital artists to start off with a high quality source then scale down to meet requirements. I don't see a problem with world geometry. The poly count is quite impressive considering how old the game is so I don't think much work would need done there. Just because PS2 is extremely limited on memory doesn't mean every other platform should suffer with low resolution textures.

FFXI engine has always supported HD resolutions, they just made an extremely fail PC config utility that makes it seem like 1024x1024 is max rendering resolution and doesn't allow you to set proper resolutions for rendering without manual registry edits.

[Atomic_Skull]

I wonder if the iPad and iPhone 4 could run FFXI? They both use the PowerVR SGX 535 which although it's not as powerful as the GPU used in the Vita is much more powerful than the PS2. Intel also uses SGX 535 on the Atom chipset (GMA 500 and GMA 600 integrated graphics are really Intel manufactured versions of SGX 535) and that is capable of playing WoW at decent framerates. If it could be done, and the details worked out it would open an absolutely huge market for new players.

Also, iPad 2 is about half as powerful as the Vita (same GPU but dual core instead of quad core) and that could definitely run an FFXI port.

The thing to remember here is that once a Vita port is done porting to other ARM/PowerVR platforms would be much easier.

EDIT: Seems that SGX 535 is a single core series 5 PowerVR GPU, compared to dual core on iPad 2 and quad core on Vita.

[Covenant]

I find the PS Vita FFXI idea very tempting. If the graphics would suffer and sound was decent quality I might buy a vita. I usedmto play on my laptop and it was okay. There are many mini-keyboard options out there

[Ravenmore]

Xbox 360 has had recent leading sales in the US right now, so it isn't failing at all.

Like I said, 720p HD isn't much to do when converting games, but a reworking isn't what I thought you meant by just stating that alone. It would've been nice, yes, to see better textures and actual anti-aliasing, but I doubt that'll happen unless the development team for XI grows a bit more in a number.

Last I heard its sells are crap in Japan, and other markets compared to the Ps3. Recent sales don't make up for the lose it took at release. When FFXI came out MS was trying anything and everything to move units.

[Luso]

It's been selling well enough in recent months, so I wouldn't say it's a lost cause. Most systems at launch typically have some ironing out to do, so it's not as if it wasn't expected to be a good sell (i.e. 3DS).

Microsoft doesn't do well in Japan excluding anything related to its OS, so the 360 was doomed to fail in that region. I only said what I said in regards to the US.

I don't think FFXI will suffer any form of graphical or performance drop, because the specs on that gizmo are pretty good for what it's worth.