What was the reason given for closing console versions of ffxi?

[Alhanelem]

I know they are stopping updates, that doesn't warrant closure of console versions however. Was a specific reason given?

Lack of available working development tools.

This also affects the PC version and what kind of updates they can deliver.

The devs have explicitly said that that the supply of PS2 development hardware (the base platform on which the game was developed before it gets ported out to the other platforms) is dwindling, and they have some of the last functioning PS2 dev kits in existence. When those fail, they're hosed, so they want to wind things down before they end up promising more things they can't deliver.

Any console player can find a PC for probably less than what they originally paid for an xbox 360 or ps2 and it will run the game just fine, and you can use your existing account with the platform since the'yre making the client software freely available.

On top of that, the hard drives in PS2s are getting very old and many that aren't already could be on the brink of failiure.

[Seillan]

Lack of available working development tools.

This also affects the PC version and what kind of updates they can deliver.

The devs have explicitly said that that the supply of PS2 development hardware (the base platform on which the game was developed before it gets ported out to the other platforms) is dwindling, and they have some of the last functioning PS2 dev kits in existence. When those fail, they're hosed, so they want to wind things down before they end up promising more things they can't deliver.

Any console player can find a PC for probably less than what they originally paid for an xbox 360 or ps2 and it will run the game just fine, and you can use your existing account with the platform since the'yre making the client software freely available.

On top of that, the hard drives in PS2s are getting very old and many that aren't already could be on the brink of failiure.

He/she was asking why console support is being ended despite the development stopping -- not why the content development itself is stopping. Reasons have already been given but seeing as how SE never gave a definitive answer on that topic (unless I missed it), it's mainly just speculation. You'd think they would have came out and said it was due to xbox live and PS2 support being ended by their respective companies, rather than take the blame themselves, but the business world often works in mysterious ways so who knows.

[Isal]

He/she was asking why console support is being ended despite the development stopping -- not why the content development itself is stopping. Reasons have already been given but seeing as how SE never gave a definitive answer on that topic (unless I missed it), it's mainly just speculation. You'd think they would have came out and said it was due to xbox live and PS2 support being ended by their respective companies, rather than take the blame themselves, but the business world often works in mysterious ways so who knows.

That link to the Freshly Picked Vana'diel Update earlier in this thread gives their answer as to why: They intend to continue small updates involving balancing, bugs, and improving Quality of Life for as long as feasible beyond the conclusion of Rhapsodies of Vana'diel. However, the updates typically have to accommodate the limited memory of the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 consoles, so they're dropping support for them and focusing that support on the PC platform.

[Economizer]

Believe what you want, but next year the 360 is losing it's live support. If I had to guess, it'd be next November much like the the Original Xbox. Right before the Christmas Rush.

Microsoft did that for the original Xbox so they could have more than the current limitation of friends as it was limited by Halo 2 (the most popular Xbox Live title for the Xbox).

They're not going to drop the Xbox 360 without a good reason. Whereas PS2 support being dropped made perfect sense (like it would have six years ago as well) especially given the age of the PS2, SE dropping Xbox support was a cruel joke given their decision to no longer give content updates as well.

It isn't necessarily the wrong decision, but it would have been a stronger one if they had big plans to update FFXI. They don't have those plans.

[Alhanelem]

Aye. I would have been overjoyed if the announcement was "we're cancelling the console verisons in order to enable us to deliver a better overall game experience." But sadly, that's now how it happened. I still think it's necessary, but I'm upset that it DOESN'T mean new enhancements on PC.

[Isal]

If I'm not mistaken, there's certain aspects of the game they can still provide updates and patches for without actually needing to render anything (and therefore not need to use the PS2 devkits). They recently increased the number of RoE objectives you can have active at a time due to being able to have more data on a character. There are certain aspects like that that still rely on the amount of memory the client has access to, meaning that such QoL updates are affected by the platforms the client is supported on. By taking the limited hardware of the consoles out of the equation, QoL updates can go further.

[Seillan]

That link to the Freshly Picked Vana'diel Update earlier in this thread gives their answer as to why: They intend to continue small updates involving balancing, bugs, and improving Quality of Life for as long as feasible beyond the conclusion of Rhapsodies of Vana'diel. However, the updates typically have to accommodate the limited memory of the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 consoles, so they're dropping support for them and focusing that support on the PC platform.

Ah, I missed the memory limitation thing the first time. Still, it's baffling that they could accommodate the limited memory in both consoles for all these years -- even up to the conclusion content -- yet the balance updates and stuff afterwards are a deal breaker. I guess we'll have to wait and see what they're able to do with the updates after that console bottleneck is removed. Call me a pessimist, but I don't really expect much to change/improve afterwards.

[Alhanelem]

If I'm not mistaken, there's certain aspects of the game they can still provide updates and patches for without actually needing to render anything (and therefore not need to use the PS2 devkits). They recently increased the number of RoE objectives you can have active at a time due to being able to have more data on a character. There are certain aspects like that that still rely on the amount of memory the client has access to, meaning that such QoL updates are affected by the platforms the client is supported on. By taking the limited hardware of the consoles out of the equation, QoL updates can go further.

They can tweak numbers, adjust data, and probably change or adjust game scripts (that is, things like what NPCs do when you talk to them etc, since that's probably done in a simple script language that isn't compiled like the game engine code is). But they can't do more major things like develop totally new battle contents or fix bugs that require altering the core code.

Ah, I missed the memory limitation thing the first time. Still, it's baffling that they could accommodate the limited memory in both consoles for all these years -- even up to the conclusion content -- yet the balance updates and stuff afterwards are a deal breaker. I guess we'll have to wait and see what they're able to do with the updates after that console bottleneck is removed. Call me a pessimist, but I don't really expect much to change/improve afterwards.

It's not really that hard to see.They worked around limitations by doing such things as adding seperate bags (vs making our existing bags bigger). By doing this you limit the amount of memory that needs to be used, since you can never have more than your inventory + 1 other bag open at the same time. Note that you can't move items between two different bags, it has to go through your inventory first. This is because it doesn't load in more item data than is necessary for what I described. If they made our bags 150+ slots, the PS2 wouldn't be able to handle it because that's too much memory being eaten up by the item data.

Also, ps2 and to a lesser extent xbox 360 have not been running without probelms the last few years. Seems every patch they implement new countermeasures against a screen blackout on the ps2 (which is a crash, and probably caused by memory being maxed out)

[Isal]

Ah, I missed the memory limitation thing the first time. Still, it's baffling that they could accommodate the limited memory in both consoles for all these years -- even up to the conclusion content -- yet the balance updates and stuff afterwards are a deal breaker. I guess we'll have to wait and see what they're able to do with the updates after that console bottleneck is removed. Call me a pessimist, but I don't really expect much to change/improve afterwards.

Well, I'm not here trying to say it was a great idea and will mean great things for FFXI after RoV or anything, just pointing out the reasoning SE gave. It just means that they can make further QoL adjustments, similar to the one where they expanded the number of simultaneous RoE objectives you can have active at once, and be able to take them further than if they had to hold back for the consoles. For example, we may see the addition of another quest to further expand inventory space again (or a baseline expansion of space that the currently existing methods of expanding inventory will add onto).

[Diraco]

I find it rather strange that they can't run their development programs in an emulated environment. Now that I think about it, I find it REALLY strange that they never bothered to port the development tools to ANY open platform after more than a decade. The way they have been treating this game almost since the beginning you'd think that there are two guys running things out of their garage just taking donations for maintenance. Pathetic.