As FFXI nears its 20th anniversary, gaming technology has quickly come a long way over the years, and I imagine many concerns came up as the game grew older in comparison. How long did you originally expect the game’s operations to last?
Tanaka: When we chose to make the game for the PlayStation 2 (PS2), we assumed the game was fated to end with the PS2’s lifespan. However, the Windows version extended FFXI’s lifespan beyond that of the PS2.
Tanaka: Back then, household gaming consoles lasted about five years before they were succeeded by the next generation. The PS2 was succeeded by the PlayStation 3 (PS3), which had drastically better graphical capabilities, and we felt that a simple port wouldn’t cut it. Of course, we received many requests for a PS3 port, but we had a massive amount of development resources, of which the graphics data in particular would have to be remade from scratch. Rather than pouring manpower and budget into reconstructing a world that players had already thoroughly experienced, we felt that those resources would be better spent creating a new game with its own world and adventures. With that said, we surmised that FFXI players would be emotionally attached to their player characters, so development of FINAL FANTASY XIV (FFXIV) began with design options for characters which resembled the player characters in FFXI.
Tanaka: It was like a parallel development period between FFXI and FFXIV. On one hand, the FFXIV team was working to the bone to establish their project, while FFXI was lacking staff members for development of Seekers of Adoulin and ended up getting help from an external development company.
https://we-are-vanadiel.finalfantasyxi.com/post/?id=120