Dear SE - What happened?

[Suzaku]

Consoles are a big market. MMORPGs live on numbers. I'm sure you can do the math

That argument works for offline games. Not MMOs which have proven that not only does developing down for consoles hamstring them, but that a good MMO does not need console subscribers to survive. Also note that there is currently no launch date for the PS3 version on the horizon.

Logic dictates that if you need a certain level of hardware to do something right, you don't support hardware levels below that. Even if that means ignoring consoles. In this case, the hardware requirements to build a proper environment are beyond what the PS3 can offer. Tanaka already spoke at length earlier on as to the issues they were having shoehorning the game into a form the PS3 could handle. Now we have a product that the PC users aren't happy with, and that the PS3 users don't have access to. I'm not seeing a lot of people winning here.

That's not to say it's all bad. The environment may be a done deal, but there is still much that can be done to fix the other aspects of the game. And it seems that the new team is progressing quite well in that direction.

[Blitz0309]

That argument works for offline games. Not MMOs which have proven that not only does developing down for consoles hamstring them, but that a good MMO does not need console subscribers to survive. Also note that there is currently no launch date for the PS3 version on the horizon.

Logic dictates that if you need a certain level of hardware to do something right, you don't support hardware levels below that. Even if that means ignoring consoles. In this case, the hardware requirements to build a proper environment are beyond what the PS3 can offer. Tanaka already spoke at length earlier on as to the issues they were having shoehorning the game into a form the PS3 could handle. Now we have a product that the PC users aren't happy with, and that the PS3 users don't have access to. I'm not seeing a lot of people winning here.

That's not to say it's all bad. The environment may be a done deal, but there is still much that can be done to fix the other aspects of the game. And it seems that the new team is progressing quite well in that direction.

I do agree, however there are a lot of ffxi fans whose computers can't run ffxiv and are planning on playing on the ps3.

But it is pointless to release a broken game across multiple consoles at this point.

[Abriael]

That argument works for offline games. Not MMOs which have proven that not only does developing down for consoles hamstring them, but that a good MMO does not need console subscribers to survive. Also note that there is currently no launch date for the PS3 version on the horizon.

There might not be a launch date, but they do seem determined to accomplish that.

"good" mmorpg, nowadays do need to look into different and new markets, as the PC mmorpg market is by now absolutely saturated. Consoles are the biggest of them.

Care to name a Pay to play non-wow PC mmorpg over the million subscribers?

Also, and ultimately, Final Fantasy is a primaily console-related franchise. Most of final fantasy fans are console gamers. No marketing team worth a little bit of their salt would suggest to exclude consoles from a Final Fantasy release, as no marketing team worth their salt would ever cut off their main target from their product. And the main target of the Final Fantasy Franchise is playing on consoles.

If there's ONE single thing that will make FFXIV pick up from the launch blunder it will be a PS3 launch when the game will be in a good state (another, even if secondary, would be a heavily discounted and publicized Steam launch). Second opportunities are gold for MMORPGs.