So are consoles holding back this game?

[Blaste]

Looking over the recent Live letter especially with questions like adding more customization to Au Ra, Allot of the excuses seem to be software or process limitations, Ive seen MMO's on strictly PC that far surpass FFXIV in customization....take Black Desert for example, so Im curious what other people think, is the PC version being held back by the consoles, and if this is the case will that limit our experiences at later dates since exceptions will always have to be made due to "limitations", I'm not too keen on what I'm seeing so far, and no I'm not trying to bash the consoles, but lets be honest here FFXIV should be capable of much more than this without dev's claiming limitations on processing and systems.

[Gallus]

Think of it this way:

FFXIV console players mean more money, and more money generally means more expansions, more updates, more patches and more stuff.

[Rocco]

PS4, No.

PS3, For sure

[Kotemon]

PS4, No.

PS3, For sure

Good answer.

A similar thing happened back when FFXI came out for the PS2, originally 2002 in japan, 2003 for the pc. The Ps3 was reviled in 2005 and sold 2006. The thing is the PS3 was initially backwards compatible with the Ps2, but then they had to reduce the system cost and that went with it. Rather than try to make a port for the Ps3 they made a Xbox 360 port instead. However when compared to the PC and 360 version they were all held back by the hardware on the PS2. Even by 2008 folks were asking why they were anchoring the game to an outdated console and not doing any real significant engine upgrades. They only discontinued PS2 support when Seekers of Adoulin came out, in 2013, but only for bricks outside of Japan.

2010, FFXIV (oddly enough) was designed for the PC first and then was intended to be ported to the PS3 some months later. But we all know what happened to that and then the PS4 came out in 2013. At least when they were trying to fix FFXIV they had the forethought to go as far on the Ps3 hardware as possible by scaleing down the PC settings and develop a port for the PS4 as well as a means to migrate character data from the Ps3 to Ps4. Something the folks behind FFXI never thought of or was able to do.
It would be foolish to coddle the weakest link again with FFXIV as they did for so long in FFXI. Most of what helped killed off FFXI was the over dependence of the PS2, among many other things. At best, if they look at the sale numbers they can determine whether 4.0 or 5.0 will have support for the PS3. Assuming there's still a reasonable player base. They may try to crank up the graphics, boost the engine, and enhance player models across the existing platforms after stopping future support for the PS3 (PSP Vita, not to sure).

Are the consoles holding the game back, yes they are to some extent. That's why many of these types of games are made on the PC, and then ported to the consoles. For me, I see it as fear based on what Square was doing in FFXI's dependence on the PS2. Cant blame anyone for thinking that especially for those who played and compared the PS3 version to the rest. The current developer team should be given some credit (the Ps3->Ps4 migration) and Yoshi-P likely knows this as well. Square Enix corporate however is a different story, that will need numbers and good reasoning to justify cutting one source of income to "potentially" expand it elsewhere.

[Blaste]

Think of it this way:

FFXIV console players mean more money, and more money generally means more expansions, more updates, more patches and more stuff.

Won't matter if consoles can't handle the processing, cuts have to be made somewhere to make up for the obvious difference in hardware, which honestly was a bad choice on SE's part, making them cross play I mean, then we could have had nothing holding PC back, or at least only make it cross play with PS4, but even then the PS4 has limitation....its kinda depressing really :/

[Gallus]

Won't matter if consoles can't handle the processing, cuts have to be made somewhere to make up for the obvious difference in hardware, which honestly was a bad choice on SE's part, making them cross play I mean, then we could have had nothing holding PC back, or at least only make it cross play with PS4, but even then the PS4 has limitation....its kinda depressing really :/

Except the PS4 runs FFXIV smoother than the average PC from the average gamer...so you can hardly blame PS4 for holding anything back, maybe in 10 years, definitely not now.
PS3 sure does, but SE already mentioned they will drop PS3 support sooner or later, we just don't know when it's going to happen.

[Whiteroom]

Won't matter if consoles can't handle the processing, cuts have to be made somewhere to make up for the obvious difference in hardware, which honestly was a bad choice on SE's part, making them cross play I mean, then we could have had nothing holding PC back, or at least only make it cross play with PS4, but even then the PS4 has limitation....its kinda depressing really :/

The point you missed is that while you may give up customization and some things like that, you gain a lot more content, because the game makes more money.

[Sylve]

Won't matter if consoles can't handle the processing, cuts have to be made somewhere to make up for the obvious difference in hardware, which honestly was a bad choice on SE's part, making them cross play I mean, then we could have had nothing holding PC back, or at least only make it cross play with PS4, but even then the PS4 has limitation....its kinda depressing really :/

To be fair, that decision brought a LOT of extra players on board who otherwise would never have touched XIV.
It was just unfortunate that there are so many people who held onto the PS3 for so long.

Nothing against that console mind you, for its time, it was a great console. For more modern gaming? 256mb of RAM is disgustingly inadequate.
With the PS4 being about as powerful as a mid-low end PC, but having a decent chunk of operating RAM, they don't need to make so many concessions that affect the game as a whole.

[ckc22]

Won't matter if consoles can't handle the processing, cuts have to be made somewhere to make up for the obvious difference in hardware, which honestly was a bad choice on SE's part, making them cross play I mean, then we could have had nothing holding PC back, or at least only make it cross play with PS4, but even then the PS4 has limitation....its kinda depressing really :/

Well even PCs have limitations - if you make it some obscene requirements you're going to end up with 1.0 type problems again.

[Samcaesar]

PS4, No.

PS3, For sure

I really wish they dropped support for the PS3 with heavensward tbh.