SE to churn out a FF title/year?!

[Fiosha_Maureiba]

http://www.gamesthirst.com/2011/11/2...t-square-enix/

I don't know even where to begin to understand this logic.

Past 2 FF titles have damaged the brand equity and to make more money let's make more FF games at a faster rate!!!

Yes because we all know XIII and XIV would be much greater games with even less content.

I wonder what this means to the resources available for XIV's development?

tldr: Open-ended RPGs like Elder Scrolls and BioWare have influenced our tastes, making linear games harder to succeed. Nostalgia affects our judgment of the past. I liked FF13's battle mechanics. Customized tools, plug-ins, or modifications will take longer than taking advantage of an existing engine and tools. Good chunk of Assassin's Creed groundwork setup during revival of Prince of Persia games.

Extended: Looking at the article, I'm thinking that whenever someone is making a host of their own tools and/or heavily tweaking an existing engine, it's going to add a good chunk of time to the development cycle. I think some of this ties into where the Unreal engine is seen as a Western market engine, designed for Western games. But I'm on the fence about this and I think I see why SE did what they did.

The Gap
The gap between the FF games was about the same gap as usual when releasing for the next gen console (i.e. FF7, FF10, FF13). Games like Morrowind and Star Wars:KoTOR return at breaking the walls of PC RPGs on a console, then Oblivion, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, and Dragon Age come out solidifying the impact of player choice on the story and the world. So this time, the gap came at a bad time for JRPGs.

Familiar is better
On the Japanese consumer side of the equation, my observation has been "familiar is better". Even Western consumers may have developed the nostalgia preference over time if they were used to Japanese consoles and games. Games like Wizardry/Xth Generation/Etrian Odyssey kick out develop-worthy sales in Japan, but in a Western market, they don't sell well enough to keep localization up. *kisses Dark Spire and the recent Wizardry PSN release*

Enjoyed Final Fantasy 13 Re: FF13, one of the first things I did was take off auto-battle. In a game where two of your party members are A.I. controlled and intended to be linear for a long time, I don't want the computer playing the only character I do have control of. I imagine for those that did not like the game, auto-battle may have played a subconscious factor in it. At least in FF12 gambit system, you had to customize the gambits akin to Dragon Age's tactic slots. The three things I didn't like about FF13 were the motion capture being too similar to all other Japanese motion capture, Hope's angst, and never feeling safe (town hub) ~ albeit that's good for the theme.

Franchise Churning Out Games
On the Assassin's Creed side, I do recall a new Assassin's game every year with distance between Assassin's Creed 1 and 2 as I've received an Assassin's Creed as a birthday gift except for 2008 (I think I got a box of Frosted Mini Wheats instead). The company was planning a one-shot, they didn't anticipate they would have to make a sequel. The animations and maneuvering mechanics started years ago with the Prince of Persia games and adapting those to a new environment. They have a concept of stealth by blending and set off to Assassin's Creed. Plus, PoP loyalists seem to have disliked the last two Prince of Persia games (came after the fact), a new presentation has shown more fruitful results thusfar.

The graphics were adjusted between 1 and 2, models adjusted between 2 and Brotherhood, and again between Brotherhood and Revelations (Desmond is hot again). UbiSoft allocating their offices across the globe to create assets for the game and do the international release bid. There's a large chunk of text to localize for these as well, the script, optional script, and database. A new city (or cities) are created with a variety of dungeons and settings on top of that. The two main differences I see are 1) no comparable gameplay of products out there, so they don't have to compare and compete in the same genre (where people will compare MMORPGs to each other quite easily, so you don't want to be behind feature-wise) and 2) releasing content on an annual basis, rather than an expected release on a monthly basis.

I apologize for the incoherence, this was not typed in one sitting or even consecutively.