I had just written last post about the myopia of the development team of Square-Enix.
Final Fantasy 14 launches Sept. 30 on PC, March 2011 on PS3
And here we go again; a staggered launch.
The counterargument, I imagine, is something having to do about this being the best business decision. I question if that’s actually so. How many potential customers (and thus subscription fees) do they lose because, once again, one type of player will gain an advantage over another. The problem Square-Enix has to deal with this time, is that they’re dealing with a potential player base that has dealt with their game before, and it becomes more and more pervasive that it’s same shit, different pile.
Who wants to play with a staggered launch, again?
In addition, you’re looking at, once again, dealing with a console that’s going to be four years old by the time this game is released. What’s the long term game plan here when this game is three years old? Four years old? Are we going to be blaming PS3 limitations?
I was actually kind of interested in picking it up for PS3, but not if it’s coming 6 months later.
But, well, to be honest are there ANY multi-year MMOs that dramatically changed their system requirements over their lifespan? I can only think of a few off-hand (mostly PC only, too), and all of them have been mostly the same system requirements as their first release. I don’t think it would be too unusual if FF14 still had the same engine and mechanics in 4 years, even if it was PC only.
You’ll be able to play either on PC or PS3 like you can with FFXI, right? I thought the big problem with the staggered release before was that it was region-based meaning JP players got a big headstart and superiority complex (some justified, some not so much). The PC requirements aren’t very high and have it running decent on a ~4 year old PC with a decent GPU.
@Umbaglo,
Didn’t WoW go from DirectX 8 to 9 like two or three years back?
From an “evil business” point of view, this is awesome.
First, if someone wants to play on the PS3, but does not want to fall behind due to PC players starting earlier, they’ll have to buy first the PC version, then the PS3 version later, doubling the revenue for the company.
Second, by releasing a “collectors edition” a week early and for more money, that means that you’ll be getting even more money for including a few bits of paper and plastic. By the same reason of people being afraid of “losing out” on the first 8 days of gameplay, you’ll get people buying the game before even a single review or impression is released, guaranteeing that you’ll get money.
In any case, I saw that the beta emails just went out… Maybe they’ll actually have content in the beta. Beta software *is* supposed to be feature complete…
6 months behind isn’t so bad. It just means the people who jump in with the PS3 will have the benefit of a wiki that isn’t completely devoid of info when they get started. If you’re in it for the thrill of being there opening day then yeah I guess it’d be a big deal.
@evilpaul:
I think you’re right, but really. Over the course of the years, WoW’s system requirements haven’t really increased very much. If you had a computer that could run it at launch, you probably can still run it today.
I’m worried about the ‘same shit, different pile’ as well.
One of the reasons I quit a while back was because no matter where you went in game there was always a player hierarchy. Call me a pussy, but that last thing I want to do outside of a full work load and college classes is deal with players who think they know so much more then you, and then have it affect almost every social aspect in the game.
That, mixed in with LFP and SAM being a shit ass solo job, I couldn’t do much of anything, at least enjoyably and on my own time. I completely agree it is important to have worthwhile gear in order to party with other people and not waste their time, but the ridicule involved just because you don’t have hours of spare time to do so is pathetic imo.
So anyways, I agree. The staggered launch is just one more way a player can feel good about themselves.