7 Reasons Why Final Fantasy Versus XIII Is Probably Coming To Xbox 360

"I remember years ago as a boy being mortally perplexed by hardware choices. As a youth, some of the hardest choices I made revolved around what console to subscribe to, as they all offered so many different features and franchises. It’s a little different these days though, with very few truly great exclusive titles driving system sales. Hell, even once proud exclusives from yesteryear are now gracing the multi-platform roster. Final Fantasy Versus XIII is the latest title to receive the cross platform conjecture, so we’ve conjured up a handful of reasons (otherwise known as more conjecture) for why this may well be the case."

[Godmars290]

*facepalm*

Though surprisingly this is similar to my own personal reason as to why it should be exclusive: namely that if Square manages to do it right and make a good game rather than simply ride the FF name, they'll sell more copies of the game.

With Tales of Vesperia selling more in Japan on the PS3 than it did on the 360 worldwide, you'd think that that message would be clear enough.

[GillHarrison]

Exclusivity to a console shouldn't matter. If the game is designed badly, it's designed badly. Alot of people ragged on the game design mechanics of Final Fantasy XIII and blamed the Xbox 360 for these short-comings. I find this ridiculous as when a game first starts development almost all of the mechanics are already lined up in a GDD. Sure, a few mechanics are added in as desired but the linear nature of XIII had nothing to do with console power, it was just a bad decision on the design end.

[Trophywhore]

7 Reasons why Metal Gear Solid 4 is coming to the 360. Oh wait.

Dont even give this any hits. There is already an equally bad article from 2 days ago.

[Peaceful_Jelly]

Just think about it like if you were the developer. The game had like 3 years of development with only the PS3 in mind, the game had lots of CGI (this takes lots of space) and stuff that connects the story from one point to the other and they only had less than a year to make a port for the X360.

The first problem you'll encounter is that the game doesn't fit on the DvD9 and this is when the drastic changes start. Then you as a gamer read stuff like this: http://www.vg247.com/2010/0...

It was obvious that they had to cut-corners to deliver the Xbox port in just a few months and all they did was to make the game linear as hell and cut-content like there was no tomorrow. Now all of a sudden we have FFXIII-2 in just one DvD9 and much more open but why? Because since the beginning of the development they had the Xbox DvD9 space constraints in mind. But it is obvious these games could be even better if they simply stayed exclusives (FFvsXIII).

[Godmars290]

Console exclusivity shouldn't matter, but there are too many examples of where it does. PS3 exclusives tend to look better than 360 ones, while multi look better on the 360. Largely because of programming issues.

And no matter how many times the 360 camp dismisses it, Blu-ray over DVD effects the quality of a game. If it wasn't true MS wouldn't have made installs optional.

Also, while most of the blame for XIII falls on Square, the policies MS set in place are also at fault. The behind door debate to make the game multi had been going on well before the actual announcement, and that effected the game's development. Likely influenced the choice to remove content which became XIII-2.

Square started this gen announcing support for the 360 over the PS3, which was well after they had committed to make the game which had been a PS2 project. And yet somehow it remained PS3-only until the announcement?

[dark-hollow]

@godmars

so lets say they throw content out because of the dvd space, then why the content on the DISKS themselves suck!???

" PS3 exclusives tend to look better than 360 ones"
so is that enough reason to leave 50 million gamers in the dust????
if graphical powers and high amounts of space and ram is what they all cared about then they should develop exclusively for the pc.

its not their fault that sony isnt holding 80% of the gaming market like it used to be.
they want to reach to more gamers and thus, the multiplats.

a good game is a good game. our gripe with ffxiii is not the graphics. the content itself is mediocre.

@EDIT typical n4g.
its ok to say the ps3 is being held back by the inferior 360 but you get labeled as a douchebag if you sayed the same about the pc...

[gamingdroid]

I remember when FF XIII was released, and it didn't even use the entire disc space. They still had like 1-2 GB on almost each disc and the video encoding was terrible.

FF XIII was a sloppy sloppy port on the Xbox 360.

That said, I look at the games, I fail to see any significant difference in functionality or experience between multi-platforms and exclusives.

The difference has been minimal and it seems to me that all signs pointing to it being insignificant. I mean from almost all measurable standards:

a) reviews -> plenty of multi-plats score far better than exclusives

b) sales -> plenty of multi-plats sell far better than exclusives

c) game time -> multi-plats tend to get the most game time, almost always!

So whatever "exclusives" bring to the table, it certainly isn't a defining factor for gamers to choose it.

I rest my case....

[gamingdroid]

but that "full power translated" to games irregardless of console is likely minimal impact if any.

There is a reason why multi-platform games both sell and get played as much if not more than exclusives.

I would also like to point out that there are multi-platform games that look fantastic, sometimes better than the earlier "exclusives".

[Trophywhore]

Did you seriously just use the word "irregardless"? Im not usually a grammar nazi but come on...

[Gamer3000]

"I would also like to point out that there are multi-platform games that look fantastic, sometimes better than the earlier "exclusives"."

and that's the problem with this gen of consoles
no one want to admit it but the DVD9gb
has hold alot of games back
if all the dev's use the full power and space on ps3
most multi games will look alot better with alot more content
and you can thank M$ for that bec they make the dev's never use more than 2 - 3 dvd
but when you look at the best looking games on consoles
you find them only on ps3 and
most of them are 20 to 40 GB thanks to the freedom that ps3 offers

@dark-hollow
360 is holding back both ps3 and pc
if a multi plat game use the full power of ps3 that means more content with better gfx
and the pc will get an even more gfx with the the more content as well

almost all the multiplat games out there use UE3
that faver the xbox alot
what if those multiplat games were useing uncharted or killzone or god of war engine
could you imaging how good will they look on both ps3 and of course pc ??

[dark-hollow]

"if all the dev's use the full power and space on ps3 "

hows that any different from the pc fans who cry about consoles holding them back????

please please please this is just keep boggling my mind!!! can someone PLEASE explain how the 360 is holding the ps3 back but the consoles are not holding the pc which is waay more powerful?

"360 is holding back both ps3 and pc"
oh so the ps3 is on par with pc graphical powers?

[gamingdroid]

Instead of giving us baseless typical fanboy claims, tell us instead what game is so superbly different than multi-platforms because it is "exclusive"?

Because, I can give you multiple examples of how the PS3 has held back Xbox 360 games as well. I don't need to say more than there are plenty of multi-platform games that look less desirable on the PS3.

The fact is, that the PS3 and Xbox 360 is more similar than you think. In fact so much so that I remember one of the lead designers of both PS3 and Xbox 360 CPU said that they are roughly equal.

IBM technical architect, David Shippy:

"At the end of the day, when you put them all together, depending on the software, I think they're pretty equal, even though they're completely different processing models."

http://www.gamasutra.com/ph...

edit @Gamer3000 below:

1. What about all the multi-plats that look better on the Xbox 360?

2. Xbox 360 has flexible 512MB RAM that the PS3 only has 512MB RAM split into 256 MB RAM chunks for CPU and GPU use each. Do you know what happens when there isn't enough memory to store texture?

3. Do you know why games are installed on PS3? Because the blu-ray disc isn't fast enough. That is why earlier games had major pop-in issues (and why this also now affects the Xbox 360 due to lack of install)

4. We have heard numerous complaints about how PS3 is a b!tch to develop for. Do you know what happens to a resource constrained developer that has spend more resources supporting another console?

However, you still haven't answered my tangible question in the first paragraph above. Please enlighten me.

[Gamer3000]

@gamingdroid
really ???

"Because, I can give you multiple examples of how the PS3 has held back Xbox 360 games as well. I don't need to say more than there are plenty of multi-platform games that look less desirable on the PS3 as well. "

for someone who have those many bubble
you seem to not know what the hell are you talking about
ps3 held xbox back ???
WTF ??
i know that never happen and if it did happen it would be early this gen bec the dev's didn't know that time how to work on ps3
but tell me your story
i know that xbox help back ps3 alot of times and alot of the mega dev's said that already

edit:
"a) reviews -> plenty of multi-plats score far better than exclusives "
what multiplat game score better than
uncharted 2 96% ???

edit 2 :
you crack me up
1- they made the xbox version first and after that they port it to ps3
thats the only reason my son and every one know that
and as you can see most devs start to faver the ps3

2- yeah yeah , that's why all ps3 exclusives look better than any thing on consoles

3- hahahaha no that's not true at all
can you tell me why uncharted/gow/kz/darksouls etc don't have install ???
there is install for some games bec ps3 have a HHD with it
so some dev take advantge of that to make the games load faster

while most xbox's don't have HHD
dev can force xbox to install the games but they can't bec not all the xbox's have HHD

and by that logic since pc install all the games first is holding the xbox back hahahaha

4- ahhhh you mean the darksiders dev's ???
is thats why the ps3 version was the best
just go to LOT or DF

i can go all the day long to prove wrong but i only have 3 bubbles

[gamingdroid]

So your entire response has been reduced to one specific game to prove a trend?

Well, to answer your question according to metacritic.com:

a) Orange Box scored 96 same as Uncharted 2

b) Grand Theft Auto IV scored 98

Both games are multi-platform games!

Proof:

http://www.metacritic.com/s...

edit @gamer3000 above:
I'm still waiting for the answer to my question though instead of these re-directions and edits to show me nothing. Feel free to PM me your response, but please make it intelligent.

edit @gamer3000 above again:

and has any of those differences in those games made a difference (despite the preferences you point out is all subjective) at all? Which proves my initial point! None of those minor differences matter!

We can sit here and argue about minor pixel differences (and I can find equally on either side), but reality is that it is just fanboy enthusiasm, nothing more. None of the differences has actually produced this superior experience in a game!

It's fanboy enthusiasm!!!

[Ragnaarock]

Wow gamingdroid your comments make my head hurt. Geez you stuff so much garbage in your responses I don't know where to start.

Let's see, most games early in the generation took the 360 as the lead console to develop for because they scorned the thought of developing for the PS3. After deciding the lead platform they will optimize their own, or a third parties, engine for that platform and then they will develop the game using that engine on their comps and almost 100% of the time the dev will always cross the DVD's limit. Then they start compressing the data to fit on the DVD, and if they still can't fit the data on the DVD then they start cutting up the game and will probably use the cut material later on as DLC. Now tell me where in that process do you see the PS3 holding back the Xbox360? In fact I see the 360 holding itself back. One game I know for sure was held back by the 360 was Lost planet 2, the dev's themselves stated they were going for scale and had a much bigger game before they had to cut stuff to fit on a DVD. Now if you can prove to me, in one instance where the PS3 hold back the 360 then I will be impressed and I will concede and state that you are right and the 360 is awesome and all multi plat games are the real shining star and exclusives are terrible. At least thats what I think your viewpoint is after reading your posts.

Wow, cool you have RAM that can be moved according to which side needs it the most. Okay, so the CPU and GPU are competing for the little bit of RAM there is so there will most likely be constant equilibrium between the two seeing as how most newer games are BOTH CPU and GPU intensive. It's like a double edged sword, dedicate too much resources to the CPU and your graphics will suffer, dedicate too much too the GPU and your frame rate might go down or tearing might occur. Unless it can intelligently change itself according to the software used, then the whole RAM thing is just another hassle for the Dec's seeing as how they would have to tweak the settings and then test it, kinda like over clocking a computer except the result won't be as satisfying.

Then there is the development for the PS3. Everyone knows that the PS3 WAS, and still is for a few, a terrible platform to try and develop for. Fast forward a couple years and give the devs the time to tinker with the architecture and your argument becomes a moot point. Changing this into a more sensible comparison, think about the time you were learning calculus. When your teacher first taught you derivatives you didn't know what the heck to do, but you put the time into it and a week or so later your finding the derivative of anything.

Then to probably the most important part, since you seem to slam the hammer down on the subject everytime you post. Multi-platform games will, 80% of the time, never be:
a)Technically superior to an exclusive title
b)Graphically superior to and exclusive title
Look at Uncharted 2 and Gears 3, they are, as of now, the pinnacle of graphical and technical achievement on both consoles. Each have created their own, game specific engine optimized exclusively for their platform to deliver you the best possible experience possible. I have not seen one multiplat dev put in as much work and effort into their games as either publisher did in their exclusive games.
I'll acknowledge that there are significantly more multiplat titles then there are exclusives, but there are far more QUALITY exclusives compared to multiplats. Most exclusive games are highly lauded as great games and while there are a good number of great multiplats there are definitely more quality exclusives coming out on a more regular basis then a hit multiplat comes out.

[Ragnaarock]

I felt like I was developing for the 360 for a moment there, I wrote so much down that I exceeded the 4000 character limit and had to start cutting parts of my argument :O

[WANNAGETHIGH]

Who cares final fantasy sucks this Gen. Apart from that this should not b approved. I remember seeing this article the other day on N4G from a different site.

[DarkZane]

It's too late, Final Fantasy Versus XIII is said too use far too much power already. Also, the engine is a customized engine said only usable for the PS3 version of Versus XIII and can't be used anythingelse. Can't use the engine on 360 or Wii and can't use it for any other game than Versus XIII.

Nomura said he is making it specifically for PS3 and once it's done, it's not his problem. So it's either gonna be a permanent exclusive, which is most likely, or a timed exclusive with a 360 port made with the same engine as FF13. Of course, if the port is made with the same engine as FF13, the thing is gonna be so ugly compared to the ps3 version that getting it won't even be worth it.

Hell, Microsoft said the game must be equal in term of content to the PS3 or another version. They mean content like DLC or the game itself, but that might include visual quality and in this case, it could prevent them getting it.

There is also the fact that quite frankly, FF13 did very poorly on 360 and considering most people think this is a spinoff and not a game in the main series instead of a new game, this probably won't do well on 360.

[Zanarkand]

This game isn't made to be on the 360 and would most likely be inferior to the PS3 counterpart if it were, where did these rumors spawn off from? Time to enclose this topic. Also this isn't no article.

[majiebeast]

Ahh its the site that can only do top 10's. So im just gonna walk out here and not give it hits.

[gameseveryday]

sure:

http://n4g.com/source/news/...

http://n4g.com/source/news/...

Ye...they 'only' do top 10 :)

[consolez_FTW]

well..GamingBolt does do alot of top reasons or list articles. The site could use some more originallity in terms of article ideas. I mean, just this week there was already an article of 6 reasons FF versus would come to 360. GamingBolt just did an article on the same thing but added 1 more reason...

Plus Rashid, aren't you the guy who runs GamingBolt?
Majibeast was just pointing out alot of artcles from this site are "TOP (enter number) articles" or those articles that you think are sure to bring in the hits.

[Lavalamp]

I don't really get the whole 360-has-more-market-share-in-t he-west argument when FFXIII sold more on the PS3 by quite a large margin even without counting the sales from Japan. And going by what Nomura has been saying for the past couple years, I'd hazard a guess that the dev team has already made some significant strides in taking full advantage of the PS3's capabilities to the extent that changing course this far in would probably be the more costly endeavor than sticking to what they've been doing thus far.

[gamingdroid]

Yes, but even just 1 million copies of a game sold is massive amount of profit for a company. I'm confident to "assume" that the FF XIII sold more than 1 million copies on the Xbox 360.

Maybe Sony will pony up, maybe they won't, but it won't be cheap that is for sure. SE has shown they have no issues with going multi-platform and it makes prefect business sense.

[elbeasto86]

"Though the gap in hardware sales is closing by the week, cross platform games tend to sell more on 360 in America and Europe than they do on PS3."

Do people forget that Final Fantasy XIII sold more on PS3 than on X360? I think it outsold the 360 version by more than twice (if anyone knows the exact figure please correct me). Granted, I do think that it will most likely come out X360 mainly because we haven't heard about the game in such a long time and that every questions asked about it going multiplatform was dodge by PR speak. :S

[Eu]

At least 3 to 1 in US....problably the same in EU and I dont even want to mention it in Japan.....

[josephayal]

GREAT ARTICLE! Cant wait for the 360 version like FF13

[Ron_Danger]

Wow... You are a tool...

[TBM]

You know even if it did i wouldn't care. I would still purchase it for my PS3 over my 360. As long as they don't gimp the PS3 version, and the push the system to its limits while having what they want for it i just don't care.

[Tanir]

more of these articles? -_-

[Pedantic91]

http://n4g.com/news/853652/...

http://n4g.com/news/854471/...

http://n4g.com/news/853927/...

Could you atleast hold off on these articles until Q2-Q3 2012 ?
You know, like, a couple of months before release ?

Im sure you'd garner more hits for your site this way.

[Gamer3000]

"It allows Square Enix to not use the full power of the PS3"
WOW.. what a stupid reason
square don't want to use the full power of ps3 ??

what else ??
"square will not make FF V XIII ps3 exclusive bec
ps3 will not allow sqaure to pick it own nose"

who ever wrote this article number 5000000000 of "x reasons why ff V xIII will be on xbox360"
need to get his brain out of his ...
and put it in his head before write any thing

[user858621]

Lots of raging upset people in the comment section :)

[Ron_Danger]

Lots if 1 bubble people posting the same types of comments that got them to 1 bubble in this comment section :)

[jacksonmichael]

High five, Zapp.

[sashimi]

Dvds affect design choice! not just content,so ya no thx k bye

[sashimi]

double post

[Killzoned]

Wow people still think this game will be a PS3 exclusive?
Its Square Enix we're talking about guys... They've released a few exclusive and supported the Xbox 360 so much this generation.

Why would they make versus an exclusive? Let me give you an example, Lets say this game does release as an exclusive and it sells around 6-7million copy... Now if they also released it for the 360 It would sell for another 4 million.. Money talk peeps

[Eu]

Every game SE released first on X360 BOMBED HARD in sales in that platform. SE userbase ISNT on X360, and so it screwed them hard...google it if you must. Heck...I would bet that SE made more money on the DEALs for the timed exclusivity than selling the games thenselves.

[Raoh]

infinite undiscovery comes to mind, that game is out on pc and 360 and i don't think its out for ps3 yet or ever will be.

LOL SE failed hard this generation.

I just hope SE doesn't ruin Just Cause 3 when its ready to be announced and released.

SE ruining their own titles and brand is one thing but now they have the Eidios library that they can ruin..

Die Wada Die

[DigitalRaptor]

Yes. People do because that's the indication we've been given. Nomura has told us that it's only for PS3 and being developed to its specification. A 360 port is possible but only after the PS3 development has ceased so that nothing is affected by DVD9 and other problems.

Final Fantasy XIII sold around 1 million on 360 and it was considered hugely popular and had a big ad campaign. The sales ratio was about 4:1 in favour of PS3. Versus is less popular with less mainstream attention and will barely scrape a million on 360. It will be huge in Japan for PS3.

By your logic, the fact that Square Enix have made several 360 exclusives, would mean that PS3 has its chances of having an exclusive or 2.

Square also proved that they don't want multiple discs on their games by reducing the cutscene quality across the board and making the game fit on 1 disc on 360. To keep quality, which Nomura deeply insists, it would need multiple discs. That makes no sense.

[solidosito]

Who cares final fantasy sucks this Gen.

[Raoh]

No one cares. Poor sites are running out of stuff to write about.

SE already pretty much stated they are multiplatform. No one cares and Sony still owns stock in SE so sony still makes money off it anyway.

[cliffbo]

1 Reason it should not come to the 360

"DVD" game would be downgraded for this reason alone. IMO

ps if this comes to the 360 MS wont allow it to a better game on the ps3 so square will have to gimp the game once again.

[i3eyond the Circle]

A certain RPG might sell more store copies in Japan...but the same set amount of copies is being sent out by the publisher.

So those in store sales really don't matter in the japanese market...they sell small amounts..amounts that are probably covered with surplus by the publisher.

So now they have the Xbox360 as a platform that retailers will be mandated to have purchased for availability.

i work corporate...we are the scum of the Earth...and even with millions we don't care about brand loyalty and speculation of our product losing quality.

[chaos-lockheart]

If it comes then it comes, why so many dumb articles like this. I don't get what the big deal is. every time i see people write about this, and it is getting annoying.

[SlxTeN]

keep dreaming

[Lite_ratchet]

I feel like i've seen this before...

[The EDGE]

MGS4 all over again... seriously its getting old, why would 360 gamers want this game with multiple discs and sub hd resolution is beyond me.

[Agent_hitman]

LOL never ending articles like this makes me LOL a lot everytime I visit this site, not because of the comments, but because of the journalist!

[bangoskank]

A more interesting article would be "10 Reasons Why We Don't Give Two Sh!ts About Final Fantasy Anymore". Versus looks gay anyway. I want a Final Fantasy with knights, mages, espers(organic ones, not the new mechanical bullsh!t), dragoons, etc. I'm tired of these androgynous main characters.

[Ddouble]

Sounds like you'll like XIV once it's been tidied up.

[bangoskank]

Lost interest in that. I'd like a current gen FF similar to IV, VI, and IX. Unlike most people I also loved XII

[Ddouble]

Goodness me, another one of these articles. Why don't we get a 7 reasons why Ni No Kuni is coming to the 360 lol.

Facts are that JRPG's don't do well on the 360 and SE is on a Knife Edge with Final Fantasy at the moment.

They need to go all out with this game in every way possible and making it multiplatform is taking a step backward. This is many people's last hope for FF and SE knows this.

[xxchicago33xx]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this game won't release for the PS3 or 360, if you get my drift

[jacksonmichael]

The only thing this article has going for it is the link at the bottom with a picture of Ginny Weasley. Mmm. Ginny.

[XeNoStRatoS]

There are two major reasons it won't go to 360:

1. It was developed for PS3 and still is, with the word of the head of the dev team for exclusivity. Therefore the disc capacity of PS3 is needed and the cell processors for graphical calculations. As far as multiplat is concerned SE would break word again and lose loyal customers again, the time of release would fall back which SE can't afford and they would have much higher production costs (the PS3 sales paid the 360 release for more discs etc.)

2. The sale ratio of FFXIII was 2.6/1.0 (PS3/360) in WW sales with about 10K 360 sales in Japan, the main market for JRPG. This time it might be even worse since trustworthyness was traded in for blind greed. I don't see much bigger sales for FFvsXIII than for FFXIII because of the disappointment of many loyal customers. And even if the sales come up the same way as with FFXIII in case of mp release the userbase of PS3 users will shrink and it will cost SE even more since this part of the cake won't come up for the more expensive 360 release on let's say 4 - 5 discs. The only way to secure sales bigtime is a straight development for PS3 since more people will buy it then because it is an improvement of credibility and a signal to expect better quality and higher standard of an exclusive game.

Edit: Btw. never read this article - but luv the comment section XD