Square-Enix trolls fans with Final Fantasy VII for the PS4

By now I’m going to guess that you’ve heard about the monkeyshines and shenanigans that occurred at the recent PlayStation Experience event.  But if not allow me to set the scene for you:

Our boy Shinji Hashimoto from Square-Enix comes out on stage to tell the audience something that many Final Fantasy fans have been clamoring for for almost 20 years –Final Fantasy VII, hailed by many RPG fans as one of the greatest games of all time, would be coming to the PlayStation 4.

If this is new to you then I know what you’re thinking kids – because I’m sure I was one of the many that did the same thing.  you’re replaying a next-gen version of the Bahamut ZERO summon in your head, trying to picture what the Gold Saucer would even look like, creating mental images of Midgar and that awkward Wall Market scene with Beautiful Bro.

But then reality sets back in.  Yes, Final Fantasy VII will be available for the PS4.  No, it is not going to be awesome.  It will be the same as the one released in 1997 – a port of the PC version of the game to be available in the spring of 2015.

We all got trolled.  Again.  And this time they did it to our faces in front of a huge hall full of people, getting them super excited then taking out their knees.  Here’s some video from Kotaku’s Fahey showing the presentation.

Now those of you that know me know how I feel about remakes in general – a lot of times to me they’re a cheap cash-grab with no discernible advantage to the older version outside of convenience to pick up some additional revenue to a market they haven’t sold to yet.  And in the process, while throwing away creativity and the opportunity to do something new for the fans, they repackage our childhoods and try to sell it back to us.  It happens all the time.

So you may be curious then – why this article about this recent event is getting my attention given this opinion of mine I’ve just shared.

Here’s the thing.  I’m not mad the remake isn’t happening.

I’m mad at how things have played out over the last decade or so in general, especially with this game company on remakes.  It was easy to remake the titles from the NES and SNES era – there’s something like 5 versions of Final Fantasy IV running wild over a number of consoles among a few others.  They’re decades old games remade with PSX graphics.  VIII’s on Steam and I’m not sure who really cares about a IX remake – and these are two additional Final Fantasy titles also originally released on the first PlayStation.

(S-E remakes for Android devices also have an always-on requirement, which already irk my ire, so this on top of that really sticks in my craw.  But that’s another story for another day.)

But for VII, they give fans hope.  In addition to the original game, Square-Enix developed an entire universe around Midgar, with spinoff games and video titles like Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core, Last Order, and topping them all off with the feature length Advent Children in 2005.  But it didn’t stop there.  In 2006 to show off graphical capabilities they released a technical demo for the PS3 engine (watch it here, it’s wonderful).  This demo featured the intro to Final Fantasy VII redone using the PS3 engine.  It was glorious.  Midgar looked great, the train details down to the sparks on the tracks were sharp, what we saw of Aeris was lovely, and Cloud’s eventual entrance on the train platform was done with style.

AND THAT’S THE DIFFERENCE.

Square Enix showed us what one of the most revered games in modern history could look like, while having no intention of ever delivering.  We saw what could be, and the fact that they used that property for the demo sparked many rumors that a remake was in the works.  Since then, the game has been released in its original form on PSX, a 4-disc PC edition, a download on Steam, and playable on the PS3 through the PlayStation store.  Someone could have paid for 4 copies of the same game, with not much more than the addition of trophies and achievements added to their total gameplay experience.

Well I guess there is some sort of charm about huge pixels on TV’s sized like they are these days.

Still though.  Colossal who cares.

But we’ll never get delivery on the vision of the future Square-Enix had shown us with that demo.  They’ll continue to make money on every copy of this that was sold on multiple platforms from 1997 to today.  The game has still been wildly supported by its fanbase, some of who will buy every version of it out of loyalty and let’s be honest, to some extent mania.  Fans will keep assuming it’ll happen because Square-Enix keeps supporting the product and dropping hints unofficially while officially denying it.  For the same reason, Square-Enix will keep selling it.  And this dance will go on for a good long time.  And to think, this all would have never happened if only the PS3 was back-compatible.

Bottom line – if you’re waiting for a next-gen Final Fantasy VII remake, I wouldn’t hold my breath longer than a Knights of the Round summon.

Microsoft Backpedals on Xbox One DRM Policies

Backpedal (verb): to retreat or move backward.

Last night the internet saw Microsoft go into full backpedal mode on their DRM practices for the upcoming Xbox One in a post on their site titled“Your Feedback Matters – Update on Xbox One.”  The post was courtesy Don Mattrick, the President of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business unit, and seemed to address a score of concerns gamers had following the product launch event and E3.  Citing that his people had heard directly from many fans (read:  pages upon pages of ASCII middle fingers on their Facebook page), he announced that DRM practices for the Xbox One would be somewhat rolled back to how they are for the Xbox 360.  Here were the main hits:

An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games – After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360

Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today – There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360.

This means that if I want to lend my friend a game I just need to give them the disc.  Things will mostly roll on like it currently does for the Xbox 360 generation.  It’s a good thing that Mattrick and his crew rolled these back if for no one’s sake than their own too, because things were starting to look pretty grim for team Microsoft on the gaming front.  Their licensing model was convoluted and strange for borrowing discs and game rentals.  Military personnel were calling it “a sin against all service members.”  And then there was Sony, their main competition for the last couple generations of gaming consoles, absolutely drilling them on their policies with not only their own business practices but veiled commercials targeting Microsoft to the delight of all watching.  I mean we all remember this video on sharing games from PlayStation’s YouTube channel, right?

Did anyone else get a very thumbs up / thumbs down Gladiator vibe from that whole thing?  I sure did, and it was hilarity that won in the arena.

Sony had the pole position in the console press conferences, showing off the PS4 hours after Microsoft was shilling the One.  After the disappointment of many after the Xbox One show, Sony had the opportunity to say “Hey guys, don’t worry!  We’re still here to save you!”  And it worked.  Like gangbusters, kids.  Sony offered a unit that cost less, had better hardware specs, nixed the DRM, had no requirement for an always on, always listening camera, and didn’t charge $60 a year for online services.  How can you lose with that kind of show?

So was it Sony putting pressure on Microsoft by just being themselves or was it truly the Xbox team listening to their fans.  “We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds,” Mattrick said on the Xbox Wire.  Maybe it should have read “Pleas guys, don’t leave us for Sony.”  It was probably a combination of both.  And that’s what’s awesome about the whole thing.  What this showed was that the gaming industry can still be affected by competition and vox populi – even though companies run on margin and greed, that they can shift gears when they previously said they can’t when their dollars are threatened.  It’s the beauty of the system – a company can shift gears once they realize that consumers aren’t going for what they’ve got.  And to the conspiracy theorists, no, I don’t think this was a planned stunt from the get go to come off harsh then pick up the image of “listening to the fans.”  That strategy would have only worked if they had a PS4-killer level function in the Xbox One, which they didn’t.  In all I’m glad they rolled back the DRM, but I think the damage is still done.

And that’s my opinion regardless of the borderline insane ramblings of Cliffy B, who claims that it was Sony alone, and not the “whiny internet” that forced Microsoft’s hand.

Sony still has a lot of those advantages listed above going for them.  The price of the PS4 is still about $100 less than the One, and that also comes with no yearly payments for online services.  And money is always a factor.  It was part of the reason for the success of Nintendo’s first Wii console after all.  But the other disadvantage they still maintain is the Kinect requirement.  The Kinect still has to be plugged in and powered on for the console to function, keeping my privacy concerns right where they are.  Enough to make the fact that they rolled back the DRM, while fundamentally good, also completely moot.  I still need more than “I promise Nene, I’m not listening” to make it happen for me.

Final verdict: Sony still has the upper hand.

Sony's February 20th Announcement - I'm Calling PS4.

OK.  Sometimes when a company tries to do a big reveal, they go one of a couple different directions.  First is the Apple route - blacking out room windows in R&D, attaching test devices to desks at Apple HQ, and even masking field testing units with external casing to make sure no one knows what's up.  Sure it may not seem like that's how they roll now, but that's how they do things.  Get their audience so amped that whatever they introduce is an instant hit they've all been waiting for.

The second is the straightforward method.  That's more or less saying "hey kids, product X is going to be out on the 37th of Zuhtember (naturally "X' and "Zuhtember" being code for a number and who gives a damn).  But in this case potential customers know exactly what's coming and what's going to be involved.  I guess the cleanest example here after the Apple thing would be Samsung and their Galaxy phones if you want an example.

So both of those methods make sense, and we've seen both dozens of times before.  What confuses me sometimes is when some companies try to blend the two of these in some sort of "openly secretive" teaser thrown out onto the interwebs.  Which is the route than Sony took today with their latest teaser on their official US website.  Go ahead, watch it.  It has all the elements of a big reveal - flashy effects, zoomed shots of different aspects of what gets collected for a final image, and of course mystic and cryptic heavy beats in the background to add an ambiance of mystery and allure.  Sweet.  Even a date and a time for a very special event so fans have something to look forward to.  So what could it possible be?  My interest is now piqued beyond recognition - WHAT COULD IT BE?  Four very familiar shapes - a triangle, a circle, an X, and is that... is that a square?

Look at the video kids.  It's gonna be the PlayStation 4.  I mean I can't for sure say it, but watch it again.  Search your feelings.  I don't think you really need the force with you to sense this one.

The date? February 20th, at 6:00pm.  The teaser is an ad for the Playstation Meeting, which is a venue where Sony's unveiled consoles and hardware before (that's where they unveiled the Vita before), so the PS4's a feasible prediction.  And Sony wanting to beat Microsoft to the punch on consoles does make sense too.  There's also a chance that maybe they could be releasing the fruits of their venture with Gaikai, but MY PEOPLES - I'm still calling PS4.

Does Sony's PS4 Sound the Death Knell for the Used Games Market?

When I was younger, maybe back in college or so, video games were sometimes a little cost prohibitive to buy.  $50-$60 bucks a pop for games for our favorite consoles was a little steep for us that had an income of roughly nil accompanied with tens of thousands of dollars in debt to repay when we were done our fancy book learnin'.  Doubly so for a house of nerds that decided that they could run a game review site without time and without money.  So sometimes we would rent, sometimes we would borrow, and sometimes we would buy used to save money whenever stuff went on sale.  Granted for PC games we couldn't really do that (those had, well, different methods of acquisition) but for consoles it was no issue - we grabbed the disc, popped it in our Xbox or PS2 and when we turned it on it worked.  Scratched media excluded, there were never really any issues.

But selling those copies back for store credit and having someone else pick it up used doesn't make publishers happy.  It's money they could have had with a new sale that they've lost, and at the same time it creates a big market that they can't get their hands in at all.  So now it was time for them to get creative.  These days in our digital age,  with the popularity of DLC for content delivery and online play, publishers are more than ready and able to do a lot of things digitally to pick up additional revenue streams.  Let me give you an example - I own a copy of Dead Or Alive 5.  If I get bored of it and sell it to a shop or to a friend of mine (let's call him Sven), that money goes to me, and not Tecmo.  So they added a little hook in the pricing model.  My new copy came with a key that allows me to play online.  But that code links itself to my Xbox Live ID.  So having bought my copy, Sven now has to pay for an online pass to play DOA5 to link to his Xbox Live ID.  See what Tecmo did there?  They put a method in place so that someone buying the game used still had to pay for certain elements of the game.  And in this case it's the online pass.  And Sven might even go on to buy some of the DLC character costumes, so look at that!  Money Tecmo made on a used game where they would have made none before.

original comic here from Penny Arcade

So what's the next step in how publishers can monetize used games?  There could be other methods like the one above that could help publishers extract money from the used games market.  But then there are also more extreme options... like trying to kill used games outright.  Recently on the NeoGAF forums, we found that the legal eagles at Sony filed a very interesting patent (which you can see here) regarding console games and rights.  When it broke, the news of this patent application was received so poorly that GameStop's stock price actually dropped on the day, with GameStop shareholders selling like mad out of fear of losing one of their core businesses.  Funny thing, the internet.

Don't worry kids, you don't have to read through that ridiculous amount of text.  I'm here to do that for you - and strangely actually kind of like reading patents.

The patent more or less states that this technology would lock a disc to a specific player ID, the same way my DOA5 online pass has a lock to my Xbox Live ID.  If this goes through and is implemented in the PlayStation 4, then a disc, once authorized to a single player, wouldn't be able to be played by another player, nullifying any value it potentially had in a used games market or sale.  How would they do it?  The console would write info to a designated blank part of the game disc, putting that link on there.  It may sound pretty Spartan in its method, but it's not really a stretch, seeing as that's how most digitally delivered games work these days.  Just take a look at Steam's model.

But does this mean that they're actually going to use it?  It's true, applying this technology to the PS4 would indeed lock out a used games market, but there were also rumors that Microsoft was talking about doing something similar a while ago with Project Durango (or Infinity, or 720, or whatever).  A lot of companies file for patents that they don't actually implement.  And I have to believe that they know implementing this would shoot themselves in the foot, and they would be giving up more benefits than they would be getting gains, including but not limited to a ridiculous fan backlash.

The whole thing adds a bit more murk to the waters of DRM and used games, especially when an increasing percentage of software doesn't actually exist on physical media.  But one thing I will admit, Sony's come a long way on their protection technology from being able to be beaten by scotch tape and Sharpie markers.