With the way Square has been supporting console and PC lately, this is no big deal. They are obviously heavily invested in trying to bring consoles back into the mainstream in Japan, looking at FF7 remake and Dragon Quest XI going to PS4 (and NX for DQ) in particular. That being said, mobile is too big to pass up in Japan as it is. If this is what they need to do to make a few dollars then so be it, all it means is more projects and collaborations in the future.
That's definitely a good looking steelbook. Interestingly enough it's not the same as the one the comes with the premium edition, unless the images before were placeholder art? It wasn't generic looking enough for me to think so, but we'll see this winter.
@xion-br-3: The 360 definitely had more variety. I was pleasantly surprised with it, especially in the first 4 years or so. Glad I held onto my 360, as with basically every other console I owned. Hopefully if consoles keep their current architecture backwards compatibility won't be as much of an issue going forward.
@7tizz: When the new CEO was hired in May of 2015, he shifted the company focus to mobile games and pachinko slots. MGS V was well nearing the end of development at this time but it's clear as day the game was released incomplete, another 6 months would of done the game miracles. Kojima and his studio were cut off access after a certain point, and obviously they fought about getting this game out.
All the myths about Kojima costing the company money are greatly exaggerated, he brought back twice the game's budget on the first day. Not to mention making the engine the company uses for all their console games like PES and now for Survive.
Also their treatment of Kojima at last years awards show, along with other industry icons like Koji Igarashi should tell you more than you need to know. Trying to imply this was about greed, the company that Kojima was Vice President of is ignorant at best. The fact the CEO came out after all this happened and said he essentially knew nothing about video games, and was only focused on mobile is revealing as well. So tell me, how long do you plan to keep on spinning this foolish narrative?
@mjgrierson: "no wonder they got rid of Hideo if he spent that much on MGSV and that's what we got?"
This is a odd thing to say when the game made more than twice it's budget back on the FIRST DAY. Also seeing how Kojima helped develop a new engine that the company uses for PES, Survive and probably any other AAA game should they decide to release one, I don't want to hear about money. Kojima has probably made them more money then anyone as far as AAA games go. Sure mobile and Pachinko will make them tons of money in Japan, but it's not a valid comparison with the AAA industry.
Second of all I don't know how long you've been playing Metal Gear but the Phantom Pain's open world was primarily about doing missions in the field and being able to approach them from any way you could possibly imagine. Being and doing missions in the field is something you hear repeatedly throughout the series, whether from Snake himself or from support over the codec, it was a theme of the series. It was never marketed as something like a Bethesda game where you could explore for hours on end and ignore the story. One other important detail, most of the game took place in the DESERT. A desert isn't exactly bustling with life and activity, and the only thing going on was armed conflict as it's referencing the Soviet - Afghan war. Sorry that the desert was too barren for your tastes, I assume you thought there were too many trees in the Jungle of Snake Eater as well.
Also if we put Kojima aside for a minute here, what's the excuse for Igarashi? The man wanted to make a proper Castlevania game for some time and the company would look at his ideas and tell him no, it was too hardcore and to instead focus on more casual mobile games. He never really wanted to move on, rather they had relegated him into oblivion. Also looking at their track record and their ability to retain talent (Murayama also comes to mind) it's obvious the company has had issues. It's also funny that prior to the new CEO Kojima decided to take on more responsibility as more talent left the company, and became the Vice President looking over other projects such as Lords of Shadow. I imagine this rise up the corporate ladder didn't sit well with the new CEO as he wanted to pursue mobile games. Combine the new CEO and his awful treatment of employees and you have a terrible place to work. Lets also not forget them barring Kojima from entering the awards show last year, I'm not sure what kind of PR response they were expecting from that childish stunt.
The bottom line, this company has a track record of treating it's employees like garbage and abandoning their many beloved IPs, a total lack of disregard for employees and fans alike. Their reputation was well earned, and Kojima was the tipping point seeing as he was the last ounce of talent left at that company. If you been paying attention it's no surprise why people feel the way they do.
@7tizz: First of all, there is virtually no Japanese readership (or community) on this site because there has been a complete lack of coverage on Japanese games outside of TGS or some of the heavy hitters such as Final Fantasy or Metal Gear. On this site even when reviewed you will usually see JRPGs getting thrashed in the review for being JRPGs, it's hard to retain a community like that (I'm fully expecting this to be the case with Dragon Quest VII when the review goes up). Go to sites like Gematsu, Kotaku or DualShockers that cover Japanese games on a regular basis and you will see much more activity and enthusiasm regarding these games. Here on GameSpot I began to notice the trend of less coverage and favorable reviews after guys like Greg Kasavin and Van Ord left, and they have never really been able to fill that void.
As far as the state of Japanese games I feel there has been a revival after last generation. The quality games never disappeared, but there were fewer of them for much of the 7th generation. It took Japan a while to catch up with HD game development, and the old methods of smaller teams combined with rising costs slowed things down considerably last gen. That being said there were tons of great games despite those problems; The Souls series, various Tales of games, Metal Gear, Ni No Kuni, Nier, Bayonetta, Persona, Xenoblade, Lost Odyssey, The Last Story, Catherine, Valkyria Chronicles etc. The problem though was many of the mid tier RPGs disappeared after Final Fantasy XIII received mixed reviews and JRPGs weren't viewed as such a sure thing in the West anymore (and there are many reasons for this).
This generation things have really picked up from both a quality and quantity standpoint though. Square Enix, Bamco, Sega/Atlus, NIS, Koei Tecmo and many others have released games at a much more consistent rate. The list of quality games coming out in the next few years is also massive in comparison to all of last gen. Based on your comment(s) though I'm not sure these types of games will ever appeal to you, and that's fine, although obviously not indicative of their quality. You do bring up a good point with platformers, but we've seen less of them from both Japan and the West. In order to get your platforming fix you need to turn to Nintendo or to some of the great indie platformers out there. Anyway I hope this sheds some light on the situation.
@Xristophoros: Right, I can't believe I forgot World of Final Fantasy. As far as it's Vita support I think SE knows most Vita owners are die hard jrpg fans at this point. Plus I think it was made mostly with Japan in mind, but they figure why not send it West since there is already the PS4 English translation.
The reason I brought up KH3 being announced for XB1 before it came out was because I wasn't sure if SE was held to some sort of contractual obligation, as otherwise it doesn't make a ton of sense at this point. I also wouldn't be surprised at some sort of gen 8 KH collection, I know there was major interest in it after the PS3 collections and I believe SE said they would look into it.
@Xristophoros: If I recall, both KH3 and FF XV were announced before PS4 and XB1 released. The only other SE XB1 jrpg effort I can think of was Type-0 and it sold very poorly compared to the PS4 version.
If you combine the terrible sales of XB1 in Japan along with it's relatively small market share (and poor jrpg sales) in the West it's no surprise at the current lack of SE XB1 games. Since then we've had games like Dragon Quest Heroes, Star Ocean, Nier, KH 2.8, Setsuna, FF XII IZJS, FF VII remake, DQ 11, etc. all announced on everything but XB1.
In other words the deals were signed before SE knew what the market was going to look like. To give them credit, at least everything they publish with Western appeal makes it to XB1. As far as Final Fantasy in particular though, it will be interesting to see if it remains multi-platform (I suspect it will) as it's the one jrpg that still performs incredibly well in the West.
@Obsidanse: Even if this game came out in September as planned, it would still need to be patched to support PS4 Pro regardless. You have to imagine Square and many other devs knew about this well beforehand, as it was leaked by the press all the way back in April. If you believe Tabata the delay was for further optimization and to avoid the Day 1 patch, not to support NEO. I'd be surprised if the extra optimization time was needed for Pro as much as it was needed to get it running properly on the weaker PS4 and XB1, as the framerate has been mentioned as an issue in just about every Tabata interview I've read since E3.
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