@Jacanuk I don't want to hijack Moinsyyed's thread. So - if you're happy being obese, I'm happy for you. If you're eating seven pizza's in one sitting, you probably have an overactive hypothalamus that you should see a doctor about. If you love those around you, don't ever let them use the phrase, "he was dead before he hit the floor," because your heart burst from eating seven pizzas to celebrate you getting 1,000,000 views on YouTube. Do not celebrate obesity, fight it.

I'm glad you got that off your chest. If you need me, I'll be over here living my life longer than you will ever hope to. N/R

Don't lump me in with the console-centric crowd, and make this a discussion about console vs. PC. I'm actually part of the Mac-PC Master Race as well, and my bootcamp i7, 24GB RAM, 2GB Video card setup runs today's games on ultra just fine.

Top PC Game Downloads of BitTorrent in 2011 (source Gamefront)

1. Crysis 2 (3,920,000 downloads)
2. Call of Duty: Mondern Warefare 3 (3,650,000 downloads)
3. Battlefield 3 (3,510,000 downloads)
4. FIFA 12 (3,390,000)
5. Portal 2 (3,240,000)

Crysis 2 (GameSpot score 8.5, Metacritic 86) ) sold only 486,943 copies that year. That evidence does not support "make great games and people will buy them." Crytek, developer of the Crysis series, cited piracy as its reason for switching from PC exclusives to multi-platform versions after sales of Crysis took a hard hit.

“If the same game has the potential to sell many times more copies on a particular platform because sales are not being undermined by piracy, then quite clearly the priority of the developers and publishers should be to focus on that platform in their design, development and marketing decisions. " - Robert Bowling of Infinity Ward (Call of Duty developer)

I empathize with developers, and wanted to open a discussion about limiting the ability for PC piracy to cannibalize developer's profits on day zero. I think any developer would like to see that they were the most purchased game of the day, rather than the most pirated on launch day. Everybody knows piracy will never end, so please quit answering this as if I had asked if timed exclusives WILL STOP piracy.

Again, I'm talking about modern consoles with no known jailbreaks. No matter how you disguise it, PS4 and XB1 are semi-online-only consoles. My systems go online constantly to get new firmware and game updates. With the fear of getting their shiny-new $400 consoles perma-banned, I think console owners will shy away from modding their systems for the next couple of years until the price of systems go down and getting caught becomes more financially feasible.

People still have LAN parties? I didn't think you could even play with two people in the room anymore without one person having to just watch.

Seriously though, outside of CS, I didn't think the other titles on that list were able to set up LANs.

They announced a ton of new TVs at CES 2015 in January. I've been keeping my eye out on the release of the Samsung UN65JS9500. So far, last year's model of UN65HU9000 hasn't moved from the $3999 mark since Black Friday. I mention this because I'm using that as a dummy market indicator on when the new sets will be released. When they start blowing out the 9000's, it will probably be to make room for new inventory. You might want to keep in mind that new Vizio TVs are also around the corner (fingers crossed), and might have buyer's regret if you buy now with a refresh imminent.

@Jacanuk: Someone already explained that this guy in the video was a caricature of a gamer. The truth of the matter is that there are actually endomorphs like him, who still live in their parent's basements well into adulthood, don't do anything except live for gaming, and snack on chips and soda at 4am and have the biggest collection of Mcfalane toys as their closest friends. So, it wasn't that difficult for me to believe that guy was beyond saving. If you ask what I mean about "saving," I literally mean this candidate has a higher risk of heart disease, and social ineptitude that could prevent someone from finding happiness away from a computer screen.

This graph was taken from an article titled Which Platform Has The Most Pirated Games On The Internet?

It's rather old and the names have changed, but the suspects remain the same.

@sheikhspeare You mentioned GTA V, which is a great example. They've probably grossed over $2 Billion ($1.98Bln as of 5/14 source: Forbes) from console sales alone. I wonder how much of that would have been eroded away from PC piracy. It also makes me wonder if the delayed PC launch was an experiment. Developers usually have a more difficult time porting to consoles, not the other way around.

The future release of No Man's Sky will also be a PS4 timed exclusive before it comes to PC if I recall correctly. I would be very interested in seeing how that does as well before the PC versions ship.

Strictly speaking in a world with no PS4/XB1 modchips, I still feel at this point, it's smarter to have a the PC editions staggered behind console. I do agree with @Pedro that the hype does die down, so there has to be a good balance to strike while the iron is hot.

@MonsieurX, @ice_ranger

I specifically said PS4/X1, can you confirm that these have been jailbroken? (Note: I didn't want to discuss or contribute to the furtherance of these activities.) I just want to say that if this current generation of consoles has so far made it impossible to bootleg, or made the barrier to entry cost-prohibitive to pirates, I would consider timed exclusives if I was a developer.

To add, I fully understand it was easy to get the last gen consoles modded. But now with the incentive of XB Live and PS+ to play a lot of games online, people will think twice before doing so since the consoles phone home, and can report any modding activities.

@JustPlainLucas: That video gives me sad face. He's too far gone to save...

In answer to the OP, I think we should expect longer development cycles for games of this caliber. It's not a world of tiled textures anymore. Each scene in the modern Final Fantasy games is a handcrafted masterpiece that I sometimes wish I didn't have to quickly run through because of the random encounter generator.

Not only are these games visual masterpieces, the audio accompaniment could be a standalone symphony orchestra concert. So all of this would add to the time needed.

I personally think that the Lightning storyline went a little long, but I understand from a business perspective that they had all of the digital assets that could be re-used to generate quick income to fund future endeavors. So I think they had to keep teams working on the Lightning series which delayed 100% focus on FF-XV.

In the end, it's their FF reputation and millions of dollars at stake. Unless you have a horse in this race (a la Star Citizen KickStarter funding), you can't do anything except come here and express your opinion.

@hitmanactual: I'm glad to hear that you had the same mindset as me. I'm not big on the forced online multi-player aspect, and would probably stick to just single player until I've unlocked everything. I'll pick it up the next time I see it on sale.

@GTR12: that's an amazing water simulation. With that being said,i think you misread Polishkid's response. I believe he owns the game, and emphasizes the weather is one of the biggest accomplishments that the developer got right.