Yes. I did not finish it however. I prefered the text over all the cinematic scenes and bad acting. It left more to the imagination. I know that there is really no way not to move to voice acting and such, but hey, it's just a personal preference. I think if it was done REALLY well I would like it. But I'll wait for that day to come. (This is also what ruined shenmue for me, and has me worried about Eternal darkness.)

uh, wrong.
Why do you think there are so many ports out there?
If the XBOX base and GCN is both around 1.5M for a total of 3.0M, you consider that small fish? Multiplatform makes the most sense for a developer unless they are getting a ton of cash to make themselfs exclusive. The money and time are wraped up in the game engines and art, the porting of a game to another platform is a relatively easy process that generates nothing but $$$.

I think you are right on. I hate it when I here about the FF series by hardcore gamers. They assume that this is somehow the marquee game to have as an exclusive.
The movie, although beautiful, BOMBED big time over here. The average kid playing video games could'nt give a rats arse about FF. It's a Japan and hardcore gamer thing. I'm not saying that it would not sell some games, but it would never be the blockbuster over here that it is in Japan.

They didn't vote on it because the investor would go with the ability to make games for every platform available, thus increasing profit (except those investors who also have a big stake in Sony, I suppose).

I totally agree and cant wait I Love My GBA

Nintendo owners are going nuts because of the exclusive content, not the ports. They want to see games that link the GC and GBA together (and some of them even thought because of this possibility that because a GBA game was announced, there had to be a GC game too).

Porting is not as easy as you think. Just look at the early ports of Crazy Taxi to the PS2 and you will see what I mean.

Just so you don't dig yourself any deeper, They have to develop some sort of connection to the GC, that's what Fund Q and this deal is about. I think the chance of them creating a game for the GC is pretty good... Yes they could develop a game so you could save it to your GC mem card, but that's lame, and I think Nintendo's executives and lawyers are a little smart for that.

The PS2 is a bitch to program for. Thats why it does make sense to port to GC and Xbox, because its so easy to do. It may not work going from the Xbox/GC to the PS2, but it sure does the other way around.

I think Miyamoto said that. I don't think he's one to make up inflated numbers just for the hell of it. No matter though -- even if the user base is only half that it's still too big to ignore.

Just so you don't dig yourself any deeper, remember that there has been no official commitment to the Q Fund. It was only speculated that Square was going to take advantage of it, but it was never confirmed because they are still in negotiation.

The PS2 was hard to program for in the beginning, but now that it has been out for a while, the programmers are used to it. Porting is hard, no matter what you are doing it for. You are switching from one language to another. It is just as hard to port a GC game to PS2 as it is to port a GC game to X-box (and all the other combinations). The only easy port is from the X-box to the PC because the X-box uses a form of DirectX.

recently i noticed on the offical nintendo site that there was a final fantasy game listed there. i don't know what this means though, as there was no title and no release date with it. i will try and find the page again.

huh?,

From IGN Cube:

Well, lets put it this way. For years Nintendo refused to allow Square to make GBA games unless they would support the GC. Why the change of heart? Somehow, Nintendo is in control of the content, there is no way they would just change thier mind. Nintendo doesn't need square for the GBA , they want them for the GC. It does Nintendo little good to simpley get them for GBA games.

Yeah, I agree. But your original point above was the example of crazy taxi. It came out near the PS2's beginning, in addition it was Sega's first PS2 game.

Ports are not as hard as you think they are. Remember, the PS2 is weaker then the Xbox and GC, porting down to the PS2 can be difficult I agree to that, going the other way is a matter of a couple months of work. Compared to the average development time of a full game a port is considered easy cash.

Even though I did not bring this up, here you go:
http://cube.ign.com/articles/357/357088p1.html

they pulled it from bloomberg.

Uh, the PS2 port of CT was not done by Sega -- I don't think they'd release something that bad.

Porting a game from one console to another can be a tremendous task depending on the game.

There are many companies out there devoted to just developing game engines that are designed to be portable from one system to another. If a game company decides to license one of these engines to build their game then process of porting an actual game should be fairly straight-forward.

However, I believe Square develops its own engines for the Final Fantasy games, and that engine is probably fairly specific to the Playstation hardware. In fact, the only port I'm aware of is FF 7 and FF 8 to the PC. I only have experience with FF 7 for the PC, but I can say getting the game running smoothly and without crashing was about as difficult as the game itself. I believe it actually installed its own sound driver for the game. So, I wouldn't discount the porting process as trivial. The labor involved varies widely depending on the coding of the game itself.

That's right Aklaim did the port. Sorry.

Also, I do agree that it can be more dificult then I make it sound. From what I have read over the years I stand by my POV that that its easier to port then to produce a whole new game, thus companies do it to gain revenue.

Well, there's very little information on the game, but the indication is that it's a second string production (and square does have second string productions; look at Driving Emotion Type S).

I have a feeling this is going to be a non-Final Fantasy game with "Final Fantasy" slapped on the box. Like Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

The 12 million figure came from a Nintendo press release issued last week. It announced that they had shipped 4 million Gamecubes worldwide and they were projecting to sell 12 million Gamecubes worldwide by the end of the year. They should be able to reach it with Resident Evil, Mario, Metroid, Eternal Darkness, maybe Zelda etc.

If you want to see the release, dig around. I think I read it on Planet Gamecube.

I guess that's why FFVII was the one game that put Sony clearly in first place in the last generation, and why FFVIII, FFIX and FFX have all been huge hits selling millions of copies.

I don't like the series (at least not since part III on the SNES) but you can't deny it's success and popularity. It's hardly just for "hardcore gamers and the Japanese."

The movie bombed in Japan too. It was a neat technical display, but it was a bad movie.

Square is actually more popular here than in Japan. In Japan, Enix and their Dragon Quest series is the big RPG, and Final Fantasy is the also-ran.

These games sell large numbers; any game you see a TV commercial for is basically a big money game, and I see a lot of commercials for Final Fantasy games.

Final Fantasy 7 in particular sold a lot, because the graphics were really amazing, at the time. A lot of people liked it, and kept buying the games. It takes extraordinary resources to put out a game like that every year, and Final Fantasy is one of the most expensive, and highest selling franchises around. I think every FF game on PSX and PS2 has sold several million.

But there's no indication that "Final Fantasy Unlimited" will be in keeping, in terms of tone or quality, with the rest of the series. There's no guarantee it will even come out at all.

There's an incentive to be exclusive as well. Often, if a third party is willing to go exclusive, Sony or Microsoft will pick up a lot of the marketing, and get the word out about the game.

Sony has done a lot for Square in exchange for exclusive games, and I guarantee, if Sony doesn't want Square on Gamecube, Square won't be on Gamecube.

The movie has no place in comparing with the popularity of the games. It's a different scale.

Sell a million copies of a video game, and it's a huge hit. Sell a million movie tickets, and it's a miserable flop.

If everyone that loved the Final Fantasy games went to see the movie, it would still be a flop. Likely all these people did see it. It failed because it didn't generate any interest from the casual, non gaming, movie goer.

Okay, so the projected sales through the end of the year are 12 million units. Does anyone know the projected number of PS2s that are projected to be sold?

joshd, that question/point is moot. I'm sure it will be much higher. What we are looking at is sales potential .

The GC does and will continue to have that.

Who knows, but I'm sure it's more than 12 million. Everyone knows Sony has one this round and will stay in a dominant first place. However, if nintendo does sell the 12 million units, they will be in a solid second place. MS recently lowered their projections for the year. Someone else could probably provide the exact number, but off the top of my head I think it was 4.5-5 million.

josh, I'm pretty sure that those xbox numbers are up to june, not the whole year.