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Software Microsoft Secures Square Enix RPG on Xbox 360
Marcus Yam (Blog) - September 16, 2007 4:10 PM
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Xbox 360 goes on "Infinite Undiscovery" with Japanese RPG

It has always been a challenge for Microsoft's Xbox group to receive support from top-tier Japanese developers. While the situation is much improved with the Xbox 360 over the previous console, Microsoft would still like to have couple franchises that still define one of its competitor’s consoles.

Although a certain long-running role-playing franchise remains out of reach for Microsoft, the Xbox group took a big step last week when it announced in Tokyo, Japan last week that Square Enix will help bring an exclusive RPG to the Xbox 360.

Announced at Microsoft’s pre-Tokyo Game Show conference was Infinite Undiscovery, a new game developed by tri-Ace – makers of Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile series – and to be published by Square Enix.

Infinite Undiscovery is billed by Square Enix producer Hajime Kojima as an action-oriented, “dynamic, compelling next-generation RPG” with a focus on real-time events

Despite Microsoft’s best efforts, it would be naïve to think that the Xbox 360 has a fighting chance against Nintendo and Sony's user-base levels. What Microsoft is doing now is laying the groundwork for even greater Japanese support for its next console. It certainly worked going from the Xbox to the Xbox 360, and Microsoft hopes the upward trend will continue.

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so by "secure"...
By Gul Westfale on 9/16/2007 10:09:43 PM , Rating: 2
... you mean "paid for", right?




RE: so by "secure"...
By FITCamaro on 9/17/2007 6:57:23 AM , Rating: 3
Whats your point? You think Sony right now isn't paying developers to make exclusives for the PS3? Lets see....lowest install base of any current gen console, highest price tag.....what reason again do developers have to make their titles PS3 exclusives? A desire not to sell their game to as many people as possible?

Sony is fighting off extreme competition from Nintendo and Microsoft this time around. If companies like SE pledged cross platform titles for big names like the Final Fantasy series, the 360 would sell a lot more in Japan.


RE: so by "secure"...
By rdeegvainl on 9/17/2007 7:34:30 AM , Rating: 3
And your point is?
The XBOX is selling like a flaming bag of crap in Japan. The last XBOX sold like a flaming bag of crap in Japan. That is why Japanese RPG makers don't make their games for the XBOX. The majority don't get releases in America, so why worry about making them for the XBOX? Like you said their goal is to make the game sell to as many as possible, BUT, keeping their profits up, and spending all the development on making it XBOX compatible to sell to how many XBOX owners in Japan?


RE: so by "secure"...
By SigmaHyperion on 9/17/2007 9:46:30 AM , Rating: 4
His "point" is that whenever it's announced that MS has managed to get an exclusive out of somebody, that the only reason is that they "paid for" it. As if somehow "paying for" an exclusive was some unethical thing to do.

Well no freaking DUH they paid for it. That's how any company gets an exclusive. That's how the business of publishing works. Square-Enix doesn't avoid putting the FF series on the Xbox out of the goodness of its' heart. Nor does Polyphony not make Gran Turismo for the Xbox just because it doesn't want to. Sony pays/paid damn well for the exclusives that it has/had, but when Microsoft goes and does the exact same thing people act like it's some sort of unethical use of Microsoft's enormous coffers.

Obviously, these traditional Japanese RPGs aren't going to sell in the huge numbers that they might otherwise simply because their target market of Japan doesn't have a large 360 install base. But it has a much larger install base than the original Xbox has. And if MS can keep these high-quality traditional Japanese RPGs churning out from respected developers it will ensure that the next Xbox has an even greater install base.
In the meantime, MS needs to compensate the developers for the lower sales figures that they're going to see due to the lower install base. That's absolutely no different than Sony compensating Polyphony to not make a Gran Turismo game for the 360 -- it's compensating it for the loss of sales it takes by not making its game available to a wider install base.


RE: so by "secure"...
By rdeegvainl on 9/17/2007 9:57:18 AM , Rating: 2
Hey i don't agree with Sony paying for exclusives either, but just cause they do, doesn't make the situation any better when Microsoft does it. But paying for a Japanese RPG maker to make their RPG for a system that has horrendous sales in Japan, well if that just doesn't reek. They are gonna be called out on that, and that's just cold hard reality.
Better Idea I think would be to hire the developers and work to make their own RPG name, but instead they just want to pay of some developer, with big names, instead of adding to the total game pool. So yeah i think the situation is pretty lame, no matter who does it.


RE: so by "secure"...
By SigmaHyperion on 9/17/2007 10:38:29 AM , Rating: 2
See that's just it -- why does Microsoft need to go and "add to the total game pool"? There's already, if anything, an oversaturation in the market for traditional Japanese RPGs. With so many of them already out there some new game from some developer that no one has ever heard of, from Microsoft of all people, will go over about as well as a lead balloon. No one would buy it. When you're trying to penetrate a market you get the games that the market wants to buy, and that's traditional games made by names that the market recognizes. That's just basic business sense there. The Japanese are fiercely brand-loyal. MS would be stupid to venture into the market entirely on its' own, which is pretty much what it did with the original Xbox -- here's our hardware, here's a bunch of games we made or had made from developers you've never heard of, none of them are really made for your market, but we think you'll really like them anyways. And we all know how well that went.

Bottom line is that game development, particularly that of new IP, is not the business that Sony and Microsoft are in. And it's really not something they want to get in. Unlike Nintendo, creating games is not their core competency. At best Sony and MS will buy dev houses to protect a particular franchise or ensure they have particular games available for their hardware, but they're generally not in the business of creating new dev houses to create brand new franchises.


RE: so by "secure"...
By rdeegvainl on 9/17/2007 11:17:53 AM , Rating: 2
Your right, that wouldn't go over well in japan, and neither will paying for an RPG exclusive for the XBOX, it won't sell well and won't make microsoft much headway at all. If they put money into making a name for themselves instead of always buying competition, i could respect that, but they don't. they don't try, all they are doing is throwing as much money at the problem as they can, and it's not working in Japan and they can't figure out why. I agree they are not in the new ip market, but what a shame, cause i would really jump for an XBOX if i saw they were making new ip themselves.


RE: so by "secure"...
By SigmaHyperion on 9/17/2007 12:20:49 PM , Rating: 3
I wouldn't say that this won't make Microsoft much headway.

When Blue Dragon came out it was the first time that the 360 ever sold-out in Japan. Hardware sales in the weeks leading up to and after the release were up 200-400% even over what they were right at launch.

Now, granted, it's easy to "triple sales" when you're starting from the basement-low numbers that the 360 hardware normally sells at. But the point is that these types of games make huge boosts in the demand for the 360. There was a big boost when just that one game the Japanese market really wanted came out. With Eternal Sonata sales also saw a nice bump. Then there's Lost Odyssey which is anticipated to be as big a deal in Japan as Blue Dragon was. Then there's of course Infinite Undiscovery.

Even if those titles singularly don't stand out to a particular gamer, the fact that there will be four titles that they are interested in, will exponentially increase sales. Not many people will buy a console for just one game, even a really good one -- but despite that the Xbox saw a nice bump in sales, even if it didn't stay around too long. A lot more people will buy a console if there's at least a few good games on it that they're interested in.

One more RPG isn't going to turn the 360 into a PS3-killer in Japan. It's not meant to be. It's just meant as a sign to the Japanese market that, unlike with the first Xbox, Microsoft is going to bring games to their market that they are interested in. So that when the next Xbox comes out, which will be end up very likely being years before Sony comes out with their next one, that the Japanese gamers don't need to sit around waiting for the Playstation because they can rest easy knowing that MS is going to provide games they want.

Is it going to pay for those games? Damn right it is. Microsoft Game Studios is, first and foremost, a publisher of video games, not a developer. Paying dev houses to create games is what publishers do. MS is no different from Vivendi, THQ, Ubisoft, NCSoft, etc it pays people to make games which it publishes.


RE: so by "secure"...
By rdeegvainl on 9/17/2007 2:25:27 PM , Rating: 2
Yes many games make the console, the sad fact that sony is learning right now. The problem i see with microsofts method is having to pay for each exclusive everytime. If they started making thier own then they would still have to pay for the production, but they would also have control and then wouldn't have to pay for each game cause they could say look here, we've done it ourselves and we are gonna do some more. I also have no love for the PUBLISHER thing, look what happened with EA a whole lot of mediocre with very few gems. I think that microsoft has the resources if anyone to put some real quality stuff out there, and just buying out everything seems pretty, (insert not nice word here). Though technically i guess they do have every right to go that route, i just see so much more that it could be.


RE: so by "secure"...
By Locutus465 on 9/18/2007 12:43:45 AM , Rating: 2
Microsoft needs to get gamers in Japan buying x-boxes, in order to do that they need great RPG exclusives Japonese gamers will want to buy, good enough that they'll shell out for a 360 to get it. There's nothing wrong with what they're doing, any more than there's anything wrong with Sony doing the same thing. It's business, it happens in every single industry you plan to get into... So I sincerly hope your scrooples won't prevent you from working for a company that does this....


RE: so by "secure"...
By rdeegvainl on 9/17/2007 9:57:21 AM , Rating: 1
Hey i don't agree with Sony paying for exclusives either, but just cause they do, doesn't make the situation any better when Microsoft does it. But paying for a Japanese RPG maker to make their RPG for a system that has horrendous sales in Japan, well if that just doesn't reek. They are gonna be called out on that, and that's just cold hard reality.
Better Idea I think would be to hire the developers and work to make their own RPG name, but instead they just want to pay of some developer, with big names, instead of adding to the total game pool. So yeah i think the situation is pretty lame, no matter who does it.


RE: so by "secure"...
By rdeegvainl on 9/17/2007 9:58:32 AM , Rating: 1
Double post for some reason, please DESTROY one!!!!


RE: so by "secure"...
By Gul Westfale on 9/17/2007 10:29:18 PM , Rating: 2
i wasn't implying that this is unethical or that MS are the only ones doing it; i just find it funny that these companies (all 3 of them) always announce these things in such a huge way and are thus trying to make the buying public believe that their console is "better" in some way because developer X chose it for an exclusive title; and yet in reality developer X only chose them because they were paid for it.


What about Blue Dragon?
By Etsp on 9/16/2007 10:25:36 PM , Rating: 3
Ok, this Infinite Undiscovery may be made by the current Square Enix... But this article makes it sound like it's the first major japanese RPG to hit the 360. You don't underestimate the names attached to blue dragon...

The man behind the game is Hironobu Sakaguchi, who's claim to fame was as the co-founder of Square, and the mind behind the Final Fantasy series and Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross.

For character design, they have Akira Toriyama, The mind behind the Dragonball and Dragonball Z series.

Last but not least, the music was done by Nobuo Uematsu, who was behind most of the music in the Final Fantasy series.




RE: What about Blue Dragon?
By Exodus220 on 9/16/2007 10:53:11 PM , Rating: 2
You can't really pre-judge a product based on who is involved. Even though Blue Dragon had all those big names involved in its creation it still only received low to medium reviews. It was nothing comparable to the games they were responsible for contributing to (Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy, Dragon Ball). And since Square Enix isn't even developing the game I am not going to get myself too excited (I don't even have an XBOX360).


RE: What about Blue Dragon?
By tuteja1986 on 9/17/2007 4:05:32 AM , Rating: 3
Okay :

1st 14hr or so of the game is pretty slow and boring. You have no real story advancement until then 2nd disk where things start to pick and game starts to get much better. From finishing the game i think developer didn't have enough time to complete the game and reason because i could think off would be that Microsoft was desperate to release the game at Q4 2006 in japan as they had no major title that japs were really interested in. If they had chopped out all the uncompleted parts of the game then they would have done much better in getting better review score. You could tell it was uncompleted because the game would slow down for no apparent reason and that every boss fight had the same music. Also some uncompleted level design and also story line at start made no sense. Also most review i read sounded like the editor didn't bother to finish the game. Gamespot editor and 2 editors of EGM that reviewed the game sounded like they didn't bother to complete the game which i couldn't really blame them for.

I was myself about to give up on the game after 10hrs in but i am glad i didn't because later part of the game is pretty awesome. I think only major review website i read that actually sounded like the editor that finished the game was IGN one.


RE: What about Blue Dragon?
By nace186 on 9/17/07, Rating: 0
RE: What about Blue Dragon?
By Marcus Yam on 9/16/2007 10:59:15 PM , Rating: 2
Blue Dragon didn't add up to being the sum of its parts. It's a good game, and I enjoyed it, but it's not a "next-gen" RPG that gamers are expecting.

Neither is Eternal Sonata, but that's not going to stop me from picking it up this week.

The 360 is doing far, far better than the first Xbox though. Winning over just one game from Square Enix (well, sorta) is a big milestone for Microsoft.


RE: What about Blue Dragon?
By SigmaHyperion on 9/16/2007 11:10:17 PM , Rating: 2
While Blue Dragon wasn't exactly well-received critically here in the US, in Japan it did quite well. They're not as "tired" of the traditional Japanese RPG as the American market is. Looking pretty is about the only "next-gen" requirement that the Japanese market demands from their traditional RPGs.

You mentioned Eternal Sonata, another traditional Japanese RPG coming out this week, and there's also Lost Odyssey under development right now as well due out sometime soon. Mistwalker, the developer of Lost Odyssey, was founded by a Square-Enix employee as well.


RE: What about Blue Dragon?
By theflux on 9/17/2007 1:33:50 AM , Rating: 2
I'm confused. They already had Final Fantasy 11 on the 360, and The Last Remnant was announced for the 360 as well. I don't see how this is a milestone at all.

As far as paying Japanese developers to make games which appeal to the Japanese goes, Microsoft is doing much better. If you mean it is doing better in terms of sales in Japan, it only recently surpassed the original xbox, and not by many units.


RE: What about Blue Dragon?
By Marcus Yam on 9/17/2007 3:19:56 AM , Rating: 2
Final Fantasy 11 for Xbox 360? Too little, too late.

Last Remnant? Nothing that a Japanese gamer won't find on a PS3.

Infinite Undiscovery? Gotta have an Xbox 360. For now.

Microsoft wants exclusives, not just "me toos"... but for stuff like Final Fantasy and Metal Gear, I'm sure that they'd settle for that too.


RE: What about Blue Dragon?
By theflux on 9/17/2007 12:05:27 PM , Rating: 2
Ok I see, the milestone is an exclusive Square game on the 360. Well, I'd like to say I agree this is a big step, but it isn't. They absolutely need FF or MGS, because as we've seen with Blue Dragon, even if you put out a solid game attached to a legendary game developer, it still isn't guaranteed to move units. Blue Dragon did sell well, but only in the context of the dismal previous sales of the 360. It hasn't done very well over here. They still have Lost Odyssey, which I am looking forward to, but they really need Final Fantasy.


By SaySomeThingOrDIE on 9/19/2007 1:20:22 PM , Rating: 2
What I have read about Blue Dragon and Hironobu Sakaguchi original plain was to make it for the X360. Hironobu Sakaguchi have already told the media that the PS3 hardward is "tricky" to program around. X360 and WII still partially use the same programming codes from it's previous system, making it easier to develop. Blue Dragon is not a SquareEnix game. Hironobu Sakaguchi founded a company name Mistwalker which develop the game(and few others). What I thought about Blue Dragon, was it was still a PS2 game for the next generation console.


RE: What about Blue Dragon?
By afkrotch on 9/17/2007 4:19:13 AM , Rating: 2
And oddly enough, all those names attached to Blue Dragon don't contain those who actually wrote stories for the RPGs. The main defining point of an RPG is the story. Dragonball sucks.

Also, have you actually played Blue Dragon? I own the Xbox 360 Blue Dragon bundle. Needless to say, that game blows. Blows real hard.

I have high hopes for Trusty Bell. After playing the short demo, when it was released in Japan, I really enjoyed it. I like the hybrid battle system for the game. I've got it preordered through Gamestop. With luck, it'll work on my Japanese Xbox 360. If not, I'll just have to order the Japanese version.

I never bothered picking up the other RPGs available for the 360. Like Daria.


Sweet
By FITCamaro on 9/16/2007 10:08:20 PM , Rating: 2
But what they need is a AAA title actually produced by SE. Not just published.




RE: Sweet
By Flunk on 9/16/2007 11:37:32 PM , Rating: 2
You have to remember that in Japan tri-Ace is a big name developer (Who up until this have been Sony exclusive). The Japanese RPG industry does not consist of Square-Enix exclusively. Now if they could only get level-5, namco or even natsume they might actually sell some xboxs in Japan (they sure aren't right now).


RE: Sweet
By Timeless on 9/17/2007 1:13:34 AM , Rating: 2
Aren't level 5 the people that are developing White Knight for the PS3? Gosh, it's been a llllooooonnnngggg time since I heard any news about White Knight.


RE: Sweet
By deeznuts on 9/17/2007 3:12:48 PM , Rating: 2
They have Namco, don't they? I thought Beautiful Katamari, Eternal Sonata, and Ace Combat 6 were Namco Bandai. But then again I can't keep track of devs, pubs, collabs, joint ventures etc.


RE: Sweet
By Duraz0rz on 9/17/2007 2:05:12 AM , Rating: 2
tri-ace is still a great developer. Star Ocean 3 is one of the best PS2 RPGs released here in the US.


Infinite Undiscovery
By wallijonn on 9/17/2007 12:02:21 PM , Rating: 2
"Infinite Undiscovery" looks like the typical RPG. What is needed is more games like "Blue Dragon," or "Zelda" type games where there is actually platforming to be done, along with exploration, ala "Tomb Raider," or even "Mario". "Mass Effect" is probably what most people want, an action RPG with shooter and platforming. If "Infinite Undiscovery" is your typical 'go 5 paces, fight, go 5 paces, fight, go 5 paces, fight' type of RPG, then it'll probably be a bust.




RE: Infinite Undiscovery
By Gastrian on 9/17/2007 12:37:17 PM , Rating: 2
So you've never played Star Ocean on the PS2 then?


RE: Infinite Undiscovery
By SigmaHyperion on 9/17/2007 12:44:30 PM , Rating: 2
The average gamer in the US might not want that "typical 'go 5 paces, fight, go 5 paces, fight, go 5 paces, fight' type of RPG" but, fact is, that sells like hotcakes in Japan.

That's why they went crazy over Blue Dragon which rather flopped over here comparatively.

Likewise, Mass Effect will probably be huge here but not a big seller in Japan.


360 has the best RPGs on the market
By Rampage on 9/17/2007 10:10:45 PM , Rating: 2
Blue dragon is the best rpg out for any console right now. There's nothing on PS3.

Between Oblivion for American RPGs and Blue Dragon for Japanese RPGs, 360 has the best RPGs for any of the next generation consoles.




By chrnochime on 9/17/2007 11:08:53 PM , Rating: 2
Best RPG out of PS3/Xbox360? Please, as much I as I prefer Japanese made RPG, Oblivion beats Blue dragon hands down. Everything Dragon Ball creator draws looks the same, and that shows in the BD. His style gets tiresome after so many years of DB. If tri-ace (I don't know/care who the game developer is so if it's wrong whatever) had only gone with the style of the manga (which is drawn by the same team who draws Deathnote IIRC) they might have done better. But unfortunately we'll never know.

And why do people think so highly of Gears of War? Since when did real people lose the ability to run at an angle greater than 10 degrees from straight ahead anyway?


By Darthefe on 9/18/2007 10:30:55 AM , Rating: 2
What ur sayin right now ridiculous, its only a matter of a year or even half a year until other RPG's come out and u should not post such crap if u know the 360 has a head start of a year to the Wii and, the ps3 also a year but not counting europe, Blue dragon is good but not worth to mention that it is know the BEST.


Are 360 owners even fans of RPGs?
By ruibing on 9/17/2007 2:28:11 PM , Rating: 2
Most people who want to own a console would own one by the end of this year anyways, and I believe the console a person gets defines the type of games he/she enjoys.

To me the XBOX/360 has a lot of shooters and racers, PSX/PS2/PS3 has a lot of RPGs, and Gamecube/Wii has a lot of party games (like Super Mash Brothers). When I was buying a console this summer, I wanted RPG and I knew without hesitating that I would then get a PS3. Friends of mine got the 360 for its shooters (like Gears of War).

I think Microsoft is trying too hard to get these games and cover all these bases. Blue Dragon was bad and Eternal Sonata was good, at least according to reviews, but its hard to say anything about this. I mean I liked Star Ocean, so it should be pretty good, but then again Blue Dragon had some good developers too.




By SigmaHyperion on 9/17/2007 4:34:21 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Most people who want to own a console would own one by the end of this year anyways,


Actually, that's quite incorrect.

Historically, the vast majority of a console's audience didn't purchase it until it's priced [i]significantly[/i] less than it was at launch. Which, obviously, both Microsoft and Sony are quite a long ways from doing (MS not nearly as far for the dumbed down 'Core').

Some 90% of all PS2s sold and over 80% of Xbox's were sold only after the prices dropped below $200. Price is precisely why the PS2 is [i]still[/i] selling so damned well and is certainly playing a big role in the Wii's success as well.

"MOST" people haven't even seriously looked at a next-gen console yet. Cumulatively there was some 200 million hardware units made in the last-gen (with the PS2 is still churning out). To date there's been less than 25 million units of "next-gen" consoles sold. So only 1/8th of last-gen console owners have even bothered to replace theirs. And that's actually being quite generous, as fully 1/3rd of all the "next-gen" sales have been the Wii, which we know is attracting buyers that didn't even buy a last-gen console.

So you're probably looking at less than 10% of the video gaming market that has even made a purchase yet (and that's just presuming that the market doesn't even extend outside those that purchased a last-gen console), and that number isn't going to be more than 15-20% by the end of this year. That leaves a HUGE market that is yet untapped and will be until the prices of the 360 and PS3 drop signficantly.


By SaySomeThingOrDIE on 9/19/2007 1:55:02 PM , Rating: 2
What I believe is this, the Japanese Gaming industry(RPG, shooter, thinking, action, dating sims, porn, hentai, etc.), for about 10 years cater to the PS2 system, when it was still famous. Almost 100,000 independent game developers were founded during this period of success. I found one of the reason, Japanese game developers tried to cater towards the Xbox/X360 was because MS (like Sony and Nitendo) were paying developers to have their games exclusively for their system only. (but, sometimes if the game doesn't sell on one system, the developer will re-work it to work on another system.)
Like Blue Dragon, Infinite Undiscovery initially was intended for the XBOX. But because the XBOX had a short life span, it was transfer to the X360. Yoshiharu Gotanda, one of the founders of Tri-Ace, have already spoke his mind to the media.




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