Final Fantasy Returns To Nintendo

RasTa

According to the Saturday edition of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Square and Nintendo have reached an agreement that will bring Final Fantasy games to the GameCube and Game Boy Advance platforms. Under the agreement, Nintendo has confirmed that president Hiroshi Yamauchi will allocate money from Fund Q--a fund Yamauchi set up in January to help encourage software development--to a new Square-affiliated development house. In return, Square will establish the new development house with help from Akitoshi Kawazu, a director from the Final Fantasy development team, by the end of this month.
The Square affiliate is expected to release games for both the GameCube and Game Boy Advance before the end of the year. Square properties other than Final Fantasy were not mentioned in the report.

We'll have more information as it becomes available.

By Giancarlo Varanini



ooo the playstaion is loosing its exclusives

Dont be at yourself

C'est super!

Kairo

I may now die a happy man.

After I play these new games of course

chernobyl

Sony in October invested $116 million in Square, making it the company's second-largest shareholder. The infusion came after Square posted its worst-ever loss, caused by the production of a movie version of "Final Fantasy" that was a major commercial flop.

I dont think "square" as a whole are going to nintendo, once of the developers top dogs and richest is forming his own subsidiary to make games for GC/GBA under the square brand.

Shinji

No, lets be clear here - SQUARE is forming a subsidiary and one of their top dogs is going to head up the creative there. This isn't one guy acting alone, it's Square as a company making a significant decision to develop for the GameCube.

It's been common knowledge within the industry for some time that Square was working on GBA titles (probably conversions of SNES-era games) and was just waiting for the go-ahead from Nintendo to publish them on GBA. The subsidiary company is mostly a face saving exercise for outgoing Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, I'd imagine; he said repeatedly that Square would never develop for a Nintendo console during his time as president, and when he retires this summer he'll be able to say that he stuck by that pledge.

Square rattled sabers at Sony and threatened to take the Final Fantasy and Chrono brands to competing consoles entirely; which would, of course, have entailed the PlayOnline system being multiplatform from the get-go. That's why the investment came in from Sony. Square were at pains at the time to make clear that this didn't make them into a Sony second party.

(By the way chernobyl - where does that quote come from? Because it's kinda wrong - the Square loss (which wasn't so much worst-ever, as *first* ever - it was quite a palatable loss by general standards, just embarrassing for the company rather than damaging) was much more easily attributable to the high expenditure on PlayOnline than to the cost of FF:TSW, which had been spread over a number of years and could be written off against the commercial value of Square Hawaii Studio...)


FWIW, I reckon what we're most likely to see on the Cube initially are Final Fantasy XI (which they'll want on *every console ever*) and then some of the new Final Fantasy Unlimited games. Kingdom Hearts is also an obvious candidate - we've known all along that it was set to be on *two* platforms, but they've never named the second one.

On GBA, we'll probably see some SNES-era titles (FF4, 5, 6 seem likely - other franchises will follow if those are successful) and again, some Final Fantasy Unlimited games which link into the Cube titles.

Well, that's my call anyway

chernobyl

Quote ripped from PlanetGameCube.(3'rd last paragraph)

http://www.planetgamecube.com/news.cfm?action=item&id=2747

Shinji

Ah, cheers. It originated at Reuters - which makes it inherently suss. They're really good at reporting actual news, but when it comes to filling in background facts they tend not to have their fingers on the pulse that much, especially with relatively obscure markets like the Japanese videogame market. They're usually on the money with the actual reporting - but it's worth double-checking their background info, always.

Mills

Final Fantasy on the GBA? I'll have to buy one if this comes to pass.

Kairo

Asuka

Thumbs up! Gotta love Penny Arcade... Cant wait for the FF games to go back to their roots... even though their best one was on PlayStation... Ive played 4,5 and 6, but id play them again just for the novelty value of playing them on a handheld...

A