When are we expecting news?

[Squood!]

My understanding is that neither FFXVI or FF7R2 met expections. PS5 exclusivity might certainly be a factor, but I'm not sure we have the full knowledge to say that with 100% certainty. Anecdotally, as someone who grew up with FF7, Remake bored me, and I never even bothered to try Rebirth. Too different from the games I like.

Yeah, I don't know how much of a factor Disney's involvement is. At the very least, it seems KH4 is one of the titles they *are* focusing on. RIP my hopes for a Star Ocean 3 remake.

Knowing SE their expectations were probably a tad high.

Also total deja vu I coulda swore I read through this exact response and typed all this before.

 

[MATGSY]

According to this Bloomberg writer, there are now only five console dev teams and one mobile dev team. Take it with a grain of salt as he’s known to misconstrue details for his articles. I think if there’s any truth to it, it probably refers to creative studios (which are replacing the business units.)

But if it is true as written, that would only leave the teams for FFVII, FFXIV, DQXII, presumably KH4, and one other game left. And I guess whoever is making Missing Link is their one mobile team? That just doesn’t seem sustainable to me if it is truly only those individual teams.

Visions of Mana is the last one.

 

[Darkspawn]

I'm glad so many people enjoyed FF7R, but man, I never asked for an action rpg sequel remake. I just wanted a normal remake, just in the one game. FFR2 did much worse than its prequel. How much money are they spending on the third one? Is it going to do even worse?

The silver lining for me through all these cuts is that maybe they focus on KH4, since that's one of their main titles. Maybe that means an earlier release date? Dunno how development is affected.

Rebirth had a lot working against it.

It came out at the end of a streak of several other major JRPG releases with Persona 3, Like a Dragon, and Granblue Fantasy. And on the non-JRPG side, Helldivers 2 was in the midst of its huge breakout and was getting a lot of attention from the PS5 player base. So it was in a crowded space. If it had released at a different time, it likely would have done better.

On top of that, it didn’t have anywhere near the install base that Remake had. Nor the same level of anticipation. Or a global pandemic that had everyone at home with limited entertainment options. And of course, anyone who didn’t like Remake was unlikely to play it. It was never going to meet the same numbers.

It’s still one of the top GOTY contenders, so hopefully it will have some legs through the holiday season. And as far as Part 3, I don’t think it will be that much more expensive to make. With the experience the team has now, it will likely take the same or less time. (Rebirth only took three years itself.) The people who stuck around for Rebirth will likely play Part 3 too to see it through.

Visions of Mana is the last one.

What about DQ3 Remake? Yoshi-P, Team Asano, and Yoko Taro’s next projects? If they consolidated teams this much, I doubt Mana would get its own team over FFXVII or whatever Yoshi-P is now working on. I’m pretty sure the writer is just making up details for his article as he has been caught doing in the past. Or he doesn’t know the different between the creative studio vs a specific dev team within those.

 

[MATGSY]

Rebirth had a lot working against it.

It came out at the end of a streak of several other major JRPG releases with Persona 3, Like a Dragon, and Granblue Fantasy. And on the non-JRPG side, Helldivers 2 was in the midst of its huge breakout and was getting a lot of attention from the PS5 player base. So it was in a crowded space. If it had released at a different time, it likely would have done better.

On top of that, it didn’t have anywhere near the install base that Remake had. Nor the same level of anticipation. Or a global pandemic that had everyone at home with limited entertainment options. And of course, anyone who didn’t like Remake was unlikely to play it. It was never going to meet the same numbers.

Past that, I genuinely believe a lot of people bought Remake under the assumption that it was the entire FF7 remade, & didn't understand what Rebirth even was. You might think that's ridiculous, not most folks are not as tuned into gaming news as we are & there's never been a video game remake on the scale of FF7 before so it wouldn't be surprising to me if some people aren't fully grasping the concept.

What about DQ3 Remake? Yoshi-P, Team Asano, and Yoko Taro’s next projects? If they consolidated teams this much, I doubt Mana would get its own team over FFXVII or whatever Yoshi-P is now working on. I’m pretty sure the writer is just making up details for his article as he has been caught doing in the past. Or he doesn’t know the different between the creative studio vs a specific dev team within those.

The reorganized teams doesn't rule out the possibility of smaller projects outsourced to other studios like Platinum or Tose. If anything, Square's gonna be relying on such devs even more so going forward. That said, DQ3 being 1 of the canned games wouldn't surprise me. There's already an older version of DQ3 on Switch that they could just port to other platforms if need be.

 

[Darkspawn]

Past that, I genuinely believe a lot of people bought Remake under the assumption that it was the entire FF7 remade, & didn't understand what Rebirth even was. You might think that's ridiculous, not most folks are not as tuned into gaming news as we are & there's never been a video game remake on the scale of FF7 before so it wouldn't be surprising to me if some people aren't fully grasping the concept.

Yeah that’s another great point. As I think Launchpad mentioned, Crisis Core Reunion being thrown in there too certainly didn’t help any casual players.

The reorganized teams doesn't rule out the possibility of smaller projects outsourced to other studios like Platinum or Tose. If anything, Square's gonna be relying on such devs even more so going forward. That said, DQ3 being 1 of the canned games wouldn't surprise me. There's already an older version of DQ3 on Switch that they could just port to other platforms if need be.

One of the key points of the new business plan is moving game development in-house though. So it sounds like they are actually moving away from outsourcing.

Also, one mobile dev team doesn’t make sense either unless they’re dropping a bunch of those. The same team developing and maintaining Missing Link, Ever Crisis, DQ Walk among others just seems unlikely. Makes more sense for it to be a studio made up of smaller teams. (Especially when it was already announced that they were restructuring from creative business units to creative studios.)

I don’t think DQIII is cancelled. It was being tested early this year/late last year. If anything, it’s more likely development is finished and they’re just waiting to release it this fall since they just had two other DQ games late last year. I don’t see them cancelling a game from their second best selling franchise that far into development.

 

[Phoenix]

Yeah that’s another great point. As I think Launchpad mentioned, Crisis Core Reunion being thrown in there too certainly didn’t help any casual players.



One of the key points of the new business plan is moving game development in-house though. So it sounds like they are actually moving away from outsourcing.

Also, one mobile dev team doesn’t make sense either unless they’re dropping a bunch of those. The same team developing and maintaining Missing Link, Ever Crisis, DQ Walk among others just seems unlikely. Makes more sense for it to be a studio made up of smaller teams. (Especially when it was already announced that they were restructuring from creative business units to creative studios.)

I don’t think DQIII is cancelled. It was being tested early this year/late last year. If anything, it’s more likely development is finished and they’re just waiting to release it this fall since they just had two other DQ games late last year. I don’t see them cancelling a game from their second best selling franchise that far into development.

That's a good point too, how many mobile games can they actually maintain with that reduced scale? My understanding is that EC isn't doing great. I wonder if EoS is heading for some of them. FFBE in particular seems like it's going to die any day.

 

[Darkspawn]

That's a good point too, how many mobile games can they actually maintain with that reduced scale? My understanding is that EC isn't doing great. I wonder if EoS is heading for some of them. FFBE in particular seems like it's going to die any day.

That could be the case. I would think they’d want to continue Ever Crisis until they complete the First Soldier story at least, but ideally until all the Remake parts are out. Though if it gets shut down, maybe we’ll get a consoke remake using the assets. One can hope. Lol

DQ Walk isn’t going anywhere at least.

 

[Darkspawn]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1791136531249578382

Some of the SGF partners were announced. No Square Enix, but I think they’ll be in a future round.

Hoping they’re saving them because it’s going to be a big reveal. lol

 

[Liodin]

Don't you dare Geoff!
I swear

Edit:
Why would he save SE for a later date? IF he's really saving it...
And there are just 3 weeks left until the event.
I can't believe you're doing this to me Geoff, I trusted you...

Could this mean that Sony will be the one with the trailer?

 

[Darkspawn]

Apparently some won’t be revealed in advance either. Lol

 

[Squood!]

Istg if Square just stays out of this

 

[Launchpad]

joining the SGF stream would obviously be better publicity for KH4 but.. man I don't wanna sit through the Geoff-a-palooza, I hope they just shadowdrop a trailer next sunday

 

[NoWay]

I don’t know why but I’m starting to doubt that we’ll get a trailer during SGF because of this silence. I’m betting on TGS or Jump Festa.
I’d expect SE to make a big announcement and have a whole panel discussing the trailer which seems most likely for D23 or TGS.

 

[maximumlight8]

Every TGS lately has shown nothing, jump festa for that matter too. When we get news we'll get it, I never have expectations for any of these events.

 

[Darkspawn]

They could also show it at the PS showcase first and then announce they’ll be at SGF with more after that.

But I could just as easily see them waiting until D23 to get that live Star Wars reaction.

I don’t see SE outright skipping SGF though. If nothing else, they could have run an ad for Visions of Mana (which first appeared at the Game Awards.) So I hope there’s something more to them not being announced yet.

Notably, they were on the initial partner announcement last year when they were there to show Rebirth, but they didn’t have multiple rounds of partner announcements then either.

 

[blank points]

Considering that Square has been teasing most of their releases on social media before an announcement, including ML several months back, we should be keeping an eye on the social media accounts. If we don't see any kind of tease, I think we can guess that it probably won't be there. That isn't to say a shadow drop is impossible, but Square hasn't really done that recently.

 

[Darkspawn]

Considering that Square has been teasing most of their releases on social media before an announcement, including ML several months back, we should be keeping an eye on the social media accounts. If we don't see any kind of tease, I think we can guess that it probably won't be there. That isn't to say a shadow drop is impossible, but Square hasn't really done that recently.

Yeah they did that with Rebirth too with the daily Q&A before it was shown at SGF. I’m keeping my eyes on 5/31 (or June 1st) when they might start a 7 day countdown.

 

[Squood!]

Yeah they did that with Rebirth too with the daily Q&A before it was shown at SGF. I’m keeping my eyes on 5/31 (or June 1st) when they might start a 7 day countdown.

I doubt it. KH doesn't exactly get the same treatment as FF.

 

[Darkspawn]

I doubt it. KH doesn't exactly get the same treatment as FF.

They did a tease with Missing Link as blank points said. There’s nothing about KH’s “treatment” that indicates they wouldn’t do another tease when KH4 news is approaching. KH3 was more successful than FFXVI and Rebirth, so there’s no reason for it to be considered “less than” at this point.

They might not tease anything in favor of a total surprise. But if they want KH fans to watch the show and get those live reactions, it’s good for them to toss out a little bait.

Plus the Linking Hearts event starts the 31st and runs up to SGF, with some additional KH merch releasing the same day as the show.

EDIT: As I suspected, the five “dev teams” are actually the creative studios.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1791426585683468574

My guess is CS 1&2 are FFVII, KH, and SaGa. CS 3 is obviously FFXIV and the XVI team’s next project. CS 4&5 are DQ, Nier, and Team Asano.

Mana could be under 1&2 or 4&5.

Wonder if KH is now under CS2. Kitase previously only oversaw CBU1 which was 7R, KH, and SaGa. So my guess is either KH is now under CS2 or that’s the new Mana studio that was previously CBU4.

 

[Squood!]

When will Nomura get his promotion

And why does Studio 3 get a logo while the rest don't ;A;