News ► Nomura comments on developing KH3 for the PS4

[Gexus]

With the PS4 finally releasing in Japan next month, the latest Weekly Famitsu managed to ask a few notable Japanese developers on what they think about Sony's latest gaming machine. One of those was our beloved Tetsuya Nomura, director and designer of the Kingdom Hearts series.

Nomura is currently busy developing both Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy XV on that particular console (along with the Xbox One), and his opinions on its potential weren't all too positive:

Looking at the PS4, I thought "they've gone too far." I wish they would just let us off the hook. For the player, having a game that's "thoroughly made" makes them excited with anticipation, but for a developer, it's a hurdle we have to overcome.

The number of things we have to do keeps increasing and if we keep trying to expand as far as it will go, we'll never be finished. I think we're going to end up being faced with the choice of what to keep and what to give up on [for Kingdom Hearts III].

I really felt the immense response to the Kingdom Hearts III announcement and so it's now my task to figure out how to satisfy all those people who are looking forward to it.

There have been a lot of different consoles in the past, but I feel that this one is the biggest mountain we've had to climb yet, in a good way.

The Kingdom Hearts games have been known to "give up" various features before, among those were visiting Disney Castle in Kingdom Hearts 1, fighting the behemoths and wyverns in the 1000 heartless battle, as well as the boss fight "King" in KH2. However, considering the power of the new generation of consoles, the mere thought of having the Osaka team sacrificing anything in mid-development is disheartening to say the least.

What are your opinions on Nomura's thoughts? Do you feel you agree with them? How will the power of the new generation of consoles truly benefit the next Kingdom Hearts game?

Kingdom Hearts 3 is expected to release on both the PS4 and Xbox One sometime in the near future.

Source: Kotaku

 

[Chaser]

Hopefully the consoles are powerful enough so they don't have to cut anything out of the game, or sacrifice things like grand scale platforming.
In my opinion, if they are able to throw in the Disney ride attractions, then they should be able to fit in a lot of good things like lots of NPCs, explorable non-linear worlds, mini-games etc.
Hopefully they throw in King as a boss battle as well xD

 

[Gexus]

Hopefully the consoles are powerful enough so they don't have to cut anything out of the game, or sacrifice things like grand scale platforming.
In my opinion, if they are able to throw in the Disney ride attractions, then they should be able to fit in a lot of good things like lots of NPCs, explorable non-linear worlds, mini-games etc.
Hopefully they throw in King as a boss battle as well xD

Yeah. What I don't really understand is what exactly he's having trouble with. It's as if the PS4 too powerful for him, meaning he needs more manpower and resources in order to fully take advantage of its power. So whatever the type of compromise he's referring to, we'll just need to see ...

 

[Chaser]

Maybe he's referring to it being a hard task to include EVERYTHING the fans are expecting in order to keep down costs for resources and to deliver the game sooner

 

[Launchpad]

"M-making Kingdom Hearts 3 is some goddamn fucking b-bullshit... It's super gay and I'm sick of working on a Disney g-game for little babies and you guys all want t-too much shit in it... I QUIT. P-please be excited..." - Tetsuya Nomura, February 2014

 

[Lnds500]

Japanese developers are spoiled and lazy. Every developer is drooling over the PS4, except them.

Just get your act together. A whole generation passed and Square still hasn't figured HD game development. Now they have stronger, better systems and they still whine about it.

That's what happens when you have spent the last 9 (?) years releasing games for archaic hardware.

 

[WastedPenguin]

Hopefully the consoles are powerful enough so they don't have to cut anything out of the game, or sacrifice things like grand scale platforming.
In my opinion, if they are able to throw in the Disney ride attractions, then they should be able to fit in a lot of good things like lots of NPCs, explorable non-linear worlds, mini-games etc.
Hopefully they throw in King as a boss battle as well xD

The PS4 has 8GB GDDR5 Ram (4GB usable only for the games and the other 4GB reserved for the OS and all the background actions like recording while playing, sharing and all that stuff) and a strong 8-core processor and till now there is no game that needs 4GB Ram to run properly.
Just look what they did with the PS2. Kingdom Hearts 1, 2 and Re: Chain of Memories are one of the highest quality PS2 games (especially the CGI sequneces). I saw PS3 games that looked worse than the PS2 Kingdom Hearts titles xD.
What i want to say is that, with the PS4 and Xbox One, they have more than enough power to give us the best experience and this is the problem that Nomura and his team has to deal with.
He knows that we all have enormous expectations in Kingdom Hearts 3 and especially for a big title like this it is not easy to give us all the stuff that we want at the highest quality that can be reached.
And this is one of the many reasons why you shouldn't expect the Kingdom Hearts 3 release before Q3 2016~Q2 2017

 

[Launchpad]

Japanese developers are spoiled and lazy. Every developer is drooling over the PS4, except them.

Just get your act together. A whole generation passed and Square still hasn't figured HD game development. Now they have stronger, better systems and they still whine about it.

That's what happens when you have spent the last 9 (?) years releasing games for archaic hardware.

I don't think you're excited enough.
Please be excited.

Nah, in all honesty, I agree.

 

[Chaser]

One of the interesting things is this was his exact reaction from the Conversation with Creators video (I thought this all sounded familiar):

I thought it was overkill. (laughs) As expected I gradually accepted it and then I wanted one. (laughs) Players are swelling with expectations, but to make something suitable for this system, this is a hurdle that developers must overcome. The things you can do have increased immensely, so once you start broadening the possibilities, it doesn't end, the possibilities just grow. You're pressed to choose what ideas to keep and what to toss. The announcement at E3 has passed, and I am still feeling the huge response that KH3 received. Everyone was so happy in that moment, I'm challenged by how I'll live up to that expectation with this title. It's a big challenge when you have this system where the power of expression is so high. There have been a variety of systems so far, but I feel like this one is the greatest mountain to overcome.

Conversation with Creators with Tetsuya Nomura Interview! - News - Kingdom Hearts Insider
Makes me wonder if Famitsu actually talked to Nomura again or just paraphrased what he already said rofl.

 

[Solo]

I'm not sure I understand why he thinks that "they've gone too far", so I'd appreciate it if someone who does clears it up for me. To me, that sounds like as if he wasn't actually prepared to develop the games for the PS4, but proceeded anyway and now the burden has taken its toll on him. I certainly hope I'm very wrong.

It's going to be hard, if not outright impossible, to please everybody who are looking forward to playing the games... but still, I wish him and his team the very best.

 

[Gexus]

I can't blame Nomura though, jumping over a whole console generation has its difficulties when returning to an even more powerful generation. That, along with all the fan pressure must be overwhelming to say the least.

 

[Lea]

Well...maybe if a whole generation of home consoles weren't skipped, the PS4 wouldn't be taking as big a "toll" on him. Just sayin'.

 

[The_Echo]

I think his concern is more to do with having the ability to do so much.

When he says they'll have to "give up" things, I think he means trimming the fat and keeping the game from being bloated with everything they want to do. While it's always a bit sad to see things pulled from the game, I think (that Nomura thinks) it'd be worse for the game to have everything, and have that be too much. There's also the stress of all the hype, the fanbase that has been whining for the past seven years for this game. There are a lot of expectations, and like Nomura said, it's his job to make sure the game is satisfying; as good as it can be.

In the past on PS2 and handhelds, the hardware was much more limited and, as a result, the teams had a better idea of their limitations.

On the next-gen hardware, those limits are pushed way beyond what they were before, which makes it very tempting to say "oh yeah, we have space on the disc, let's do this!" or "yeah yeah, we can do this as DLC!" or even "we could make this feature online!" I imagine this is especially worrisome for Osaka, who's never done a KH game on a console and may have been thinking of KHIII's scope in more handheld terms.

 

[Blackdrazon]

Yeah, the power of the PS4 isn't limited, it's the problem. The power of next-gen systems makes people demand the moon, and makes devs want the moon, even though they can't honestly deliver it. Japanese developers are financially failing as a rule, which means they can't keep up with Western devs, and Square is the headliner for Japanese dev's financial troubles lately. And remember, it took Nomura seven years to develop a next gen FF game. We're expecting KH in what? Three years? It's true across the industry, it's the reason mid-level devs have been failing for the past generation and are going to fail more: the more power we have, the more we demand, and the less of our demands devs can ultimately fulfil, even the well-funded ones. And so if the PS4 makes us demand the moon, we're going to be even more disappointed.

Long story short: of course something's going to have to get cut from KH3: there's so much they could do but don't have the time or money to do it!

As much as I agree with his point in general, I'm still going to have to disagree with it in this case. No matter what system he's developing on people would still demand the moon: it's just been too long since KH2. It's just this sort of subconscious mistake we make, thinking "It's been this long!" as though that meant "It's been in development this long!" Yeah, there's going to be disappointment from portable-dismissing fans and critics no matter what plays out.

 

[Lnds500]

Yeah, the power of the PS4 isn't limited, it's the problem. The power of next-gen systems makes people demand the moon, and makes devs want the moon, even though they can't honestly deliver it. Japanese developers are financially failing as a rule, which means they can't keep up with Western devs, and Square is the headliner for Japanese dev's financial troubles lately. And remember, it took Nomura seven years to develop a next gen FF game.

9 years this summer and still going.

We're expecting KH in what? Three years?

Judging from what we've been hearing/reading, I wouldn't be surprised if KH3 skipped this generation as well.

 

[Dandelion]

Judging from what we've been hearing/reading, I wouldn't be surprised if KH3 skipped this generation as well.

Nooooo way, Nomura wouldn't do that again. Could you imagine the backlash?
I'm a little disheartened at how entitled some of the posts in this thread are...

 

[Piercing Light]

Am I reading this right? Is he seriously bitching that the PS4 is 'too capable?' How is the fact that he has more options at his disposal a bad thing? He needs to stop feeling pressured by fans and just focus on making a good game. Add what needs to be added, innovate where you see fit to innovate.

 

[Lnds500]

Nooooo way, Nomura wouldn't do that again. Could you imagine the backlash?
I'm a little disheartened at how entitled some of the posts in this thread are...

Both Sony and EA have dropped hints that this generation will be much shorter than the last one (5-6 years).

FFXV is 9 years in development and we haven't seen a playable demo yet, we have no release date etc etc. KH3 is at a much earlier development phase.

Are you willing to bet that they will get their act together and finish it in time? I'm not.

By Sony's estimate, we'll be lucky if we get it near the end of this generation.

 

[Rydgea]

He wants to offer everything the system can handle in the game. I understand he's striving for perfection, wanting to make a PS4 game that is generally distinguished from the PS3. He just needs to focus on the necessary components, that make it, well, fun.

 

[FudgemintGuardian]

Am I reading this right? Is he seriously bitching that the PS4 is 'too capable?' How is the fact that he has more options at his disposal a bad thing? He needs to stop feeling pressured by fans and just focus on making a good game. Add what needs to be added, innovate where you see fit to innovate.

To much freedom can be overwhelming. When it comes to making games, it's easier when you know the limitations of the console. It's kinda like, when you have to many choices you wind up making none.