Hey guys I have read some interesting news that may be signifigant to the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII.

I am hoping this thread will encourage educated discusson relating to the slightly more technical side of this franchise including marketing,software and platform aspects.
I have mentioned the above as it is known that Square-Enix intends the FFVII franchise to be of polymorphic content, so we would include things specific to any one product such as DVD, Online and Portable devices.

Please keep in mind that some gossip is okay, but keep it relevent to the compilation as a whole, try to include facts and/or evidence with your claims.

I will start off with a slightly dodgy concept of which has been torched to a crisp here at ffshrine but I would also like to point out that this is a technical view in respect to the compilation as a whole.

Final Fantasy VII (Nintendo DS)

Rumours from Japan over the last week have had fanboys exicted about a suggested High budget porting of FFVII to the Nintendo DS handheld system.

Queries were raised when Tetsuya Nomura confirmed to a playstation 2 magazine named Dengeki that final fantasy 7 will have major roles and showings in next years E3 show

it is also rumored that a FFVII project had been started for the ultra 64 and was abandoned in late development after Nindendo's president's refusal of moving to compact disc media with N64 they abandoned the code and started a new with playstation devopling kits, if what was rumored is in fact true, porting a N64 version of FFVII to the nindendo ds would be a far easier to do as they have compatible coding and far better resource wise than a fully fledged ps2/3 remake.

This seem to be a far more viable way of introducing FFVII itself to new audiences, It also makes sence as FF 1,2,4,5,6 will be availible to GBA and FF3 will also be remade for Nintendo DS

Also tying into the hearsay of current actions by the Square-enix indicates that the company is keeping true to previous statements made saying"

"polymorphic content providing well-known properties on several platforms, allowing exposure of the products to as wide an audience as possible."

lets just see, if all true this could be interesting from the relationship POV with S-E and Nintendo and if true how will nindendo's market handle these "big branded" reruns.

News sources:
http://news.spong.com/x?art=9303 (Here)
http://www.digg.com/gaming/Final_Fantasy_VII_remake_for_the_Nintendo_DS_in_th e_works_ (Here)

Final Fantasy VII (Nintendo DS)

Rumours from Japan over the last week have had fanboys exicted about a suggested High budget porting of FFVII to the Nintendo DS handheld system.

The though pisses me off.



don't hotlink big images thx

Nice picture, it looks genuine, almost, but I am also wondering if it is just doctored screen caps made to display on the screen of the DS using some homebrew application and a flash GBA cartridge - then had a digicam take a pic of the unit in operation.

It could also just be a japanese tech demo to get the hopes up for a remake?

Personally I would prefer a perfect port with higher resolution 3d models and prerendered backgrounds in anycase of porting the series to newer systems

I must say, a FFVII DS post would be a very nice idea indeed. Although technically i can`t see it working. Although the DS is capable of pretty average 3d graphics i don`t think it could keep up with something like FFVII.

On the other hand, a simple PSP port would also be pretty neat. Because personaly, after playing GTA on the PSP i can really see the potential in it`s graphical power.

FYI Dirge, the DS has far more power than a PSX. I'll dig up exact specs in a bit.

FYI Dirge, the DS has far more power than a PSX. I'll dig up exact specs in a bit.

!00!

You sure?. I mean, are you really sure?.

Yes, I'm completely certain. The DS has marginally greater power than the N64 did, which in turn was considerably more powerful than the PSX. The only thing that hampered Nintendo's ability to put FFVII on the N64 was the lack of space inherent in its cartridges. The DS cartridges have more space and can support FMVs, so there's really nothing to stop S-E from porting FFVII to DS. It could even wind up looking better.

Not that I truly care about that. I'm arguing in favor of the DS's capabilities, not whether FFVII should be ported.

technically i can`t see it working. Although the DS is capable of pretty average 3d graphics i don`t think it could keep up with something like FFVII

I have no idea on the technicalities of software enviroments and the sort, however when i think about it there would hardley be any 3d rendering to be done in FFVII as all backgrounds are prerendered, Battle scenes would be asking a bit more out of the processing power.

If a crappy pentium 100 with 16mb of ram and 1 mb of vram running software rendered graphics can handle FFVII and have windows 95 running in the background, i would have no question that the nintendo DS could breeze it in!

I am pretty certain the DS could run FFVII and boil your kettle at the same time, but that's irrelevant.
I'd be happy enough to see a DS port of FFVII. It might discourage the fanboys/girls who are all "REMAKE FFVII LOLZ", for one thing.

I mean i personally would prefer a PS2/PS3 "remake" but that`s just me.

There are several very important issues, which I believe prevent a release of Final Fantasy VII on the DS (or the PSP for that matter) in the near future. There's a fair bit here, and it might jump a little, so please read carefully!

1. Transition from PlayStation -> Nintendo DS

The first techical hassle that we run into is the code. The Nintendo DS is more powerful than the PlayStation, sure - but it is not powerful enough to emulate a PlayStation. The code would have to be re-written from the ground up... they probably wouldn't be able to reuse anything. A long, expensive process for a game that will only be released for US$30.

(In response to your point Vala, Final Fantasy VII never begun development on 64 hardware - the only work Square-Enix did was a technical demo of Final Fantasy VI. Also, Nintendo 64 hardware is different again to DS hardware).

With that said, I believe that Square-Enix is very likely to go multi-platform next generation, as you can read the rumblings in my post here (Thread 27111). Final Fantasy VII for the Xbox 360 AND PlayStation 3 would sell a ton of copies, at premium price.

And if the Compilation of FF7 proves anything, Square-Enix knows its fanbase, and what that fanbase will spend money on.

Also, the DS is capable of handling FMV because of the larger cartridge sizes, sure. But Final Fantasy VII had over 1 gig of FMV - 3 600 mb CDs. I believe the largest DS cartridge at the moment is 512 mb - and anyone who has to buy Memory Stick Duos for their PSPs know, the bigger the stick, the more expensive it gets. I don't doubt that a 2 gig DS flash card is possible - it just wouldn't be economically viable, once again, to release it for a sale price of US$30. And jacking up the price wouldn't help - no one is going to pay even US$60 for a port of an 8 year old game.

2. Marketing to the fanbase.

Final Fantasy VII was the swan-song of the Sony fanboy. It really marked the victory of the PlayStation over Nintendo before the 64 was even complete. Square-Enix knows that FF7 fans are sony fanboys - that's why DoC is being released on the PS2, Crisis Core on the PSP, Advent Children on both (PS2 dvd, PSP umd). Not to mention that the first hint of a re-release we've seen is the awesome technical demo that clinched the PlayStation 3 as the favourite at E3.

Vala brings up an interesting point in that the FF series is seeing re-releases on Nintendo consoles - but remember where the original fans for FF1-6 were. Nintendo. The people who had SNESs back in the day are more likely to have a GBA to relive their old memories - that's why there are so many SNES games on the platform. Same with the Mana series - it saw its birth on the gameboy, and now part of it's continuation. Final Fantasy III on the DS is probably Square's way of making it stand out - FF3 was ahead of its time, and will probably benefit from a 3D engine and properly edited story.

Still, there seems to be a definate trend - people prefer the 2D FFs, or the 3D FFs. FF7, and Square's defection to Sony, marked that transition.

From a marketing perspective, it would be a million times wiser to remake Final Fantasy VII on the PS3. Next-gen pricing means that they can charge US$60 for the game (covering development costs), and they already have a lot of the models that they have produced for Advent Children.

Well i`m pretty sure they could cut the FMV to just screenshots but i just can`t see FFVII running on a DS. I mean, the games i`ve seen so far that incorporate 3d elements don`t look very impressive imo.

But like Raidenex said, from a marketing perspective it would be wiser to bring it to PS3 but i feel we`ll probably see a version to PSP first. I`ve only recently tested a PSP out and i was blown away. I was playing GTA:LST and i couldn`t get over the fact that they fit the entire Liberty City onto a UMD. And especially after playing it i felt that although i won`t be getting a PSP, a FFVII port wouldn`t be pretty neat.

But it`s very hard to say what they`ll do next. Like i said before many times, i`d love to see a PS3 update, not a remake. As in, update the graphics/animation, script, and even the story. I`d like to have it explained a little better.

Well i`m pretty sure they could cut the FMV to just screenshots but i just can`t see FFVII running on a DS. I mean, the games i`ve seen so far that incorporate 3d elements don`t look very impressive imo.

Nintendo DS Tech Specs
ARM9 Processor - 67 Mhz
ARM7 Processor - 33 Mhz (i'm fairly certain these two can't be used simultaneously - the ARM7 is for GBA compatibility)
Memory - 4 Mb

Also, the largest card is 1 gigabit - only 128 mb!

PlayStation Tech Specs
MIPS RISC CPU - 33.8688 MHz
Memory - 2Mb main + 1 Mb video

The NDS could easily handle the graphics of the original Final Fantasy VII. They could probably even improve upon them (like the improvement from Super Mario 64 to Super Mario 64 DS).

Latest news I had found on this game was that beta testing in japan had been delayed... giving this not much more thought i went to go play FFXI for a while, i was messing around with the playonline viewer and its member functions then i stumbled accross this:



This person lives in my state, the most quiet,backwater province of australia and has a copy of FFVII DC???

Whenever i click on the DC handle it says the profile data is incompatible with my playonline

Parts of the image are edited to maintain privacy laws, the handle id and name are blotted over and the DC handle button circled to highlight its presence.

Wow...i'm surprised there's beta code out. Mayble the account info is fake? I mean....do you really think he's 3?

Mayble the account info is fake? I mean....do you really think he's 3?

It is quite easy to set false data for your handle profile within playonline, however The handle registration is required with new content i.e dirge of cerebus and the "buttons" are added when content id's are purchased via playonline.