Square-Enix licenses UE3

skankerzero

Interesting.

http://www.destructoid.com/square-enix-licenses-unreal-engine-3-29460.phtml

I smell multiplatform coming from this. Square's done Playstation for so long, they need to play catch up with other developers in multiplatforming.

SouL

I'm surprised by that.
Their in-house stuff is more than enough for the visual style their games have.

Multiplatform? I have my doubts. What does that mean for them in terms of extra developement costs? Their games already take 4 - 6 years to make for a single platform.
Unless their ultimate goal is to maximise revenue for their games.

I have a feeling this is a move to accomodate either a new visual style in their existing IPs or to have something solid to work off of to produce games outside of the RPG genre.

This could also be a move to streamline the production of their titles. Since the UE3 engine is supported across multiple platforms, it eliminates the need to create custom engines per project.

skankerzero

Your last statement is what I think they're getting out of this.

The White Engine that Square is using on FF13 is supposed to have been written specifically for the PS3. Now, why waste time trying to figure out some of the ins and outs of the 360 when you can just purchase a good base to start with?

acc

[ QUOTE ]

Multiplatform? I have my doubts. What does that mean for them in terms of extra developement costs? Their games already take 4 - 6 years to make for a single platform.

[/ QUOTE ]
5 years working on a game for a single audience.
6 years working on a game for two audiences.

Simple.

They've already ditched the PS2 for the DS with the DQ series. Final Fantasy came to Sony from Nintendo. Them making a jump to multi-platform games does not come as any surprise.

Asmuel

Final Fantasy used to be my fav series by far. I waited it out to buy a Xbox instead of a PS2 thinking they would develop atleast one Final Fantasy title for Xbox like they said they would (or atleast I read that they said they would). Too late now, theyve lost my loyalty, Bioware all the way!

TomDunne

That'll teach 'em, Asmuel! Fight the power!

/me goes back to roxoring FF12

thomasp

eh? they did. FF XI is out for xbox if i recall correctly.

i can only guess that they want to use UE3 for some fresh projects, not the FF main series or anything. big deal.

Asmuel

[ QUOTE ]
eh? they did. FF XI is out for xbox if i recall correctly.

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It's out on Xbox 360, I was talking about Xbox, I only had to wait a whole console generation lol.

Marcus Dublin

Good luck to the Square artist with the 1-bit alpha shlop in Unreal and all of there funky but cool hair designs, eekkk!

Marcus Dublin

Artist - Kaos Studos

arshlevon

multi platform would be a great idea for sony since there were only 4 playstation 3's sold. they might want to try and sell a few more games than that.

Motz

It's most likely for the next MMO.

malcolm

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This could also be a move to streamline the production of their titles. Since the UE3 engine is supported across multiple platforms, it eliminates the need to create custom engines per project.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm pretty sure people were saying the same thing about renderware when it started to get popular among licensees. And everyone loves renderware right? Right? I'm all for the switch if it means I get final fantasy XIII on the xbox360, although I am yet to meet anyone that has on site rendering engineers that prefers working with middleware instead of in house engines.