Final Fantasy 12 was announced earlier this year, as quite the surprise to the FF community. With the news of FF11 being a totally-online RPG, many fans feared that it was the end of the series. However, Hironobu Sakaguchi has stated that, despite the changes in the series toward the online world, it will simply be another title in the continuing saga. Little is known about FF12 so far, but we'll keep this section updated with all of the latest Final Fantasy 12 news, media, and information.
Hironobu Sakaguchi made several announcements today concerning Square's three upcoming Final Fantasy titles, in the wake of the company posting a financial loss in the most recent fiscal year. Square is blaming the loss chiefly upon sluggish sales of Final Fantasy IX, which was hurt by the restrictions Square placed upon the release of walkthroughs and strategy guides, a move made in an effort to increase the popularity of their online service, Playonline.com. As a result of these numbers, Square has confirmed that Final Fantasy X will have the wide range of strategy guides and walkthroughs that helped popularize Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII. These developments aside, Final Fantasy XI was high on the agenda during Square's annual shareholder meeting. At the conference, pricing information and availability for the game were revealed. The company has revised their estimate of how many users the service would require to break even downwards, dropping the figure from 480,000 users to 300,000. Reasons for the decrease included some cost-cutting on development and preparation for Final Fantasy XI's arrival, and the announcement of some rather lofty pricing. Final Fantasy XI itself will sell for between 6000 and 7000 yen(or roughly 50 to 58 dollars US), which, though lower than the 8800 yen(approximately $73.00 US) the company plans to charge for Final Fantasy X, is still somewhat steep for an online game. On top of this, Square plans to charge 1200 yen, or roughly $10 US, every month to users of Playonline; thus, if 300,000 users sign on to Playonline for a four-year term of service, the company will be able to offset the roughly 10 billion yen it projects will be spent on development and maintenance of Playonline and Final Fantasy XI. Square plans to have alpha and beta testing concluded for the online component of Final Fantasy XI by early next year. What this means is that Final Fantasy XI will likely be released March 2002, as Square announced their plans to start billing users of Playonline in April 2002. At that point, the service will be targeted to support 100,000 users simultaneously, and is developed to support low bandwidth users connecting at 56kbps. Final Fantasy XI will be exclusively online, the first such title in the Final Fantasy series. The beta test will commence in November. In a further announcement, Square revealed that Final Fantasy XII will be both online and offline. No further elaboration was made upon this information, but it is likely a wise choice at this point, since the company has no assurance of how well Final Fantasy XI will do. Finally, Hironobu Sakaguchi, the director of the Final Fantasy series, announced his intention to make future Final Fantasy titles available for all platforms. At this point, however, Square and Nintendo have no official relationship, and two years of negotiations with Microsoft have gone nowhere yet. Thus, for the time being, Square will continue to work on the three upcoming titles. Final Fantasy X is due out in July in Japan and early next year in North America, and Final Fantasy XI is slated for a Spring 2002 release in Japan, with no confirmed release date in North America. Final Fantasy XII has no firm release date in either region.
After a lengthy silence, Square has revealed its development plans during a management press conference that featured a number of significant announcements. Foremost among the announcements was the company's confirmation of 23 games currently under development, eleven of which are remakes. Among these remakes are every game in the Final Fantasy series to this date, and some of the plans for these titles come as a bit of a surprise. It seems that each successive trilogy is being remade for a separate system. The Playstation installments in the series, namely Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, and Final Fantasy IX, only recently released, are all being redone for the Playstation2. Square confirmed Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III will appear on the Wonderswan Color, where Final Fantasy I was recently released to resounding success. The three titles that appeared on the Super Nintendo (Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI), will be remade for handhelds. The question is, which handheld system will see the games? Hironobu Sakaguchi, director of the Final Fantasy series and Square's Vice President, has admitted it would likely be impossible to do the games for the Wonderswan, and stated he would prefer to see them on the Game Boy Advance, if possible. As relations between Square and Nintendo have been somewhat strained in recent years, this is the first official announcement of interest in developing for Nintendo since Square jumped ship for the Playstation. It looks, however, as though Square is willing to put their differences aside; Square CEO Hisashi Suzuki said that "We are doing whatever effort is needed, in order to release the games on it." Interestingly, Square also announced there are plans for an original Final Fantasy title, which will appear on an as-yet unannounced handheld system. The reason for this explosion in titles bearing the prestigious Final Fantasy name is, according to Suzuki, that "The fact must be accepted that middle-rank games are no longer selling these days...this year, we will use the brand name of 'Final Fantasy' to its full extent." Sakaguchi went on to make a number of announcements concerning the three latest Final Fantasy titles, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XII. Final Fantasy X's North American release date is now targeted for November, and it will be simultaneous with the game's European release. Square is targeting sales of up to 6.8 million units worldwide on Final Fantasy X, including 3-3.5 million in Japan alone. Final Fantasy X will be released in Japan in July 2001. The next announcement concerned Final Fantasy XI. Sakaguchi revealed the game will be headed up by Hiromichi Tanaka, the producer of Chrono Cross, and Koichi Ishii, who worked on both the Saga Frontier and Seiken Densetsu series. Finally, Sakaguchi confirmed that the PC and Playstation2 versions of Final Fantasy XI are scheduled for simultaneous release. There was also light shed on the recently revealed Final Fantasy XII. Sakaguchi has announced the title will not be an online game, and, in an unexpected move, he will be sharing his position as director of Final Fantasy XII with Yasumi Matsuno, director of Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story. Joining this directorial duo will be Hiroyuki Ito, who directed Final Fantasy IX. As if the 23 games weren't enough, the company is also planning to step up their production of movies. As production costs are likely to go up, however, Square will shift towards responsibility for production, rather than funding it themselves. With this initiative, combined with the development plans they have released, it appears as though Square will continue to move forward, building itself into one of the premier names in not just gaming, but in entertainment.
There have been many announcements, surprises, setbacks, speculations and rumors lately regarding the perpetually evolving Final Fantasy series. With the first real Final Fantasy X details now being revealed, as well as the decision to remove all PlayOnline elements from the title, fans are even less sure of what to expect from Square's eleventh installment. Hironobu Sakaguchi, acclaimed director of Square's hit RPG series, recently spoke with the Swedish multiconsole publication, "Super Play," regarding the quickly approaching future of Final Fantasy. With the decision to make Final Fantasy XI an entirely online title, many fans came to believe that they were witnessing the end of the series. However, Sakaguchi stated that, despite the changes, it will simply be the next title in a continuing saga. As well, he commented that the online elements "[do] not mean that the series will change for good. [Final Fantasy XII] might just as well be completely traditional, just like FFIX turned out after VII and VIII." Sakaguchi also went on to mention that the emphasized goal of Final Fantasy XI will be to create an exciting online world to accommodate many participants, while maintaining the essence of the series. He did reveal that players will be able to communicate within the game, allowing them to make friends and enemies during their adventures. However, Square intends its online title to differentiate itself from other currently running online worlds. Sakaguchi stated that, "because it is a Final Fantasy game, we will be incorporating a story too. Most PC online games today do not have a set story but leaves most up to the players themselves. FFXI will be different in that respect." Final Fantasy XI has faced a number of difficulties and technical setbacks. However, the game is still aiming for a release on the PlayStation2 alongside the launch of Square's PlayOnline service next year.