On the PlayStation 3, Final Fantasy XIII will ship on a single Blu-Ray. On the Xbox 360, however, the game will – as expected – ship on three discs.
Square Enix confirmed with Kotaku the reports from yesterday, which have settled a long-running – if ultimately pointless – debate amongst fans of the series.
We say pointless because for a game like this, three discs aren’t so bad. The 360′s other big Japanese role-playing games – Mistwalker’s Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey – shipped on four discs, and people didn’t seem to mind all that much.
Kotaku AU Note: Anyone who indulges in flamebait fanboyism in the comments will be called out.
zombiechews
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 11:00 PMConvenience of one disc vs. Nostalgia of multiple discs.
We’re all winners really!
David Wildgoose
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 11:09 PMWell played.
StudiodeKadent
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 11:01 PMThree discs.
Just like Final Fantasy 7 on the PS1.
(note that this is not fanboyism. It is merely stating a fact without making any evaluations of said facts whatsoever.)
I hope the people that purchase FF13, on either platform, find it enjoyable.
David Wildgoose
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 11:09 PMBravo.
Jay
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 11:13 PMIn no way shape OR form does the disc swap affect ones experience with the game.
FFXIII i would presume is a fairly lengthy and large game. 2 disc swaps after inserting the first, isn’t going to happen until, guesstimating here, no less than 10 hours gameplay. That’s going on what i’ve read on how long FFXIII goes for.
No doubt, between the disc swaps, gamers will (hopefully) take a break to the toilet. Have something to eat, re-fill their glass. Perhaps sleep. So whats the harm in getting up and swapping a disc.
Ohhhhh “poorer graphics” I forgot… LAME!
Steven Bogos
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 11:21 PMWTF!??!!??!!?
I HAVE TO STOP EATING CHEETOS AND GET OUT OF MY CHAIR EVERY COUPLE OF HOURS TO CHANGE A DISK?
GAME. RUINED. FOREVER
Chris Wolter
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 11:24 PMNow its official. If you own Microsoft’s inferior system, do a 360 and exchange if for a PS3!
Sorry Luke…the closing note made it impossible to resist :-)
David Wildgoose
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 11:32 PMPermabanned.
chuckie
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 2:10 AMowned!
Retro
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 7:30 AMDoubly so. Shouldn’t it be “do a 180″?
SemiConscious
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 10:02 AM4chan/meme: do a 360 and moonwalk away
legless joe
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 11:52 PMI don’t see how having the game on one disc or on three discs is even worth debating about. Be greatfull that a hopefully (as i havent played it yet but have high hopes) good game is comming out. End of story.
Cameron Chu
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 12:02 AMOf course it’s worth debating! If it takes about a minute to switch discs and wait for the loading times, then that is 3 minutes needlessly longer than the PS3′s one disc. Now consider all the FF Fanboys who will play this until the end of time, and that is going to be a lot of time wasted!
plmko
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 3:44 AMI think people are more concerned about discs being lost or scratched more likely if there are multiple discs.
Jay
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 11:45 AMSo you haven’t heard of installing discs to your HDD?
May not be able to play it OFF the HDD without the disc, but that feature is available for scratched discs, shorter load times and a more silent Xbox.
Unless you own a 20GB and you’re screwed that is.
matt30822
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 12:38 AMConsidering all the comments the PS3 fanboys made about ME2 having two disks.. I can see a bloodbath approaching closer to the FF13 Release Date on forums worldwide…
Nathan
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 12:41 AMI seriously wonder what Microsoft is going to do with their next console? Even if it’s another 5 years away… They can’t stick to DVD’s and I really can’t imagine Microsoft adopting Sony’s technology.
Steven Bogos
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 10:24 AMDigital Distribution
Stinky
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 1:10 PMCartridge format may also become feasible again. What do you think a 32 or 64GB flash drive would cost in five years’ time? How about a write-once version?
StudiodeKadent
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 3:19 PMMS will use a BluRay/HDDVD combo drive (they’re cheap now). They’ll print the games on a proprietary HD-DVD derivative to avoid paying royalties to Sony (its not AS big as Blu-Ray, but its a huge jump in size over DVD). Of course, they could just use Blu-Ray, which is a possibility.
And Blu Ray may have been invented by Sony, but its an open technology that anyone can adopt.
Internet speeds around most of the world simply aren’t fast enough to deal with digital distribution. There will have to be some sort of physical media at least until most of the way through the next generation.
Weresmurf
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 1:30 AMAnyone who’s going to piss and moan about changing a disc should do some research into what it was like back in the old days when you had to play games that were on….
wait for it….CASSETTE TAPES….you should’ve been around in those days. Think changing a cd and waiting 2 or 3 seconds is potentially ‘bad’? It’s not. It’s nothing at all. Infact, I think it’s no big deal at all. If the game comes on multiple dvd’s what’s it say to me? It says its a HUGE game! Besides, we’ve already had multi-dvd games on the 360. Wasn’t Lost Odyssey like 3 or 4 dvd’s?
But like I was saying, you think 2 or 3 seconds of loading a dvd is bad? Try 15 minutes of waiting for a bloody tape to load… then you’ll learn to appreciate and love these loading times.
Weresmurf
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 1:31 AMJust one other thing… kinda disappointed they couldn’t have put other characters on the other 2 discs…
Stinky
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 1:12 PMThere’s also the “chuntey” factor with tapes…
Weresmurf
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 5:19 PMAHAHAHA Omg you bring back so many memories of so many useless ‘rituals’ with the Chuntey factor LOL. So many times as a kid we didn’t want the tape to totally bork the loading in the last few seconds, so we’d be waving our hands around, trying to ‘will’ it to load properly hahaha. Oh man…
lcb
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 1:58 AMat least everyone gets the game i guess. I honestly dont mind changing discs on games either, nostalgia ftw lol.
This makes me miss old final fantasies D:, 9 in particular. (this doesnt count as final fantasy 9 fanboyism right?)
James McDonald
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 2:03 AMwell the choice is simple.
Either change disks on the xbox with faster loading times or use one disc on the PS3 and wait for the slow-ass bluray to load it up.
Not a lot of difference really in the amount of time it’ll take to play the game.
Hamish
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 1:33 PMwell that’s true too LOL
Shane
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 7:58 AM3 discs is fine. Didn’t an earlier Kotaku article suggest FFXIII to be a 50 hour game?
God, if I can’t get up after 17 hours of gameplay and swap discs, it’d only be because my legs have atrophied. It can only be a good thing to be forced to “exercise” this limited amount.
I’ll send flowers to the PS3 owners who meld into their couches.
(I take it that XBox fanboyism is okay, you were just worried about PS3 owners :P)
jim smith
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 2:21 PMits not and issue really.
the only thing i would say is that MS should start thinking about incorporating a bluray drive, but i know that won’t happen. but DVD is old news.
Patricio Alzamora
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 3:14 PM3 discs is a very nostalgic thing for me, as it will always remind me of the glory days of the PS1. Too bad new convenient technologies make people very spoiled.
As a sidenote, I tend to promote free speech regardless how annoying the message may be. With this in mind, anyone working in kotaku ever thought of incorporating a comment system like in other sites, where you can just hide the message automatically, but allow other users to see it if they wish? In some sites, this is a user-controlled feature using a voting system. However as you guys want to avoid people voting down good points and voting up bad points, why don’t you just incorporate a flagging system in your admin moderation procedures? I’m just curious myself, as I study Computer Science with a curiosity in the design concepts people have with controlling the level of spam that anonymous users can produce in these types of posts.