As Kotaku first reported, Final Fantasy XV was delayed earlier this month. It will now be released in late November. (Fingers crossed!) If you were wondering why, director Hajime Tabata recently shed some light on the situation.
Speaking with Famitsu, Tabata talked about the delay. Some of the reasons will be obvious, but not all.
“For starters,” Tabata told Famitsu, “the optimization isn’t [yet] sufficient. There are also various bugs as well as places in which the frame rate drops.” He says that some of the bugs won’t impede with game progress, but adds, “There are still of number of bugs like characters floating unnaturally in the air or appearing all strange [and glitchy].”
As Kotaku previously mentioned, there is a significant amount of optimization and cleaning up that can be done in the next few months.
“We are going to fix the issues,” Tabata assured, adding, “Another thing is that I also wanted to refine the game balance.”
According to Tabata, one of the big reasons for this delay, however, is that not every everyone who is going to play FFXV has their console connected to the internet. They may have a console, they may have the internet, but the two are apparently not connected. (Data Tabata sourced said that number is over twenty per cent of Japanese gamers!) Thus, there actually might be players who do not download a day-one patch. The delay is to get the game in good shape for all players at release.
Final Fantasy XV will be out worldwide on November 29. Delay or not, place your day-one patch bets now.
Comments
21 responses to “Why Final Fantasy XV Was Recently Delayed”
Wait, what? He wants to ship a finished, polished game instead of shoving it out the door on a date determined by the marketing department and then patch it afterwards? Pffft. Ridiculous. That’ll never work.
Exactly, no one’s done that for many years so there’s obviously a reason why they stopped.
Had to double check my calendar; I though it was the late 90’s again but nope there are still people who use the old medicine.
I’m having this mental image of him standing outside a derelict, long-shuttered cartridge manufacturing facility, clutching the final build in one hand, knocking on the door with the other… “Hello? I’m ready to start now! Heeelllooooooooooo?”, the lonely sound of his voice echoing around the ruins.
A silence which is suddenly shattered by the thunderous trample of heavy boots from Nintendo’s ex-military hired guards to keep people of their property, 😛
They’re just still bitter over the series moving across to Playstation 😛
They can thank Yamauchi himself for that move.
10 years. This game’s had ten years, got given a release date and still can’t manage to meet it. I don’t mind a delay, I can deal if it means in the end I actually get a better product, but hell, they’re not even bothering with PC so I can’t get it anyway. All this time, all this time and all I’m seeing is bullshit and excuses, cop-outs. Like, jesus, this game has built a very, very fucking thin set of goal posts that I’m super worried it won’t be good enough to score.
If it means avoiding another Too Human then let them have their delay.
I’m not against the delay, I’m all for it. What I don’t like is this game that’s been worked on for ages that still needs more time to fix, it just goes to show what an internal fuck up it’s been over at Square lately.
… Are you even aware of the road map they had and the internal shifts that has stippled this game? 1-2 months is barely a delay compared to the 10 years as it is.
Give it time, let it sell. If it sells then there’s the possibility that it’ll come to PC. Lets see how it goes on console.
Still lookong forward to this….but not really after hearing about the reverse ffxiii it pulls half way in. And by that i mean it apparently takes ninety percent of the explanation away from you till just begore the final boss so like i said a reverse ffxiii.
All I’ve heard about it is that near the end, the game becomes ‘linear,’ which I’m honestly fine with. I doubt the linearity will be XIII levels of linear, but what previous Final Fantasy games have done (maybe handled like VIII).
Well from what the review said before Square Enix had it removed(mind you this was coming from one of the people that got a review copy) at about half way it takes pretty much 90% of the open world exploration and sticks you on a linear path, to be frank i hope the guy was full of shit but we will just have to wait and see.
Did the guy say it was as linear as FFXIII, FFX, or like an Ultimecia’s Castle? (by that I mean; you’re stuck in a place and can’t backtrack).
If i recall he described it as ffxiii before you get to pulse and then when you hit the end it lets you roam free again, but to be honest i hope the guy was just talking out his ass.
Ah, well still, it doesn’t bother me. The game starts off completely open, which is far better than how FFXIII started (a literal line). If FFXV remained open from start to finish though, I’d probably never finish the game (or it takes me months/years). Skyrim took me over 100 hours (and a few long months of not playing it) to finish the story, Xenoblade Chronicles took me over 100 hours (and two-three years of not playing it) to finish the story and Xenoblade X… is currently gathering dust (I do not remember where I am in that game).
Hopefully the guy forgot that FFX was also linear and only mentioned FFXIII because that game currently sits on the ‘Dangerously Linear’ throne. While I don’t mind a game becoming linear for plot reasons, I’d still like it to have routes that allow you to explore the location you’re stuck in.
Well other then that the guy said its pretty damn good so yeah.
You taking notes, Sonic Team? Bethesda?
In Bethesda games they are features, not glitches.
I had just assumed that the game was delayed in order to make room for Kingsglaive, which took out a lot of the planned events in game and fleshed them out for its own standalone story as a prequel (which I enjoyed thoroughly).
It’s apparent that it’s what happened as the events in the FFXV announcement trailer last year was essentially what was covered in the film, and reports are saying that it’s been removed from the game.
Sounds like he’s implying the game never went gold? Now that’s interesting.