As has been pointed out, this article has nothing to do with the removal of the HDD from the PStwo. It only has to do with Square Enix's plans to move the PS2 POL userbase over to new platforms after this generation is over... And, really, this is nothing new.
They've been talking for years about continuing support for FFXI & other POL titles far beyond this generation, which leaves them with a decision: Do they rely on Sony to make PS3 backwards compatible with PS2 HDD games? Do they port the title to next-gen platforms (with possible enhancements)? Or do they just go full-on sequel?
Anybody who has followed the interviews knows they're planning a sequel, they just don't know
when. Personally, I'm expecting it a couple years into next generation, so it still leaves them with this problem... Do they just let the PS2 userbase continue to use their old systems to play? Or do they find a better solution for them?
Also, to clear up some confusion here:
:: There are over 500,000 subscribing users playing the game, and there's nearing 200k HDDs sold in the US alone. Granted, not all of them are still playing the game, but it's a safe bet that between the US & Japan, about half of the users are on PS2 (give or take).
:: The XBox's HDD is simply not large enough to fit FFXI. There is a max of 5 GB of writable space on the XBox's drive, with another 3 reserved for cache/developer use. Final Fantasy XI alone takes over 8 GB of space, with PlayOnline (a requirement to run the game) taking another 1 GB. This has nothing to do with lack of DVD space, or anything like that, as the game fully installs and the data is streamed from there. Basically, in it's current form, it just simply can't be done.
:: PlayOnline is meant to be a dial-up and broadband friendly service, so moving to XBox Live! would defeat that purpose, and cut into their userbase by a larger margin than most would like to admit. It would also defeat Square Enix's plans of having their own network (as PlayOnline basically
is a service like Live!), but this could be easily worked around (much like with EA).
:: Lastly, no, streaming the world off the dedicated servers simply wouldn't work. The varying connections would cause issues far too often, as people would be loading areas much quicker than others. This would screw up pretty much everything party/alliance related. It would also boost Square Enix's bandwidth costs through the roof, and likely result in a larger fee for the XBox userbase. Just, no.
firex said:
It means sell your POL account, it's all over. When you want an MMORPG, play one that's
fun.
firex, do me a favor and stop believing you know what you're talking about. You go into every thread about FFXI, troll it, make shit up, whatever you want to call it. You get your ass
handed to you in every single thread, run away like a pussy, and then repeat in the next.
So really, knock it off. I think everyone's getting exhausted making you look like a fool.
