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Nomura: "We're absolutely not making a FFVII remake"

  • Published at 02:48:18 PT
  • Reported by Rahul Choudhury
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IT JUST IS NOT HAPPENINGLook, I've been telling you guys for years and you just won't listen. Now even Tetsuya Nomura confirms the truth: Square Enix doesn't give a rat's ass about your misguided desire to force the company's employees into a money-losing slavish effort of reproducing a 10 year old game simply because you think Sephiroth in HD will give you a raging hard-on. Oh yeah, IGN reports on an interview with Dorimaga in which Nomura and Kitase proclaim the abovementioned. Best part of the interview? Apparently Sakaguchi's original script for FF7 included "a character called Hot Blooded Detective Joe."

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Forums / News / Nomura: "We're absolutely not making a FFVII remake"

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This is just more evidence that Square could care less about their fans and more about how much money they can make by driving Final Fantasy Part Infinity down our throats. They need to do a re-release of the Dragon Quest 1-7 games, but will they? Of course not, that would be something the DQ fans would want and as we all know Final Fantasy rules the roost at SE not DQ. This is why I hesitate to buy any more of Square-Enix's games until they get their heads out of their collective you-know-wheres and get back to the people that helped make them the powerhouse they are today...... THE FANS.
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NO MORE REMAKES MAKE NEW GAMES.

Yeah.

Also, maybe "Hot Blooded Detective Joe" is the Joe that ended up racing Chocobos. Or maybe Square staff were drunk. All I know is this is a very good thing, and I look forward to seeing as many new games as possible.

People can "want" remakes, but why should Square be forced to remake things over and over again? Where's the artistic merit in that? Polymorphism is one thing, but keeping it so restricted that you have to revisit the exact same title is stupid.

That said, Square Enix can still easily churn out crap titles, we'll just have to see.
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Anyone who expects Square Enix to bend over backwards and take it up the ass from fans by spending several million bucks developing a PS3 remake of a 10 year old game that, given FFVII's popularity compared with that of the PS3, will sell maybe 2 million copies and therefore make them absolutely no money back, is nuts.
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so essentially what SE should have done is not release Final Fantasy III, Chronicles, Anthology, Origins or any of the other re-make titles, and just stick to new titles, and to hell with the games that never made it here from Japan. Good Idea, I don't know why I ever expected things to be fair in life, thank you ever so much for setting me straight. I mean the fact that DQ V and VI never came out here must mean that a remade compilation containing all of the DQ games 1-7 would be so much time and effort wasted, just to make a few fans happy. I guess we fans should just go download the games we want and not pay S-E ANY money at all. Or perhaps we should just stick to buying used games, and not new ones, eh?
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Don't worry he is still a little upset about getting butt hurt over the whole Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children ordeal. Also Advent Children has sold what 3 million copies? I think that is a sucess for only being out for what not even 2 years yet in the USA and 2 years going on 3 in Japan? My guess would be that this movie would probably end up in the high 3 or still possible low 4 million copies sold.

I think the remake would fair better because that is what everyone originally wanted. Even with PS3's small fanbase currently if they were to remake it I am sure it would sell very well besides that it probably wouldn't be released until somtime q3-q4 '08 if it were currently in production right now. That would give the PS3's user base quite bit more units with all the big titles coming out from q4 '07 to q4 '08. Not quite PS2's user base but better then now. Your assumption of 2 million copies sold is ridiculous in my opinion. You must just have some vendetta against Final Fantasy VII or both the game and remakes in general. Oh and by the way did they not "bend over backwards" when they give us Advent Children and other FFVII spin offs?

One other thing in the artical clearly states from Nomura:

"We of course know ourselves what the fans want so we'd like to continue thinking up a variety of things. As long as there are people who want to make it and people who are waiting for it, we don't want to proclaim 'the end.'"
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I would argue that the collective investment put into AC, BC, CC and DC FFVII "sequels" was worth it considering the return. But the ROI on a full scale FFVII PS3 iteration is very low. And that is why "bend over backwards" still applies.
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Agreed. However you would still have to agree that with the sales of those combined even AC alone if they did do a remake it would at least sell as much as the DVD. Around 3 million. FFVII sold 8.7 million copies(going off memory, sourced out a PSM magazine). Even half I am sure they would consider it a success with still making money. I dunno, I wish for a remake. I love the old game and still play it however the new updated graphics and uncompressed audio would be an unbelievable treat. For me and millions of others.
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There is also quite a difference to a low budget port of an older FF game such as FFVI (which was released here, here being Australia, separately). I mean compare the cost of porting that to PSone VS the cost of remaking FFVII. Yes, a number of people were happy to pick up these older titles they haven't played, or for some have since sold.

You've then got to take into account the rather high cost of the PS3, which may impact how many copies would sell.

Releasing games that didn't come out in western society as well on the original platform (ie: releasing a given PSone title) is also not going to blow massive budgets.

Final Fantasy III as a remake was worth it because it was never released, and again even though it's a remake I'm sure you can understand the budget of such a title is going to be smaller than the budget of a remake for FFVII on the PS3.

You've got your FFVII, you've got 50,000 spin-off titles, isn't that enough? Don't you want to see new Final Fantasy titles? The entire 'original' idea being one title for each world was a good one, you wouldn't get sick of the characters/world/etc and could forge new stories with new cool places.

Despite the fact that I've had basically no time for FFXII, it was a nice refreshing change given the last 'real' FF I had available was FFX. There's a huge difference between small budget ports and huge PS3 remakes of games.

What is it about a remake that is so needed? Is it just to see Cloud with better graphics? Advent Children did that already. Better music? That's been done too, though I'll admit not a large number of titles have been orchestrated, many have been remade in one way or another (ie: the Black Mages).

Why can't we appreciate the title for what it was, and continue to support new titles? I love FFVII, much to many 'old hardcore' FF fans' apparent disgust, but I'm happy to play it every few years and remember the original experience. A remake would be the same game, with fancy graphics, and that's something I don't need.
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I already stated that is if the game was being remade for the PS3 it would probably have a price drop and a bigger user base by the time of it's inital release.

A remake of Final Fantasy III is "worth it" however Final Fantasy VII isn't? Are you joking? Updated graphics and uncompressed audio isn't going cost near the budget costs as a new Final Fantasy. Ofcourse it will cost more then the previous Final Fantasy's because of the 2d graphics, a bit simpler to update.

Yes we got the movie and 50,000 spins offs. However that is not what anyone wanted. It is a great fan service and I am sure plently appreciate it as do I. What we wanted was a remake not because the game is bad or it needs the graphical update but because we love the game that much and we would like to see it how it was meant to be without limitations of the system. Basically you could say what was the point of any of the remakes. So far is seems everyone has enjoyed them. I sure have. It's great to see them go back and improve apon their originals while leaving it damn near identical to the original. As for new Final Fantasy's. What are you talking about, they just released FF12 and now they have FF13 coming soon with like what 3 different spin offs or something. Not the whole Square-Enix staff work on just one game you know? New Final Fantasy's are coming so where is this no new Final Fantasy's coming from? They are doing remakes of other Final Fantasy's and releasing/working on new ones. You make it sound as if that if they were to remake Final Fantasy VII we would not see any new Final Fantasy's for like 3-4 years. It would take more resources to remake FFVII then previous installments I understand that but you make it sound as if it were impossible and nothing good would come of it.

We do a appreciate it for it what was. You make is sound as if anyone that wants the remake think the game sucks, the graphics suck if they were to remake it, it might be good. I too am happy to still play the game to this day. It's just something now about playing it in 1080P with incredible graphics, uncompressed audio, maybe a few goodies here and there(like a few things they added in the other remakes). We would really be able to see the emotion and detail of the characters while being able to control them rather then just watch them, it would be fanominal experience just as it was when we played it back on PS! I don't hear anyone else complaining about the other remakes but when it comes to FFVII people are like why can't they just leave it a lone however the other remakes are welcome why is that?
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"Updated graphics and uncompressed audio isn't going cost near the budget costs as a new Final Fantasy. "

Oh yes it is. It might not be 100% equal but you can bet your ass it might as well be 90%. Most of the cost of production for a "high def" game like FFVII goes into creating things like textures, animations, models, and other unreusable art assets. All those assets would need to be recreated practically from scratch. On top of that they would likely need to reimagine the game design since FFVII is archaic and wouldn't fit within a look and feel that FFVIIAC established. And of course they would rewrite the script to offer a higher resolution immersion in the game world.

So fuck yeah, they might as well reinvest in a new FF game. Except that FFXIII is going to sell millions more than a FFVII remake ever would.
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I'm no developer/coder/texure artist/graphic artist/producer/publisher so I really can't say how much it would cost for them to do a remake for upgraded graphics to PS3 standards. The audio would be rather simple I would think because I am sure the audio/sound files they have for the game are raw files anyways. Reimaging it would be no problem as they already teased people with that techincal demo trailer of what the PS3 can do inwhich they used FFVII.

I don't know. There are Square employees that would love to do a remake and there are millions of fans that would love to see it. I can't see it not being success maybe not as much as a new FF but that really depends how good the new FF is. How successful have FFX, FFXI, FFXII been compared to FFVII in copies sold?
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Raw files? Have you heard the sampling of the FFVII OST? PlayStation sampling surely is nothing to the PS3's quality (not that I own one.) I mean look at FFX VS FFVII in terms of music and sound, it's not even worth thinking about.

Reimaging would be no problem? They showed a trailer, and what is a trailer? A video that runs, it is not playable. It does not require coding to interact between the controller and the environment.

Audio is not "simple." Chances are they'd have to orchestrate at least part of the OST, in which case that involved hiring an orchestra, that costs more than a few dollars believe me.

It's not so much about 'you guys hated FFVII', if you did you wouldn't want to play it in a newer format. That's the thing though, there is loving the title so much that you appreciate it for what it was: a mean feat for the first 3D FF title. What are you going to get out of a remake? Fanboys locking horns about changes to script, arguing that the world looks too different, saying that x character doesn't look right, etc etc.

Clearly Square Enix doesn't believe they would sell the potential title to the 'millions of fans' that would love to see it. Square Enix is a company at the end of the day, they are there to make money. If there was a huge gold mine behind FFVII as a direct remake, it would be in the works. At the end of the day, Square Enix clearly would rather create work elsewhere, even if that means heaps of spinoff titles rather than a full FF game. You'll notice that while there are a few FFVII spinoff titles, none are on a video game scale equivalent of the title itself. Advent Children had money written all over it, but it wasn't a game. Dirge of Cerberus (apparently) sucked and was certainly not as big of a project as a full FF title, Crisis Core is handheld and again, would not have a similar budget and resource requirement.

If they made a remake of FFVII, chances of them making titles such as FFXIII would be smaller, because you can't make too many large titles at once, for obvious reasons.

I'll say it again; I love Final Fantasy VII. I don't want a remake because I'd rather move on, and discover new worlds and new characters. Compare it to the film world. Do you really want to see your favourite movies again and again with better special effects? Or would you rather see that great director make something new?
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Yes and yes I have. However that doesn't mean they don't have them stored on a computer somewhere. You don't know that and I don't know that. They could or the couldn't. If they did then a reencoding wouldn't be so difficult. They did it for all the other remakes the music was either already made or they remade them. No one said they would have to orchestrate any of the OST. The game had limitations and the OST CD had limitations of compression. However they could have the raw files on a computer in which they could just reencode for Blu-Ray. What is so difficult about that? They are doing it with old ass 90's movies PCM(uncompressed) vs DD 5.1 is a world a difference and that is DVD audio not CD audio. Now I wouldn't be expecting that they redo the entire OST, a simple reencoding to PCM(uncompressed) would be fantastic. The CD audio alone is better then what's on the game because they would have to compress it because of all the other data. Now I wouldn't expect a mircle but it would sound loads better. I am not saying its bad or anything just with the upgrade to uncompressed would be(sorry for the pun) music to my ears.

Well it obviously wasn't difficult for them to reimagine and make the trailer within a few months for Toyoko Game Show now was it? Grant it, it wasn't very long however it was claimed by Square that is was in-game render showing off what the PS3 is capable of. So are you doubting the ability of Square to be able to remake FFVII controllable on the PS3? I suppose we shall will wait and see what the future hold for us. They haven't stated that they would never do it nor that they are working on it as I quoted in one of my previous posts so...

I suppose I just love the game so much that I just don't want see it go away maybe that is why I want a remake. So far anything past FFIX I haven't been to impressed with. Didn't like FFX's sphere grid, music or storyline all the much. FFXI just wasn't my cup of tea. I haven't played FFXII all the much yet, seems decent. There are millions of fans that want this remake because that is what we wanted not spin offs. How do they see money in a movie and not a remake? We don't know what they seen, from what I can tell anything new or fresh from FFVII was money for them I guess. A remake is all what fans talked about. No one expected any of these things. All the budget that they spent doing all the spin offs could have been used for a remake. In my eyes I can't see them losing money off the remake. Is it possible yes but with the the spins offs that all the people bought were to buy the remake it would make them a chunk of change. Lets say the budget for the game is the same as when the first made it 45million, nah how about a bit of inflation lets say it costs 55 million for the game to be remade for the PS3, fair? If 4 million people were to buy the game at $60 a pop that would be 240 million. 3 million would be 180, 2 million would be 160 milion, 1 million would be 60 million. Now we see where they would lose money. Now I am not saying that even at 2 million copies sold they would be making a profit because I don't know how the industry works but 3-4 million plus copies would probably make quite a bit of profit wouldn't you agree?

I wish for the remake but I won't cry if we don't get one. I respect your opinion on not having a remake. I still love playing the old one even if it is "out dated graphics". I still play FF on nes however the remake made me go back and enjoy it a bit more. ;)
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I don't think you understand that I was saying at all. First off, no 'no one is telling them to orchestrate it', but you don't get it. The 'raws' you speak of were created for the PSone, it's not just a matter of using 'PCM' and shoving it onto a PS3 disc.

No, I'm not "doubting the ability" of Square Enix, I'm sure they are capable of making a game controllable. My point was this: they created a video. In game or not in game, it is a VIDEO. It has no code behind it for user interaction, changing areas and so on. It's a video, therefore it is not a game.

You can throw around financial guesses as much as you want, but you can't tell me Square Enix is going out of their way to ignore this 'obvious goldmine'. I don't agree at all, because if there was so much money to be made, I'm sure Square Enix would be well onto the idea before you were.

There is a HUGE difference between movies and games as far as music and audio goes. The audio track for a film is recorded very differently to a game. A game like FFVII has synthesised music, a film has voice, music and sound recorded with a much much much bigger budget.

It's not just the music, as pointed out earlier everything else has to be remade. New textures, new models, new FMVs (not cheap!) and plenty of new code would need to be created.

Then there's voices? Would a remake of FFVII be voiced? Chances are very high it would be. Then guess what? They'd have to pick the voices from the Advent Children dub...dub...bad...terrible...

This is the sort of stuff that would have fanboys arguing, "that isn't the right voice for x character" and so on.

You know what's easier than doing all of this? Not doing it. The only difference between a remake of FFVII and an entirely new game is the story/characters/world and basic design already exists. That's about it, apart from the original score, which would have to be heavily modified and arranged.

I'd rather see all of this talent be used for other titles, why have them working on a huge remake project when they could be coding/arranging/designing etc something better?

Summary: if it was a huge financial opprtunity it would be in the works, and it's not. There's too much arsing around and too many things to consider.

To the average consumer, it seems like a great idea, but if you had any idea just how much effort and cash would have to flow in, you'd think otherwise.
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I fully understand what you meant. However you don't understand what I am saying. I am saying it is possible that they when making this game that they used a computer for their music/sound files in-which they compressed for PSOne discs. Now I am not saying this is true and I have no idea but it is a possiblity. If they did have the so called "raws" I am referring to it would be "a matter of using 'PCM' and shoving it onto a PS3 disc".

So the in-game render they made does not use any code which was specifically developed for the PS3? It may have just been a video however either way. It was claimed by Square to be in-game render so it was coded either way for the PS3. It went straight into possible user interaction part of the game. I don't know how far they implemented it they probably didn't do the user interaction part as you are saying but it was coded nonetheless. You seem to be confused about in-game render and actual video or something. To tell you the truth I have no idea what you are talking about. How is a in-game render not coded? Are you saying they just used Maya and created it that way? Sorry if I am not completely following you on that one. If you don't mind to elborate.

Almost 4 million fans bought FFVII AC who probably wanted the remake not a movie or spin offs in the first place. If they remade it and sold at least 4 million copies I can't see them not making a profit. Even with an increased budget from the original budget. If it wasn't a "gold mine" there wouldn't be so much news about Final Fantasy VII 10 years after the making. Agree with that or not but here we are discussing a remake 10 years later.

I never said that games and movie audio were recorded the same way. I was giving an example. They have RAW audio files in which were re-encoded to PCM. Why is this so hard to understand? The reason I gave the example were because movies as old as FFVII have been upgraded in audio. Now what I was saying they could have some type of audio better then what they have out it is also possible they don't. I understand that. Synthesised or not still could be possible that it's compressed.

Yeah well the game is laid out pretty much. This isn't making a new Final Fantasy from scratch rather redesigning it I suppose thats close. I guess we both have different ideas what's more difficult. Square seems to be pretty efficient at remakes so far. This isn't a small project I agree and understand.

Voices. The remake plain and simple would be upto Square. Budget would be what they see profit in. That is if they remade it. How much are they willing to put into a reamake and how much do they think it would sell. Voices would only be extra cost if they see fit. However if they are keeping to the original I am sure they wouldn't add them. Just my opinion but we really don't know where Square would go with it, because like you said it isn't in production.

I agree with you on the fanboys arguing about stuff like that. Possibly why Square hasn't decided to remake the game?

It's all about what fans want. It still seems a big chunk want a remake and another big chunk want new FF's and a smaller chunk want different games.

Company's can hide a lot of stuff from consumers and release info as they see fit. I am not saying the game is in prouction but didn't we go down this road when FFVII AC was annouced.

To close this one out the title of the article is pretty contradicting to the statement made by Nomura;

"We of course know ourselves what the fans want so we'd like to continue thinking up a variety of things. As long as there are people who want to make it and people who are waiting for it, we don't want to proclaim 'the end"

It may not be in production but 10 years later they are still thinking about it, people wanting to remake it and fans who would love to see it.
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When I said coding, I was referring to the huge amounts of coding that goes into a game, and not just making an in-game video of 1-2 minutes long.

The fact of the matter is irrelevant of what kind of 'raw' music they have, they would still have to re-arrange it and re-record it. This is in addition to sound effects that were specifically created using the PSone capabilities.

Any copy of Advent Children that was sold ranged from $15-$40 (AUD) rather than the $100 (AUD) or so that the remake would cost, in addition to a PS3.

If it was going to make money, they would have released it. The only reason anyone is discussing a remake x years later, is because there are ALWAYS going to be people that want it, even if it never ever comes out.

Anyway, this discussion is becoming bland, if Square Enix see money in this idea, they'll do it. They aren't so stupid to ignore potential profit, everyone likes money.
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jesus CHRIST infernosoul

GET A LIFE!!
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Oh, Rahul and his intelligent comebacks.
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I need to get a life? I suppose it's nice to know that I could have a intelligent conversation with one of the admins without them resorting to name calling or telling me to "get a life". Sounds like the person that needs a to "get a life" is the person going on the internet telling other people to "get a life". If you don't like the discussion why did you bother posting the article and allowing comments when you should have known this type of conversation would go on? Oh well I suppose it doesn't matter no need to agrue with ignorant people, they're always right.
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This argument is confusing enough to follow without there being two identical Sephiroths involved. One of you has got to get a new avatar, because this thread is like "the videogamer's guide to schizo-logorrhea."
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It's funny. There's been more lengthy discussion on this issue here, now that the issue's been pretty much stabbed, urinated upon, and buried, than there was when there was, if not so much a strong possibility, a lack of conclusive indication one way or the other regarding a remake.

Golly gee you goys like the chat-chat! Wait another decade or two. If you still care about your remake more than the average American cares about Darfur, you might just find vindication.

Like September 11th jokes, it's simply too soon. The numbers don't crunch. If an FFVII remake is going to work, it's going to do so by attracting mostly people new to the game, not reminiscent adults. Asking for a remake right now is like asking for the Spirits Within, though probably one that wouldn't seppuku the company.

On a personal note, given Advent Children, I'm glad that they've at least restrained themselves to raping the continuation of the series and not the series itself; I don't know if my affection for the game could endure a story reload more in the idiom of AC.
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Good point. FFIII was the first game to receive a truly 'higher definition' remake that caused it to reach new audiences and where remaking it in this new way had become cheap and accessible enough to make sound business sense to Square Enix. Maybe in 5-10 years FFVII would receive a similar overhaul in the vein of what we saw in the FFVII PS3 tech demo. But not anytime soon, as noted above multiple times.
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I give this News piece 2 thumbs up :-p
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instead of fucking around with bullshit spin-offs of FF7 they could of invested all that money into an excellent quality remake of FF7 but they give us aload of games we dont actually really want and jus want the bloody remake..

god theyre mad???
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or, they could've been actually smart, and spent all that effort on a decent NEW game. rather than creating some stupid remake of the most overrated game in history.
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I agree with Veszerin, mostly. SE needs to stop making remakes and actually make new games, instead of living off the coattails of its former employees. Though, I think the Halo is the most overrated game in history.
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I agree about making new games, there shouldn't be a reason to remake games over and over, (FF4 is a good example). However I do see a sense in remakes being released in areas the game wasn't released before (Dragon Quest 5,6). Or to remake games for the portable system, cause I mean if you really like the game you can play it on the go, thats always fun.
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Fuck you guys, I am loving War of the Lions and cant fucking wait to play Front Mission DS and FF4.
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With the new DS game they have made 3 different versions FF4. How many are they going to expect people to buy? ZOMG NEW GRAPHIXXX! I don't really care. I personally enjoy the old school aspect from it. I enjoyed playing the NES Rom FF3 more then the FF3 DS version.
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