Headline RePLAY – 7.23.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Ubisoft feels penalized by the lack of new consoles, Bravely Default: Flying Fairy is like Final Fantasy V and the status on Kojima Productions’ Fox Engine.

Following Square-Enix’s lead, Ubisoft agrees that the current console generation was too long and publishers are consequently “penalized.”  

“We have been penalized by the lack of new consoles on the market,” Ubisoft CEO and co-founder Yves Guillemot told Gamasutra. “I understand the manufacturers don’t want them too often because it’s expensive, but it’s important for the entire industry to have new consoles because it helps creativity.”

Guillemot argues that new consoles allow publishers to explore new IPs and products, but the end of a cycle doesn’t allow that luxury despite consumer demand for “new stuff.”

“It’s a lot less risky for us to create new IPs and new products when we’re in the beginning of a new generation,” he explained. “Our customers are very open to new things. Our customers are reopening their minds—and they are really going after what’s best… At the end of a console generation, they want new stuff, but they don’t buy new stuff as much. They know their friends will play Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed so they go for that. So the end of a cycle is very difficult.

“If you can’t take risks because people don’t but, you don’t innovate. And if you don’t innovate, customers get bored.”

|Source: Gamasutra

New details released by Dengeki Online reveals that Bravely Default’s gameplay is close to another Square-Enix title, specifically Final Fantasy V.

Bravely Default’s job system is identical to FFV’s by utilizing a Job Commands and Support Commands setup. Job Commands are abilities that characters use during battle while Support Abilities are automatic status effects like +10% HP or a Knight’s ability to cover party members.

Characters can even equip other Job Commands and Support Abilities learned from other jobs—with a cost. Each ability comes with a numerical “cost” value, and the amount of abilities that a character can equip is limited by their cost.  

The 3DS RPG even includes party skits, which are reminiscent of Namco Bandai’s Tales RPG series.

|Source: Andriasang

In an interview with PlayStation.Blog, Metal Gear series creator Hideo Kojima revealed that the new Fox Engine is “nearly finished” and a demonstration will be held on August 30th in Japan.  

“The Fox Engine is nearly finished,” Kojima told PlayStation.Blog, “but the only way to be sure it works is to create a game at the same time and improve the engine with our tools as we go along.”

Kojima noted that they were originally going to use Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance for the project, but that was before Platinum Games picked up the title.  

“Production studios in Japan are nearly extinct,” he said, “a fact that we have recognized for nearly 10 years, and although the Fox Engine is not finished we are ready to show what it can do… on August 30th in Japan to be more specific.”

|Source: PlayStation Blog