Final Fantasy VII was a landmark release not just for Japanese role-playing games, but for the PlayStation brand itself. Square's revered classic was PlayStation's first taste of Final Fantasy, with the series having made a name for itself on Nintendo hardware.
As many of you will know, Square actually shifted its focus to the original PlayStation console after Nintendo's decision to stick with cartridges for the N64 - a format that simply couldn't handle a title like Final Fantasy VII. Indeed, we need to remember that Cloud's memorable adventure originally shipped on three separate PlayStation discs. Those were the days, eh?
Square made a seemingly logical decision to jump over to Sony's system, then, but this apparently didn't go down too well with Nintendo. According to Polygon's Final Fantasy VII feature, which quotes character programmer Hiroshi Kawai, Nintendo told Square: "If you're leaving us, never come back."
"[Nintendo's] philosophy has always been that Nintendo hardware is for their games, and if a publisher wants to publish, 'OK you can do it.' But if you don't like it, 'We don't want you'," explains vice president Yoshihiro Maruyama. Old Ninty's never been that great with third parties, has it?
Anyway, despite all the bad blood that this business decision brought about, we're at least thankful that history played out the way that it did. If it hadn't, PlayStation may not have become the brand that we know today - which is pretty crazy when you think about it.
[source polygon.com, via nintendolife.com]
Comments 40
honestly the way Nintendo was back then (and still is to a lesser degree) this wouldn't surprise me in the slightest
"A multi-million dollar production across 3 CD-ROMS"
Some of the stories regarding Nintendo in those days are absolutely outrageous. Didn't they put a block on how many games publishers could release, too? And didn't they dictate how many cartridges got manufactured?
Honestly, it's no wonder most of the companies jumped ship to PlayStation.
I'm sure back then, since nintendo basically had zero competition, they figured Sony had a dud on their hands and that all the third parties that jumped ship would come crawling back. Whoops......
I'm definitely steering clear of the switch for awhile until they can prove the third parties are here to stay. Real estate is limited on my entertainment center, and the wii u has been an expensive first party machine that collects dust, and i already have a tablet.
With the amount of 3rd party devs supporting the Switch, it seems like the big N has softened up a bit compared to the mid '90s.
@kyleforrester87 hahaha that sounds so stupid these days
A lot of the problem was that the game would have required multiple cartridges to deliver the full game. Cartridges were also expensive to manufacture compared to the cost of CD-Roms. This would no doubt push the price of FF7 up even more. Games on the N64 were not cheap as it was and more expensive than games are today. Would FF7 have been so popular, sold as much if it was the most expensive game to buy?
I expect Nintendo expected Square to either cut the game in half and release in two parts or scale back the game to fit on one cartridge. Square didn't want to do either and moved to Playstation and haven't looked back...
Console Wars is a fun read for more Nintendo shinanigans, although Sony and Sega were very busy with their manouves.
@get2sammyb It had been like this for awhile Sammy. In principal Nintendo were kinda of right to do so because they wanted to stop the oversaturation and poor quality that manifested with the gaming crash in North America but they kept these restrictions for over two generations to the point where publishers had to create dummy companies to get around them. Plus their licencing fee was beyond a joke too. Of course publishers couldn't go anywhere because Nintendo was the biggest show in town.
Then CD based consoles came along and everyone knew it was the way to go because they were more affordable and carried a lot of memory. It's just most of the systems were badly handled, 3DO was too expensive, Jaguar athe worst controller ever and no games and Saturn had the most botched launch in history that not only killed that system it probably crippled the Dreamcast too. Sony did it right because they went after 3rd parties and got their support by giving them more fair licencing fees, a more flexible system then their rivals and cheaper CD printing costs due SCE using Sony Music's expertise. It's through this that they got FFVII, Metal Gear and probably other key Japanese studios.
Sadly I still don't think Nintendo have truly learned their lesson with 3rd parties because they always want to be different at the expense of making developers make more difficult ports.
Despite this I want a Switch but Nintendo has to make to want it.
@PorllM stupidly awesome
@BAMozzy From my reading, Squaresoft were basically waiting to find out what Nintendos strategy was going to be with the N64, and once they confirmed cartridges they went with Sony. Initially I believe the N64 only had 32mb cartridges. What's a standard CDROM? Around 700mb?
@adf86 @get2sammyb The publisher games limit was a direct reaction to the crash of 83 as mentioned above. Too many games too fast led to reduced quality and consumer burnout. It was a very smart thing to do at the time and if they didnt well...it would have just continued.
As for this article...ahem. Thats Half the quoted parties there @ShogunRok and neither side gives a story that corroborates the other.
Also, I love this. The commonly touted reason for the move to PS was because a single cart couldnt hold it. Nor could a single disc, it was just cheaper there. Hence the move.
And regarding discs...must be why BluRays have to install onto a laptop hard drive and flash/solid state media is becoming so popular for storage and load times. Back then, yep, carts were outdatex. Now though? The cost of a BluRay is being eclipsed by cheaper and faster stuff.
Oh, and @adf86 license fees might have been high back then, but now? Just checked onthe NDev Portal and Lotcheck is free. XD Times change huh?
@BLP_Software Yes, they certainly do sir lol.
As I said, the actual restrictions in principal were sound but it's really only something you should do once the market has settled down after 3 years or so then you relax it but Nintendo were in too much of a position of power that they were probably happy to keep the status quo.
@adf86 Honestly after last holiday season I can see the consumer fatigue and even developers releasing too much too fast (EA).
@get2sammyb They limited publishers to like five games per year or something in the NES days in an effort to make sure that the overall quality of games on the system remained high. The rationale was that if publishers only had five games they'd make them count and wouldn't just release any old tripe.
Of course, what actually happened is a) publishers set up dummy publishing companies to release extra carts, and b) publishers concentrated on games that would make money first and foremost.
Imagine if Sony did that. We'd miss out on all the games they keep making/helping/promoting that are amazing but don't have a prayer of ever making any money.
And now they struggle for cross the board third party support. It's a shame but most people ain't gonna pick up a Switch to play Skyrim on the bus despite the fact that's pretty cool.
Somehow I forgot to say this before, but whatever bad blood Square and Nintendo had is clearly gone now. While Final Fantasy didn't appear on N64, there were still games being made when the Gamecube came around. Yeah, there was Crystal Chronicles, but there were also some good ports of FFV & VI, pretty good remakes of III & IV, and stuff like Bravely Default and golden boy Cloud in Smash. No new mainline games, but considering how divisive the main series is, that might not be too much of a loss for some people. I doubt Nintendo fans wanted XIII.
Maybe that's not the point of this article, but the bad blood only seemed to last one console generation. Either way, it's the past, so it probably doesn't matter much these days.
I remember when ff7 came out in 1997 there was this amazing add in magazines about the move to cd's on playstation with the words: "someone please get the guys who make cartridge games a cigarette and a blindfold" with the picture of the big cannon from the game 😂
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Final-Fantasy-7-Ad-Reminds-Us-How-Brutal-Console-Wars-Can-Get-72194.html
Lol, okay says square, and publish final fantasy 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 on playstation system, while nintendo 64 got a Quest 64
No wonder most of 3rd party developer/publisher jump ship to playstation..
@DerMeister Nintendo still doesn't have mainline final fantasy for their system, maybe the bad blood is gone, but squareenix only view them as a side project now.
@FreakerZ I remember this ad, I think I see them on egm magazines.
And yet Nintendo was ok on adding Cloud for the Super Smash Bros.' roster (they should have added Shovel Knight and Shantae instead, imo).
@wiiware I got into that with my second comment. Maybe Nintendo is just a side project, but it's had some pretty good side projects, if reception to games like Bravely Default and Theatrhythm are anything to go by. Yeah, it wouldn't hurt to have a main title on Nintendo systems, but some of the games available aren't too shabby.
Either way, it's done and dusted. Ancient history.
What's weird is how none of their stories match. Another Square exec (former?) said that Yamauchi (spelling?) was more polite about it
@wiiware That's an odd statement considering Dragon quest IX, X, IV, V, VI, VII and now VIII are on Nintendo systems. Are those "side projects"?
Yet no mention of how they came back crying to Nintendo after they nearly bankrupting themselves with The Spirits Within and begged them to be able to make games for the Game Boy Advance which ended up saving the company.
Yamauchi reigned Nintendo with an iron fist, that's very clear to anyone even slightly familiar with the brand, but you can't argue with the results it brought them.
@johncalmc Thats a lot of games 5 in a year. I think they cant make one game in a year.
@DerMeister I would love to see some Nintendo Square-Enix games on PlayStation. But i am annoyed that everyone talks about Nintendo as if the are the perfect company.
@Bliquid
Oh my mistake!
Surely Wikipedia is then ultimate source for truth and facts! Lol
@Flaming_Kaiser They're not. Neither are Sony or Microsoft. Aside from Mario, I actually haven't played too many Nintendo games, so I'm far from hardcore fanboying. They've messed up with 3rd party developers for years and it's killed them in the Wii-Wii U era. 80-90% of their meat is their own franchises with the occasional new exclusive (like Splatoon or Wonderful 101), and if you don't like them, then there's no reason to get a Nintendo system. There's how they shoehorn gimmicks to stay relevant as well. I'm not overtly familiar with their business history, honestly. That's just the main problems I know of.
@get2sammyb they certainly did. The likes of Konami got around it though, which is why Castlevania and Contra (or probotector) came out with the Konami logo, and games like Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles came out under the fictional "ultra" label. Happened quite a lot and seemed somewhat arbitrary.
@Bliquid Whatever you say buddy.
They also treated the creator of Fire Emblem like crap after he left his previous company and made another game quite like Fire Emblem. They tried to get the game stopped but in the end it came out, just with certain things changed to take it away from a place Nintendo could sue.
That would be like if Capcom sued Kamiya for making Bayonetta and tried to get the game shut down. Or perhaps The Evil Within having to change its name and certain elements because of Resident Evil. Let's not even go to Mighty No 9 and Mega Man.
People forget, but Nintendo used to operate love hotels (i.e. rooms used for prostitution) and deal with gangsters, before moving into playing cards, then finally into gaming. They've really done a number on the American public in terms of creating a very fake cult of personality which endures to this day.
@DerMeister There was the same kind of thing with the Wii U, a big image with all the third party studios behind it. It'll be hard for it to remain true if it's really as underpowered as the Eurogamer article suggests, with it basically being a heavily underclocked not-very-good mobile CPU. We'll see on Friday (perhaps).
@NintendoFan4Lyf His names Cid, pretty good engineer by all accounts.
@DerMeister the majority of people working for both companies has changed since then so yes the bad blood would have subsided. Nintendo got too big for their boots. But who can blame them? Both the Nes and Snes were awesome.
@adf86 I remember clearly the buzz and hype of the ps1. It was off the charts. As soon as the first ridge racer screen grabs came in it was game over for everything else. I remember 1 magazine (I cant remember which, but it was a multi computer magazine) did a 14 page spread on ridge racer shortly after launch, I literally NEEDED that console. I entered competitions galore to win one. I remember a side by side comparison for the ps1 and Saturn and the PS1 won every single topic. I couldn't afford one though so I visited a friend once and played the wipeout 2097 demo disc from a ps mag - 1 level - 2 ships. I played that demo for weeks if I got the chance. It blew me away like nothing before. Chuck in RR revolution, Tekken and Pandemonium and it was like Sony had turned computer gaming upside down! For my mates they had Olympic soccer. So yeah they liked it too.
I'm made up we still have Nintendo, and I never want them to change. I've never been disappointed with a Mario platform game in my whole life, they are child friendly and wii bowling 🎳 easily the best party game ever. I'm also made up we have Sony obviously. Microsoft though erm.....
@Matroska Yeah, that's been a fear I've had for the Switch. Also something I neglected to mention in my 4th comment on here.....Nintendo systems seem to be rather underpowered as of late. Granted, they've been capable of making good, (mostly, depends on motion controls) functional games despite that, though it would be nice to see what they would be capable of with better hardware.
@themcnoisy They were pretty confident back then, and it's understandable, being synonynous with gaming and all. Hopefully such ego between any company today never grows again, but I'm probably being too hopeful.
@DerMeister I love the great Nintendo franchises Metriod is my favorite and a lot more great ones. I just hate the myth that Nintendo is a saint company.
@DerMeister I love the great Nintendo franchises Metriod is my favorite and a lot more great ones. I just hate the myth that Nintendo is a saint company.
Sounds about right. Similar to the Xbox policy last gen where Microsoft wouldn't accept games if they had been on another platform first. But Nintendo made it more personal. These companies were all too keen to burn bridges when they were top dog, just to make a point. Hopefully they aren't quite so brutal these days.
Nintendo being Nintendo, glad they're not as bad as that now.
Under Hiroshi Yaumachi, I can believe this. Stories of Nintendo in the 80s and 90s are to numerous to deny. Under Iwata though, you would have thought they would change. Which, judging by Cloud in Super Smash Bros might indicate it has.
@Matroska love hotels are also used by people who want to be alone with their girlfriend due to the strong family presence in their home. Its weird unless you see it first hand. They aren't just for prostitutes.
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