Square Enix has been bringing lots of its classic games to the PlayStation 4 lately, and apparently it’s part of a company-wide ambition to make its entire library digital. Speaking with Game Informer, president Yosuke Matsuda revealed that the publisher has launched a “dedicated project” internally to port these titles – but admitted that the firm can’t always find the source code.
“I'm embarrassed to admit it, but in some cases, we don't know where the code is anymore,” he cringed. “It's very hard to find them sometimes, because back in the day you just made them and put them out there and you were done – you didn't think of how you were going to sell them down the road.”
Matsuda went on to explain that there was one instance where a former employee who’d left the company many years ago had the code for a particular game on his computer, and the publisher was able to track it down. Of course, with digital platforms like the PlayStation Store becoming increasingly ingrained, all of the effort’s certain to prove worthwhile in the end.
[source gameinformer.com]
Comments 33
hey if i can get all the FF games on one system then i'm OK with them taking the time they need with it
@FullbringIchigo I think they got close to this on PS3, right?
They should check the back of the CD case. Wait, wrong publisher.
@get2sammyb yeah FF1 through 10 was on there except FF3 (via either PS1 disc emulation on PSN releases) but if sony added the ability to play PSP and PS1 digital titles on PS4 we could have all the mainline games on one system
bar XI of course
They should get in touch with Bluepoint, they reverse engineer code from retail copies for their remasters rather than use source code.
Still waiting for The Bouncer. 😂
Just release the classic Final Fantasy games on disc so i can preserve them myself.
@Flaming_Kaiser well they already did
FF is my favourite series. I hope they do it. It still seems strange there is no FF13 Trilogy on PS4, it should be easy to port them. 1 to 6 can easily be done via emulation. 1 to 4 should use the perfect PSP ports, 5 the updated Steam version and 6 whatever they choose, I would prefer the GBA game with updated soundtrack.
Soooo glad they located VIII. Cannot wait to have it on Switch!
Go and look for Parasite Eve.
Go and find the code for crisis core then please!
That feeling when you lose your homework you had completed.
Im guessing THAT is why Brave Fencer Musashi never had a PS1 Classic release on PS3/PSP. As far as I know, it's the only Square "golden era" game that didn't make it.
I guess that means you have to make it from the ground up, SquareEnix!
I thought that FFVIII would never come to PS4 in remastered form because of the code loss issue, so I'm ecstatic that they've found some sort of workaround for that! Day one purchase! 😀
@Belmont I reckon a FFXIII Trilogy Remastered will be the next one to be announced sometime after this year's remasterings have been released. Would make financial sense too, as they could charge full whack for that! I never played any of XIII myself, so I'd be very happy buy it at a AAA pricepoint.
@MistressTonberry i thought MS had some exclusivity to the FFXIII Trilogy because they paid and helped for it to be remastered for the XB1 BC program (yes the BC version was remastered) so it's possible they just can't release it on other systems just yet, if ever
of course if the PS5 can play PS3 games like the rumours suggest it wouldn't need a remaster
@rjejr from times to times, someone will always remind me of this game. hahahahhaha
I don't know even if I loved or hated.
@FullbringIchigo Ah, I didn't know that was why we hadn't yet got it on PS4 - very disappointing as I don't have the PS3 at my house nor a current gen XBox/PC. Haha, I'll just have to hope for some sort of deal in the future. Thanks for the explanation!
If they are Remastering the Romancing Saga Games i Hope we Can Get Saga Frontier And Saga Frontier 2 down the line and they Can Toss Vagrant Story in their as well
@UnlimitedSevens pretty much. i don't think saga frontier 1/2 are on there either, but some would argue those games are among squares worst of the era.
@FullbringIchigo I know i have them too but when i upgrade i want to have it on disc again. So i dont have hope the platform goes down and i can never play it again.
@Flaming_Kaiser i would love it if they re-released all of them on disc but i don't think that's ever going to happen sadly although GAME was tweeting about the FFVIII Remaster on Twitter and it got me thinking that maybe it would be getting a physical release because otherwise why would a shop advertise a game it can't sell you
@Flaming_Kaiser here is one from the Kingston Branch
https://twitter.com/GAMEKingston/status/1138472106625327110
It's shocking isnt it that they don't keep source code secure especially for games that sold in the millions like FF7, 8 and 9 etc
@Frank90 "I don't know even if I loved or hated."
Well the entire game was only 20 minutes long, 60 minutes if you played through it 3x, once as each character, so you didn't really have a chance to love it or hate it, it just happened then it was over.
I just can't get over it b/c for me it was the beginning of the end of Squaresoft. They promoted the heck out of that game as a PS2 launch title promoting the Emotion Engine and it seemed like it just turned Square from a company that really cared about games - FF7 great 70 hour story - to one that only cared about FF7R graphics for a game they'll never finish. Not all their fault, the leap in graphics from PS1 to PS2 was incredible, the last revolution we'll ever have in gaming, it's all been only evolution since, but The Bouncer is that game at that point in history.
I should write a book: "From FF7 to FF7R: How Square Went from King of the JRPG Stories to Whore for MOAR GRAPHICS." The Bouncer would be the turning point middle chapter.
@Nakatomi_Uk like they said back then it just wasn't the done thing because games were released once and that was it, porting to later consoles was something developers never thought about
i imagine there are a lot of developers in the same boat right now
@FullbringIchigo Thank for the information. Final Fantasy 8 was the my first Final Fantasy game and it made me buy my favorite with Final Fantasy game Final Fantasy 7. Almost as good as Legend of Dragoon. 😆
@FullbringIchigo Its funny that they went with FF13.
Sounds a bit silly considering that video games are by default a digital medium. I get they're referring to lost source code here, but I don't think reverse engineering a game would be that tragic. Not being able to recover uncompressed assets would be more problematic.
@FullbringIchigo If they dont have the funds they can always try with Limited Run. 😆
@rjejr i agree to some extent... but to be fair, square always valued graphics and were the best in the business, even in the ps1 era. the difference is, their games played as well as they looked back then. after ff xii, the company took a turn for the worst. i would argue that ff xiii was the turning point for the company, even though there were signs of what was to come in the ps2 era. i think there is room to have both — cutting edge visuals and gameplay — the problem is, modern day s-e seems to lack leadership and does not know how to structure an open world game nor how to write engaging stories any longer.
The idea of losing an entire game's code was initially very silly to me, but it's becoming an increasingly common story. Even Nintendo has apparently lost source code. Nonetheless, can you guys go look for Parasite Eve 1 and 2 and remaster those? Valkyrie Profile would be nice too. I wouldn't complain about SaGA Frontier 1 and 2 either. I already paid 40 dollars for your Mana Collection. I'd gladly pay another 40 or however much you'd charge for any of these.
@belmont For III and IV they should use the DS/Steam versions, I think the PSP port of IV is kinda weird. I did a little experiment a while back where I played 4 versions of FFIV at the same time. If you set the ATB speed to max in the PSP version, the game goes all crazy and you can basically Darkness your way through until Cecil repents and turns into a Paladin. Even though you can't run in the SNES FFIV, I thought the PSP version to be the weakest out of them all due to that problem
@Porco after ff xii
My wife really liked the graphics on FF12, at the time she said it was some of the best she'd ever seen. I always thought they were too brown and too pixelated myself, but to each their own.
I think we agree on the main concern though, Squenix now isn't as good as Squaresoft 10 or 20 years ago.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...