According to Kotaku and Joystiq," The developers of FFXIII... Have no plans for DLC..."
What is perplexing about this is that not that there won't be any DLC; but that the game has been in production since before 2006, which there wasn't even a PS3 or XBOX 360 before 2005 so, this seems like a rather long time. There was also the news that Final Fantasy 13 started out as a PS2 game. Really? The current state of the game, with amazing cinematics and the complicated battle system was going to be on the PS2? What on 5 discs? Even lower resolution textures, I'm sure would not have made that much difference in the space requirements and considering the developers stated that the long development time was to convert the game from PS2 to PS3 seems to indicate they didn't add all that much from the one version to the other. So with the conversion, the game is complete? Well, that seems like a REALLY long time, considering it took 6 months to shift God of War 1 and 2 to the PS3 with upscaling and Trophies. So I would give them two years to convert it. So that would still make the game a 2007 or 2008 release. The game shipped in Japan last December. What happened there?
The whole excuse about not having time to make towns or DLC. Sounds like the recent string of Japanese Developers who brazenly state that they don't play other games in their genre and don't need to. Much like the Polyphony Digital folks stated a couple of years ago. Now they still haven't shipped a game and their closest competitor shipped 3 games (Forza, Turn 10) in less time than it is taking Polyphony to ship one. Makes me wonder if the Japanese just assume that their lead of 6 or 7 years ago hasn't changed. Well, it has. There really hasn't been a big hit from any Japanese developer except Hideo Kojima(Metal Gear) and Hideki Kamiya(Bayonetta) in all that time. Both of those gentlemen certainly aren't the typical designers in the industry as a whole; let alone Japan. But they are the exception and not the rule. There are certainly plenty of talented people in Japan making video games; but it seems like the bigger the franchise the less the developers care about their competition.
Final Fantasy 13 will undoubtedly be one the biggest releases of this year. Considering that fact alone, I think that it's the developer's responsibility to put out some downloadable content. Like maybe some costumes for Lightning or SOMETHING. I don't know, if I made games for a living I wouldn't be writing this, I'd be coding. Also, considering the game is reportedly very short perhaps adding in the cut content would also have been a good idea. I'm not sure what that content is, or if it's only in Japanese and that's why or what the reason might be. But if Final Fantasy 13 launches without plans for downloadable content and if Final Fantasy versus 13 never materializes. Then I think Square, needs to get a grip and figure out what they trying to achieve financially. Because here in America, if a game has no downloadable content and no plan for it; that game generally gets purchased used more than it does new. If you know what I mean.
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