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Cornering The Market - Final Fantasy 2.17.2008 11:10pm
Final Fantasy has certainly cornered the Final Fantasy market. Let me break that down. Final Fantasy is the big boy in Japanese RPGs (Dragon Quest is a close second but it's not in the title so I choose not to talk about it). Even now 20+ years after the release the name still holds major weight.
It holds so much weight that even if you worked on those early games you can sell your new, Non-Final-Fantasy game. At least that seems to be the trend. Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi has walked away from the Final Fantasy to pursue other interests. Namely Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360 exclusives which Microsoft paid handsomely for).
On all the posters and cardboard cutouts for Lost Odyssey that fact is brandished proudly. I mean there are Square fans; people who actually bought Project Sylpheed because their name was on the box. With the name being that popular Sakaguchi would be near crazy to leave his connection to the Final Fantasy franchise off the PR propaganda.
My favorite part of the Lost Odyssey / Final Fantasy cross branding is the queasy feeling SquareEnix gets every time someone looks at a cardboard cutout. Knowing that not only will they see no money from their baby, but also that their platform of choice might also not be the platform of choice for a third of the globe. The more time that goes by, the more Xbox's are sold, the more PS2 owners are making the switch to the Microsoft camp. The Japanese RPG market is always a place where American companies have struggled... for geographical reasons mostly.
When MS couldn't lock down shared rights to Final Fantasy the next best thing was to lock down exclusivity to the creator. By brandishing Lost Odyssey propaganda with the one thing they can't have Microsoft has solidified Final Fantasy as the pinnacle of the genre. The be all end all. The final word. And it is.
Even people who don't like turn based RPG's as a genre play Final Fantasy. When people want to venture into the genre the direction they are pointed in that of Final Fantasy. That is the turn-based-RPG starting point. From there you can spread your wings and fly into DragonQuests, or Manna... places.
Go wherever you want really just remembered where it all started. At a little place called Final Fantasyville. It is, after all, the defining game in the genre.
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Cornering The Market - Lawyers 11.19.2007 11:49pm
Capcom. Known for reissuing Street Fighter 2 every time there is a new platform. I suspect it will be coming to my iPhone soon as well. But aside from that Capcom has been busy cornering a market that other companies have yet to even acknowledge.
That of the Lawyer Enthusiast. For years Capcom has been making games in the Ace Attorney franchise on the GBA in Japan. Seeing how they are wildly popular on that side of the world, they ported them on to a DS cart and have issued them here; one a year for the past 3 years. The fourth installment (and first true DS version) comes States side early next year.The Ace Attorney series is fantastic but it was the only game in town for wannabe lawyers... until now! Capcom is releasing another lawyer game, this one geared towards the casual market. Yes, you read that correctly. A game, where you play as a lawyer, geared towards the casual market.
You're face just probably exploded.
On January 9th, Capcom is releasing Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. You play as Mr. Birdman, and go through trials, present evidence with the ultimate goal of winning the day. The game play and menu options are very similar to that of Ace Attorney and it's something thats going to be sweet to have on an actual console. All that aside, I think we need to delve deeper into the Capcom mindset.
They release a game that does well in Japan. They bring it to America. People really like being able to be a lawyer and buy millions of copies and then DON'T sell them back to GameStop making them really hard to find. They think "Mmm people like this. I bet if we made it less of a simulator and more of arcade style, even more people would like it." And then they release two competing products in the same niche market.
They lawyer obsession in America runs rampant. There are countless television shows and movies about lawyers, lawyering and law firms. Dramas (Law and Order... law is in the title!) and comedies (Boston Legal), Americans don't just take their law one way - we mix it up. And i think thats what Capcom is trying to do here. Corner a market where rampant DS owning wannabe lawyers can have a release from the world. And now depending on their mood they have different flavors to choose from.
It makes me wonder if the lawyer game space will become as crowded as the racing one. I mean you have Ace Attorney as your 'simulator' game, with Harvey Birdman as the more 'arcade style' one... filling the Need For Speed type game play. This is the kind of game you see in the discount bin for 3 bucks because they crank them out every year. You need that arcade style game to hold you over between releases of simulators. (Much like I played two years worth of Need For Speed while waiting for Forza 2 to come out... arguably the best racing sim EVER.)
Oh man speaking of racing sims, imagine taking your lawyering on line for head to head courtroom battles! I'm going to let that resinate so it seeps in deep. (pause....)
Yeah, how'd that feel? You're face probably exploded again. With that stroke of genius I leave you alone. But when lawyer games hit the main stream and you're playing online against some ace attorney in Sweden on Xbox Live or PSN, don't you forget that you heard it here first.
