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Joshua.march

Playa Boy

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phreak

14 June at 11:24

oops! Wall of text. Sorry.

phreak

14 June at 11:22

@Blaze: Wasn't expecting anything from FF14 since we just had fanfest...as for FF16.. Yoshida said they will show more of it once substantial progress is made and currently all projects at creative business unit 3 are 6 months behind due to the pandemic. Example: Endwalker was supposed to come out this month..moves to late November.

phreak

14 June at 11:17

@tea: Trying to stay optimistic about origins..hopefully when the demo is fixed it'll dispell some worries or even take the feedback seriously.

As for the main character.. John... Square has some of the best artists and characters designers in the world on the payroll...and that boring generic design is what they came up with. They could have taken the elevator to floor 15 at Square HQ and borrowed Kazuya Takahashi (FF14,FF16, Bravely Default, ect character designer) from creative business unit for a week to design 1 for them. lol I'm sure Yoshida wouldnt have minded

Blaze

14 June at 11:14

Yeah SQ's show was disappointing. Just felt like they were holding back and didn't have much to show. Maybe at Sony's show?

Tea

14 June at 11:09

@Phreak - TBH i was a bit disappointed with the SQE and their showing - the FF game and that other title, cant recall the name now, felt like old school ps2 game reveals like Chaos legion and the like. But it was early pre-alpha stuff so I'm sure they will polish them up

Tea

14 June at 11:07

@Playa - The publisher delayed the PS5 version worldwide due to technical issues - However you can purchase the ps4 one and upgrade to the PS5 version for free when that comes out

phreak

14 June at 10:35

Final Fantasy Origin looks interesting. Gameplay could be good. Gonna keep making fun of the bland as hell main character design though. lol

phreak

14 June at 9:09

Guardians of the Galaxy...single player story driven..sign me up!

Playa Boy

11 June at 16:51

when is the PS5 version on sniper ghost warrior contracts 2 coming out

Tea

10 June at 16:38

@Jakez - Please note we only offer EFT as a payment option on PS5 orders due to the high level of credit card fraud we have experienced :- feel free to PM if you would need any further information

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Ubisoft Will Change Strategy to Focus on "High-End Free-to-Play" Games

by Sam Aberdeen on 12 May, 2021

Ubisoft have been on a roll lately, releasing AAA titles like Immortals Fenyx Rising, Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Watch Dogs: Legion, with more big games to come. However, due to the explosion in popularity with free-to-play models dominating the market - from Call of Duty: Warzone to Apex Legends - it looks like Ubisoft wants to shift their focus to that corner of the industry, as they announced that they will change strategies to focus on "high-end free-to-play" titles in the future.

READ MORE: Resident Evil Village Has Shipped Over 3 Million Units in Under a Week

During an earnings call on Tuesday (reported by Video Games Chronicle), Ubisoft provided an updated business strategy that seemingly sees the company shifting their focus from releasing 3-4 premium AAA games a year and instead, want to release high-end free-to-play games based on their popular franchises. "In line with the evolution of our high-quality line-up that is increasingly diverse, we are moving on from our prior comment regarding releasing 3-4 premium AAAs per year," Ubisoft’s chief financial officer Frederick Duguet said.

"It is indeed no longer a proper indication of our value creation dynamics. For example, our expectation for Just Dance and Riders Republic are consistent with some of the industry’s AAA performers," he continued. "Additionally, we are building high-end free-to-play games to be trending towards AAA ambitions over the long-term. This is purely a financial communication evolution and doesn’t change the fact that we continue to expect a high cadence of content delivery including powerful premium and free-to-play new releases."

While it seems like Ubisoft won't necessarily ditch premium AAA development altogether, it's clear that they have bigger aspirations for the free-to-play model. Ubisoft attempted to break into the market with Hyper Scape, a sci-fi battle royale that unfortunately didn't get the traction they might've expected as the game's player base had significantly dwindled since release. However, we'll just have to wait and see how they handle the new focus going forward, especially if they plan on using their existing franchises as a starting point - much like Activision did with Call of Duty: Warzone, and Respawn Entertainment accomplished with the Titanfall-shared universe of Apex Legends.

Sam Aberdeen

Writer. Enthusiast of all things geek. Legend has it he completed Final Fantasy VII without a memory card.

Follow Sam on See more articles by Sam

There are 3 comments

Llama_Duck

@Tea Agreed. but if the newer games, like AssCreed and those, get the same FTP Bloat like what they have in Ragnarock, it could cause problems. if focus is on FTP side, less devs on AAA and they cut down game sizes to push DLC and Season Passes. I just see "game ending locked behind DLC Season Pass"

Tea

As long as we still get key AAA single player experiences Im okay with this - Just being forced to download multiplayer content when you are only planning to play the single player content suck - Yes I'm looking at you COD / Activision

Llama_Duck

TBH we all knew this was on its way.
the thing we are going to see now if how FTP games are added to replace the normal AAA games. Think FTP open world Far Cry ALA Destiny 2 Light Edition with DLC/Story content.

One thing, Self publishing and the rise of AAA Indies or a new design/field where we are going to see AAA games move to the Indie scene.

Problem is FTP is so bloated with billions of buttons to push "pay us money" button. Long live indies and High quality Indies!

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