Will the Final Fantasy XV be the Last Final Fantasy for Videogame Consoles? and Why the consoles are dying in japan?

Well guys, the thing doesn’t look very good for Final Fantasy’s side. Kotaku has interviewed the Final Fantasy’s co-director Hajime Tabata in PAX Prime, and he discussed the future of Fianl Fantasy XV and what he thinks of the current state of the franchise he built and about the Console Market in Japan. And the big bad news is  we’re getting to the point there the console market in Japan is slowly dying, as more and more people prefer mobile games. The reason from Tabata perspective is :

There’s probably a cultural explanation for why the Japanese market is shifting toward handheld or smartphone devices. It’s pretty unique to Japan, where everyone is transporting—they have long train rides and bus rides to work, they have time to play handheld devices, or they’re spending more time in their own rooms vs. spending more time in the living room. via.: Kotaku

The fact of Tabata’s perspective is that most of Japan commutes around the country via bus and train versus driving individual cars.

Personally I will extend my opinion over the Tabata1s perspective. The mostly of the Japanese are between 20-79 years old and they don’t have much time to spend in home playing in your own console, so while they are commuting around the country they spend your own time interacting with their mobile device including games.

 

Image:Population pyramid via 2013 via CIA World Factbook.

 

And why Japan is so important about it? Japan is the house of the Final Fantasy Series and a ton of JRPGs, if you don’t sell console games there, that mean “no money” for the console game developers and consequently “no more games”.

So Tabata says that if Final Fantasy XV does not do well in Japan, that will Signal the end of console games:

So in terms of whether console games will be received moving forward, it’s not to say that I don’t have any concerns at all, but I believe that it’ll really depend on how Final Fantasy XV does. Because I really want more people to enjoy games in the living room, on a big screen. If Final Fantasy XV doesn’t do well, perhaps there’s not much of a future for console games. It kind of really depends on how that goes. via.: Kotaku

“If Final Fantasy XV doesn’t do well, perhaps there’s not much of a future for console games.” Like in the Kotaku’s opinion is that  “Even if Tabata is over-reaching—even if he’s just referring to the future of Square Enix and not of the Japanese industry as a whole—that is an inordinateamount of pressure. The people behind Final Fantasy XV are carrying the weight of an entire genre on their shoulders. No wonder it’s taking so long.”

And I agree with Kotaku and someway but what guarantee that Final Fantasy XV will really be that good to define the future of the console market in Japan? Sorry, I played Final Fantasy XIII, I enjoyed and I really liked FFXIII, FFXIII-2 and FFXIII-3, but it was a crap when compared with any other old Final Fantasies. And the problem here is we have some nice JRPGs around there like Tales of series, that keep an excellent quality along the years; the Ni no Kuni, for me one of the best JRPG of 2012; Bravely Default, an awesome portable game for Nintendo 3DS and that may be the problem. What probably he is thinking is to develop a game like that mentioned why to develop to home consoles? If for mobile or portable video game would sell many more and we could keep the good qualities of the franchise…

Well, concluding…  The sad news is Console games in Japan are truly in risk and the scare about Final Fantasy XV be the last one for console, probably what Tabata said looks more like a market message to try to hype the game in Japan. ;/

Watch bellow the E3 2013 trailer of the game from IGN Youtube channel if you have forgotten how awesome FFXV looks like:

 

Read the entire Kotaku’s interview HERE and get your own conclusion. 🙂