Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

Square Enix developer Naoki Yoshida says he won't break his PS3 promise for the Final Fantasy XIV MMO.

Nobody knows when the next generation of consoles is due out, but Square Enix developer Naoki Yoshida thinks it's time to look to the future. He acknowledges that Square Enix needs to rebuild trust after recent events, and reiterated that Square will keep its promise of a PS3 release for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, its troubled MMO. However in a GamesCom talk he said the time has come to look to the future, and that means planning for a new console generation.

"We realize that things will be coming," he said, "and then making the game compatible for these systems is something we're currently thinking about." Of course since Sony hasn't announced anything about the next Playstation, neither can Square Enix. That doesn't mean it will be sitting on its metaphorical hands. "With this new [Final Fantasy XIV] engine, it's very scalable. It runs on low-end PCs and high-end PCs. So, when new technology comes out, we can easily scale it to that high end."

Yoshida demonstrated a playable version of the game on a Core i5 processor, to prove that even on lower-spec systems Final Fantasy XIV could still impress. It remains to be seen whether or not it will impress when it finally goes on sale. It's currently scheduled for a late 2012 release.