Final Fantasy 13 now on mobile
We have good news and bad news. The good news is Final Fantasy 13 is now available on mobile platforms iOS and Android. The bad news is that it’s only available in Japan so far. But this story is not simply about a new game coming to a mobile platform. It’s what’s going on in the background that is interesting.
Those of you who have played Final Fantasy 13 will know that this is no simple game with lame graphics you can just port over to a mobile platform. It’s a high-end, console title. How did Square Enix manage to bring it to smartphones as a 20 MB application?
This game is being powered by the cloud, a la OnLive or PlayStation Now. The game is pretty much being played at a G-Cluster server, which can then send you video stream of your game while you send them over your actions.
People in Japan can get the app straight from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. All they need is a 3 MB/s connection. The demo includes 30 minutes of playtime, after which they can pay 2000 yen to keep the full game (about $16.65).
Opinion: This really shows a different mindset in the future of cloud gaming. We have all been waiting for some company to create a cloud gaming platform everyone can use, but what if game developers just made cloud games on their own? Square Enix is showing us we don’t need a common entity to depend on.
No comments:
Post a Comment