Debunking Reasons & Myths On Why Square Hasn't Ported the Past KH Games Off the PlayStation

[Scsigs 119]

I felt the need to put a thread here, since there's a TON of misinformation a lot of fans seem to think is fact, even though there's no actual proof for most of it.

 

Now, my proof for everything comes from 2 articles from IGN from E3 this year & D23 last year where they interviewed Tetsuya Nomura himself on the matter of porting the games to Xbox One & Switch. I will cite my sources at the end of this text wall.

 

Ok, now for the arguments & the counter-arguments.

 

1. "Xbox doesn't sell well in Japan."

True, but if they didn't see any use in porting it to the system, then they wouldn't be porting III to it.

 

2. "They've never ported games to the system."

This one confuses the hell outta me. Thanks to ITzDarthLordRaven for making me aware that this was even a think. Ok, first of all, Square has ported games to the Xbox before. The Final Fantasy series has had games on that system since FFXI, with the XIII series following & XV coming out just 2 years ago on it. There are also other games they've published to the system. They're also porting III to the system. They're well-versed in how to develop for the system.

 

3. "They don't pay attention to the KH community or anyone who want it on the Xbox."

This is insanity on the face of it for one reason. Square has been listening to fans for the last few years. If they didn't, they wouldn't have made Re:Coded's cutscene movie on 2.5 better than 358/2 with the storytelling, they wouldn't have ported 1.5 & 2.5 to PS4 & subsequently patched most of the problems the 60fps patch caused afterwards, & they wouldn't be listening to the KH YouTubers' thoughts on the initial demo to improve the game. They listen, give them some credit here.

 

4. "They're waiting to see how III does in terms of sales numbers."

This might be true, but there's a sizable number of people that are going to get the game on Xbox. Either people who're just trying the series for the first time, or are returning to the series after having played the original PS2 releases of the first 2 main games that now game on Xbox.

 

5. "It'd cost them a lot of money to do it."

No it wouldn't. The games are already upscaled to 1080p & are put at 60fps. All they have to do is have a small group of programmers change some lines of code & optimize it for the Xbox One, which would only cost them for their time to pay them. Porting the games have already paid off on the PS4 versions alone. Around 25 million copies of 1.5, 2.5, & 2.8 don't lie.

 

6. "PlayStation has an exclusivity contract."

No. No they don't. I've also read a person saying they heard Sony holds the distribution rights to the games. No they don't. The series is owned by DISNEY, one of Sony's direct competitors. Square is the main developer of the series. Since Disney isn't a video game/console company (yet), nor do they own any game companies (yet), this is their setup. Sony has only let them publish the games to their consoles. Nothing more, nothing less.

For reference, Nomura has explicitly stated that it's possible to bring them to the Xbox. They're just waiting for III to be done with development first, as well as talk to Microsoft. So, it's only a matter of time, coupled with the Final Fantasy ports coming to Xbox, Switch, PC, & PS4.

 

Sources: 

http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/07/16/kingdom-hearts-3-director-switch-version-maybe-possible-after-xbox-one-ps4-versions-are-released

http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06/13/e3-2018-kingdom-hearts-3-director-on-potential-for-dlc-15-25-collection-coming-to-xbox-one

 

If there are any other arguments, please let me know.

Edited October 8, 2018 by Scsigs

[Isaix 924]

I hope it's true,about the Sony exclusivity deal being fake,it'd be pretty stupid to limit such a great series to only one system,it never made sense to me

[Azure Flame 670]

Of course the Sony deal is fake, otherwise the original Chain of Memories wouldn't have been made for GBA, 358/2 Days and Re:Coded been made for the DS, and Dream Drop Distace been made for the 3DS, all of which are Nintendo handhelds.

[Scsigs 119]

I hope it's true, about the Sony exclusivity deal being fake, it'd be pretty stupid to limit such a great series to only one system, it never made sense to me

I mean, look at all of the facts that we can gather. PS2 was insanely popular back in 2002. Square had a good working relationship with Sony. The GameCube discs couldn't hold as much data. The Xbox was just in its infancy & not a lot of people heard about it. Chain of Memories came out on the GBA only a few years later.

It's more plausible that Square didn't have many options when it came to consoles to port the game to back then, so they just went with the one that made sense for them to publish it on. That was the same as any other 3rd party game studios back then. Nowadays, they have a lot of options to reach very different audiences with their games by publishing to the different consoles.

 

 

Of course the Sony deal is fake, otherwise the original Chain of Memories wouldn't have been made for GBA, 358/2 Days and Re:Coded been made for the DS, and Dream Drop Distace been made for the 3DS, all of which are Nintendo handhelds.

And you're right.

Edited October 8, 2018 by Scsigs

[x13Sora13x 16]

...

 

5. "It'd cost them a lot of money to do it."

No it wouldn't. The games are already upscaled to 1080p & are put at 60fps. All they have to do is have a small group of programmers change some lines of code & optimize it for the Xbox One, which would only cost them for their time to pay them. Porting the games have already paid off on the PS4 versions alone. Around 25 million copies of 1.5, 2.5, & 2.8 don't lie.

 

...

 

It's not that easy at all:

• They would need to change the buttonmapping and everything, that is connected to this (trust me, this can take a really long time) (pretty sure they would need to change even more),
• change every icon (which might be the easiest part, depending on how "intelligent" the coding was written),
• and then they would need to make adjustments specific for the console, compile everything, test it and, if something went worng, repeat this step.

This work can be done by a smaller group, yes, but it's not "just changing a few lines".

 

 

Also, I've read somewhere that the theme for KH1 (Simple and Clean) was put under a special contract, and that's why they did not made any ports in the past... though, I don't know if that's true and if (if yes) the contract is still active...

[Scsigs 119]

It's not that easy at all:

• They would need to change the button mapping and everything, that is connected to this (trust me, this can take a really long time) (pretty sure they would need to change even more),
• change every icon (which might be the easiest part, depending on how "intelligent" the coding was written),
• and then they would need to make adjustments specific for the console, compile everything, test it and, if something went wrong, repeat this step.

This work can be done by a smaller group, yes, but it's not "just changing a few lines".

 

 

Also, I've read somewhere that the theme for KH1 (Simple and Clean) was put under a special contract, and that's why they did not made any ports in the past... though, I don't know if that's true and if (if yes) the contract is still active...

I mean, I simplified the hell out of that, but I can't imagine it being that hard, considering how simplistic the games are designed. You laid out exactly what they have to do, which is what I was getting at. It, honestly, wouldn't take too much time or be that hard for the programmers, just replace the buttons, adjust the mapping for an Xbox One controller (which isn't much different from the dualshock 4, honestly) & optimizing the games for the console, which shouldn't be too hard.

 

For 'Simple & Clean', I don't think what you heard was true, considering that Sony doesn't even own that song. It especially doesn't make any sense, since I'm sure they used it in some of the side games, or at least that remix of it. EMI owns the song, which isn't even owned by Sony either. They, I'm sure, pay a licensing fee for it every time they use it, especially with Disney paying for at least part of the games to be developed.

 

Again, I put a few links up top quoting Nomura himself saying ports are possible.

Edited October 8, 2018 by Scsigs

[x13Sora13x 16]

I mean, I simplified the hell out of that, but I can't imagine it being that hard, considering how simplistic the games are designed. You laid out exactly what they have to do, which is what I was getting at. It, honestly, wouldn't take too much time or be that hard for the programmers, just replace the buttons, adjust the mapping for an Xbox One controller (which isn't much different from the dualshock 4, honestly) & optimizing the games for the console, which shouldn't be too hard.

 

For 'Simple & Clean', I don't think what you heard was true, considering that Sony doesn't even own that song. It especially doesn't make any sense, since I'm sure they used it in some of the side games, or at least that remix of it. EMI owns the song, which isn't even owned by Sony either. They, I'm sure, pay a licensing fee for it every time they use it, especially with Disney paying for at least part of the games to be developed.

 

Again, I put a few links up top quoting Nomura himself saying ports are possible.

 

Well, it depends on how well the game was programmed:

Every coding has it's dependencies, for example, the reactioncommand can have multiple functions and every one of them can be mapped to the triangle. If the code was written so that every function "calls" the mapped button, they need to rewrite every single function. But if they definded the button (for example "the_button_triangle = this_random_word/definition"), every function would call the definition and the programmer would only need to change the button.

(Don't take my example as serious - this wouldn't work in a coding. It's just to show what may be needed to recode.)

 

I was trying to find any clue but wasn't able to... It's a really long time ago so who knows if that what i remeber is even true ^^

[Scsigs 119]

Well, it depends on how well the game was programmed:

Every coding has it's dependencies, for example, the reaction command can have multiple functions and every one of them can be mapped to the triangle. If the code was written so that every function "calls" the mapped button, they need to rewrite every single function. But if they defined the button (for example "the_button_triangle = this_random_word/definition"), every function would call the definition and the programmer would only need to change the button.

(Don't take my example as serious - this wouldn't work in a coding. It's just to show what may be needed to recode.)

 

I was trying to find any clue but wasn't able to... It's a really long time ago so who knows if that what i remember is even true ^^

It could be that kind of process, but then again, the HD versions of the games could have more streamlined codes for future porting jobs. Porting from the PS2 to the PS3 then again to the PS4, especially with the fact that they basically had to remake KHI, couldn't have been easy considering the newer tech. Seeing as the games were clearly not optimized for 60fps at all before porting to the PS4, but they got patches out pretty quickly to fix most of the errors, I'm assuming the code isn't too overly complicated to edit for future patch jobs & ports. Considering the Xbox One & PS4 have a lot of the same architecture, I'm sure it won't be too hard for them to create new builds for it for other consoles. I mean, we're not talking Red Dead Redemption here, where the code is SO screwed up that they can't port it to PC or anything.

[Isaix 924]

I mean, look at all of the facts that we can gather. PS2 was insanely popular back in 2002. Square had a good working relationship with Sony. The GameCube discs couldn't hold as much data. The Xbox was just in its infancy & not a lot of people heard about it. Chain of Memories came out on the GBA only a few years later.

It's more plausible that Square didn't have many options when it came to consoles to port the game to back then, so they just went with the one that made sense for them to publish it on. That was the same as any other 3rd party game studios back then. Nowadays, they have a lot of options to reach very different audiences with their games by publishing to the different consoles.

 

 

 

And you're right.

That's fair I guess there is a lot of issues when trying to release a KH game on many platforms,but the 1.5 and 2.5 collections could have been release on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One,they are very popular consoles and Square Enix had release many games on Xbox at that point.Of course Xbox doesn't do well in japan,but still.The Wii U was pretty new when KH1.5 came out wasn't it? So why not have a little faith and release it there,Kingdom Hearts is a series that would do well on a Nintendo home console I'm sure.

[Scsigs 119]

That's fair I guess there is a lot of issues when trying to release a KH game on many platforms, but the 1.5 and 2.5 collections could have been release on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, they are very popular consoles and Square Enix had release many games on Xbox at that point.Of course Xbox doesn't do well in japan, but still. The Wii U was pretty new when KH1.5 came out wasn't it? So why not have a little faith and release it there, Kingdom Hearts is a series that would do well on a Nintendo home console I'm sure.

Yeah. These games could've come out on the 360 at the same time as the PS3. If KH3 were made 10 years ago, a port of it would've definitely come to the 360 as well, due to the popularity of it.  The only reason they didn't is because by the time the collections were coming out, that generation was nearing its end.

[seranoi 0]

On 10/8/2018 at 5:37 AM, Isaix said:

I hope it's true,about the Sony exclusivity deal being fake,it'd be pretty stupid to limit such a great series to only one system,it never made sense to me  Adam4adam TutuApp AppValley

Of course the Sony deal is fake, otherwise the original Chain of Memories wouldn't have been made for GBA, 358/2 Days and Re:Coded been made for the DS, and Dream Drop Distace been made for the 3DS, all of which are Nintendo handhelds.

•  

Edited February 28, 2019 by seranoi

[ienzo628 548]

8 hours ago, seranoi said:

Of course the Sony deal is fake, otherwise the original Chain of Memories wouldn't have been made for GBA, 358/2 Days and Re:Coded been made for the DS, and Dream Drop Distace been made for the 3DS, all of which are Nintendo handhelds.

•  

And UX/Chi/X would have never been released on the cell phone.

[Scsigs 119]

22 hours ago, seranoi said:

Of course the Sony deal is fake, otherwise the original Chain of Memories wouldn't have been made for GBA, 358/2 Days and Re:Coded been made for the DS, and Dream Drop Distance been made for the 3DS, all of which are Nintendo handhelds.

•  

 

13 hours ago, ienzo628 said:

And UX/Chi/X would have never been released on the cell phone.

It really is just bullshit Sony fanboy hearsay to bolster their opinion that PlayStation is the home of KH & that Xbox doesn't deserve the series. I mean, there have been recent rumors from industry people that the Story So Far (or at least 1.5+2.5) are gonna be ported tot he Switch & if they're gonna do that for a console that's most likely not gonna get KHIII short of an enhanced variation of it coming out that can support higher-end games, then they're most likely gonna get the games out on Xbox as well, since that wouldn't make sense to port & release the games on a new console family to the franchise that actually GOT KHIII. Plus, a LOT of people on Xbox would love to play the rest of KH. Hell, if it got ports of 1.5+2.5 & 2.8 when the PS4 did, I would've gotten them just for that system rather than PS4. But, I'll wait for them to play catch-up.

[ienzo628 548]

8 hours ago, Scsigs said:

 

It really is just bullshit Sony fanboy hearsay to bolster their opinion that PlayStation is the home of KH & that Xbox doesn't deserve the series. I mean, there have been recent rumors from industry people that the Story So Far (or at least 1.5+2.5) are gonna be ported tot he Switch & if they're gonna do that for a console that's most likely not gonna get KHIII short of an enhanced variation of it coming out that can support higher-end games, then they're most likely gonna get the games out on Xbox as well, since that wouldn't make sense to port & release the games on a new console family to the franchise that actually GOT KHIII. Plus, a LOT of people on Xbox would love to play the rest of KH. Hell, if it got ports of 1.5+2.5 & 2.8 when the PS4 did, I would've gotten them just for that system rather than PS4. But, I'll wait for them to play catch-up.

The hearsay about it being only for Sony does have some merit since KH1, KH2, KH 1.5, KH2 2.5 and KH 2.8 were mostly on the PlayStation consoles. 

[Scsigs 119]

1 hour ago, ienzo628 said:

The hearsay about it being only for Sony does have some merit since KH1, KH2, KH 1.5, KH2 2.5 and KH 2.8 were mostly on the PlayStation consoles. 

Yes, but that doesn't mean that the series will stay on PlayStation only, since it added in other consoles the very next game being on the GBA.

[ienzo628 548]

1 hour ago, Scsigs said:

Yes, but that doesn't mean that the series will stay on PlayStation only, since it added in other consoles the very next game being on the GBA.

Yup, between KH1 and KH2.

[Goyan-Tanuki 38]

Plus on the PS4 boxes of 1.5+2.5 and 2.8 even The Story so far don't have the Only on PlayStation mark. So it seems like its been planned to not be exclusive.

[Scsigs 119]

1 hour ago, Goyan-Tanuki said:

Plus on the PS4 boxes of 1.5+2.5 and 2.8 even The Story so far don't have the Only on PlayStation mark. So it seems like it's been planned to not be exclusive.

In Europe, Sony put that moniker on them. I know because some dude who was named Scissors on YouTube literally tried to convince me & several other people that there was no chance of ports because of that. Talked with a few of my friends & we came to the conclusion that it's most likely Sony's form of advertising. On top of that, the Final Fantasy X/X2 HD remaster ALSO had that branding that said that & NOW the games are coming to PC, Switch, & Xbox next month, so that doesn't mean DICK, since Square can change their minds at any time with if they're still exclusives or not.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Scsigs