FFXI @ TGS 2015 - Farewell Video

Any idea what it's saying?

The parts at the bottom in Japanese are the song lyrics.
The end is just saying that the games celebrating it's 14th anniversary?
Eitherway this is being shown at Tokyo Game show. We'll find out more.

Also the song is the song for RoV Finale.

Where do you get "Farewell" from?

Yeah they're not song lyrics

"For you -- we made the songs"
"For you -- we made the stories"
"For you -- we made the people"
"For you -- we crafted the world"

something along those lines
(more literally "they exist for you")

Oh here is the translated ver:

Because FFXI hasn't been at TGS since 2007 and won't be again in it's current form.

English video was great.

Why does that list go up to 31? Seems a weird number to end on.

Actually, 14 has already made them enormous amounts of profit and is continuing to do so. An article that I read awhile back that explains a little from 2013's profits:

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/02/05/square-enix-financials-cast-final-fantasy-14-as-saviour

More recently (2014) their financial report at the start of the year (2015, covering 2014) indicated a near $200m profit from XIV. That's before the millions of Heavensward sales as well. A million sales at standard price ($30 in USA, nearly double that in UK at $55) is $30m, and lots and lots of people bought various levels of collector's editions, with prices varying between $50 and $100 (£60 and £130 in the UK.) They've sold plenty more than a million copies, as they have well over a million active accounts.

That's already a large source of income and that's before we factor in their cash shop, which is making them a lot of money as well.

So, considering they had already turned $200m profit from XIV before the expansion, combine that with the expansion sales as well as the dramatic increase in subscriptions since the expansion launch... Well, you're clearly misinformed, or you can't see past the innate anti-XIV feeling that's so prominent on XI themed boards.

All opinions aside, XIV is making SE enormous money and at this current rate will out gross XI in the same period of years by nearly $1.3b.

This is a smart business move by SE. Any organization can only focus on so many products/services at one time, so it doesn't make sense to keep one alive purely because it has done well in the past. Especially in the gaming industry, where things are moving so fast (remember, this game is two generations old in console time), SE needs to develop new ideas to keep up with the market.

Consumer behaviors are changing very quickly, and this doesn't exclude gamers. We are expecting more for less, instant gratification and new ideas from our games. SE needs to focus on that.

Anyone who thinks SE is making a mistake isn't thinking through the business strategy associated with moving on. I've been playing since 2002 (with a short break in 2008), so I don't really want to see it go. But, it's time.

The above information is incomplete and very misinformed as well. You can't calculate how much money they made that way because FFXIV operates differently from FFXI.

According to one of the article mentioned FFXIV sub numbers, when they mention their current registered users, they used the term "globally". That means it includes Chinese and South Korea users. Since China and South Korea has the biggest MMORPG market in the world, FFXIV SHOULD have more active users than FFXI. You know, you can't even play FFXI in China and Korea.

Additionally, FFXIV has a different publisher in China and South Korea, so it's not like SE makes money directly off Chinese/Korean users, Asian publisher does.

The payment model in China is also very different from the US. In China there's the option to pay for hours instead of months. So say if you only play this game for 2hr this month, then you only need to pay 2hr and this account still counts as an active member. In the US players are quite unlikely to pay $12 a month if they know they're only going to play for 2hr this month. Therefore the active users from China and South Korea tend to be higher....that's how WOW got 12 million sub, most of them came from Chinese hourly users. But having millions of active users in China that only pay for a couple of hours a month doesn't mean SE makes more money.

In short, I find it extremely ridiculous to see people compare the business model of FFXI with FFXIV everyday, and jump into conclusions based on very little info from SE. Both games are not even comparable. One simple fact of MMO market is that the active users doesn't go up after launch, it only goes down. Unless the business model changed someway drastically, such as subscription based to F2P, or China/South Korea or console version launch. Thus mentioning "dramatic increase in subscriptions since the expansion launch" without providing the reason behind it is misleading.

If it wasn't a coding nightmare, they would port it to iOS/android and keep it updated for years to come since mobile gaming in Japan is huge compared to the west and current Japanese playerbase playing on PS2 would continue playing on their mobile devices after the support for PS2 is dropped and that would probably be more than enough for them for quite some time. Instead, they chose to let some other company remake it with small budget and man power for iOS/android. I understand that it is not feasible at all to pump money and man power into such a massive but 13 years old project. I just hope they don't fail this opportunity to keep the title alive and am looking forward to try it out (unless they force ridiculous fees on us).

I'm not comparing the two, merely correcting Katsuras's earlier statement that XIV had no chance of earning SE as much money as XI. You've quoted me and said I'm wrong, but if anything you've furthered my premise by pointing out that XIV has subscribers in China and Korea where XI has had none. I can't back this up with any evidence but it stands to reason SE wouldn't simply allow another company to profit from their game so I'm sure they came to a lucrative and mutually rewarding deal.

Anyway, I have no intention of hijacking this thread any further.

I'm still mind boggled at how many people think XI is being shutdown. I guess if their efforts to get people to XIV by mentioning something they never mentioned was their goal, they definitely succeeded. So many people who keep claiming something that has never been said and have heard many mention trying out XIV when XI is shutdown.

It's not so much that it's literally being shutdown, but that it'll feel that way for many people. Because as major updates stop rolling in the content will start running stale, at a different speed depending on the pace people play, but the game is likely going to see the population plummet drastically in 2016.

Also talking about 14 sub it is a lot lower than most people think there were number given by SE about how many people cleared the first tier for alex normal (almost everyone at lvl 60 has done it) and it was a lil over 200k character count alt and stuff and the population is a lot lower than most people claim it to be.

14 Pop has always been significantly lower than the die hard fans want to admit. They also think claiming 4 million characters = 4 million current subs.

Already plummeted drastically on most servers. SE should consolidate all those servers into 1 or 2, low population can potentially make people quit because the lack of social interaction and online play/ other things.

By the 2015 census there was still only 10% of the active subscription base that had cleared Turn 5 of Coil. That was available from September 2013 and wasn't difficult content. Let's also remember that new players need to work their way through all of 2.0's story and dungeons before unlocking access to 3.0.

I'm not suggesting their statistics are absolute, but 2 million active characters is quite a lot, especially in a game that has minimal use for mules. People don't make mules in 14, they make alts, and the nature of the game makes dual boxing a lot more impractical so not many people have them. Take that into consideration when pooh poohing that statistic - it's more relative to active subscribers on XIV than it would've been on XI.

And before we get into a "Stop blindly defending XIV" argument, I'm currently playing - and enjoying - XI because I found XIV to be very boring. Nothing wrong with being objective!

I think it's a way to keep the IP and substantial assets created for it generating money. Practically speaking, XI would require massive retooling to work in the mobile space. Not that modern iOS/Android devices couldn't handle the game as it is now. More that, as-is, XI would not work as a mobile game outside of a very niche audience. It's not structured in the kind of instant-action way that mobile games tend to be, and would likely not do well in that market as a result.

Does seem like SE values Vana'diel though, or they wouldn't be reusing it for the mobile version. Thing too is, building it from the ground up to make other players more optional (as I imagine they might) could also result in something they could spin off into an offline game as well. Eventually.

I certainly don't think XIV has as many subs as people tend to say, and "massive profit" is a huge exaggeration as you also have to consider their massive loss when it first launched. I roll my eyes every time I see these articles stating FFXIV's 4 million users or whatever, they have no idea that has nothing to do with current subs. I wonder how many of those articles that praise FFXIV even played past lvl 10 or something, reminds me of when that xgames used to review FFXI lol.


The thought pops into my head almost every other day, this company is so stupid with a lot of decisions they make. I would believe them about how they claim they paved a path by being one of the first successful MMO's into console and now they wanna do it again on mobiles, only if they weren't outsourcing? I don't see how they are going to outsource the project and claim that when it was a completely different team that made FFXI what it was. I just don't see how a mobile game can be comparable to what FFXI is and was, at least for me. I don't play those games seriously but maybe the JP are different in their tastes.

Well, if you don't think $210m is "massive profit", you must be one rich mofo!

As for XI mobile, playing it on my tablet using a screen sharing app is pretty cool, though obviously not the same thing. I can craft and run around okay but can't do much else. Hopefully if they do port to handheld they won't screw it up.

There is nothing wrong with blindly defending XIV, especially if you are having fun in the game. I honestly enjoyed all my time in XIV, but there is something wrong with blindly claiming false numbers, for example, the claim the game is close to being higher than WoWs subs, which you aren't, but a lot of the die hard XIV fans will claim.

Because they're stupid and don't realize that 5 million accounts isn't the same as 5 million active subscribers

14 doing well and having more resources isn't why 11 is failing to retain subscribers, it has been losing subscribers for years now and it's just natural that all online games end at some point

It's just an old game by now and a lot of people have moved on, 14 will suffer the same fate eventually. It sucks but that's how it is with all games.

Even when it was new it wasn't for everyone so it's not surprising at all

Not exactly true considering WoW has over 5m subs still? I mean it started out strong compared to a niche game like FFXI but you could also argue that FFXIV started out very poorly with very low subs and with a revamp they got a lot more attention/subs. I wouldn't doubt that FFXI could pull a lot of people back in with a revamp in various areas and that is what they will try to do with mobile. I think its a mistake on their part to only do mobile and not PC though, as far as the revamp.

Turn 5 is harder than Alex 1 Normal, and 200k not 2m.

I'm holding out that this Vanadiel project ends up with a huge surprise of at the end of rhapsody it shows a trailer for FFXI-2 >_>

Harder in difficulty? Yes. Harder to access? No. If you just bought the game, including the expansion, you have a lot of content to work through before accessing the new stuff. As for subscribers, SE seem to think they have more characters than you think they do. They're wrong and you're right, though, I'm sure. =)