Square Enix to charge for FFXIII demo?

By Robert Purchese Published 2 September, 2008

European arm declining to comment.

Square Enix has refused to comment on rumours that a solus Final Fantasy XIII demo may be sold separately to the public.

It was thought the plan was to bundle the sampler with the Blu-ray release of Advent Children: Complete next March in Japan.

But key designer Tetsuya Nomura hinted in an interview with Dengeki PlayStation magazine (translated by FinalFantasy-XIII.net) that a separate version may be offered for a price at a later date. Which sounds rather cheeky, even if the demo is 90 minutes long.

Exact costs, timings, or news on whether an Xbox 360 demo will feature are all questions still to be revealed.

However, we did recently find out that Final Fantasy XIII will definitely not be sold on Xbox 360 across Japan, which shocked absolutely no one.

Head over to our Final Fantasy XIII gamepage to find out more.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Widge #1 4 years ago

    you know that people would pay for it.

    I paid for my Metal Gear Solid 2 demo, although I got the rather lightweight Zone Of The Enders bundled with it. Or was it the other way round?

    In bonus news, rumours that FFXIII Versus is rumoured to be quite a traditional jRPG, dungeons, summonings, travel across the world etc will there be ATB? Versus elevated to "big interest" on my radar now. Kinda makes you wonder what FFXIII will be.
    Edited by Widge at 02/09/08 @ 11:29

  • miiiguel #2 4 years ago

    What's the problem? Just call it Prologue.

  • RandyKleen #3 4 years ago

    The day I pay for a demo will be the day Satan skis to work.

  • Triggerhappytel #4 4 years ago

    @Randy - never bought an issue of OPSM2 back in the day because there was a good game on the demo?

    I know I did. In ways better value than a rental and cheaper & easier than buying a game blind.

  • mcbi4kh2 #5 4 years ago

    What's the problem? Just call it Prologue.

    If the game has as much content as Prologue I will happily pay £20.

  • agparrot #6 4 years ago

    A step in the wrong direction, imo.

  • Steroyd #7 4 years ago

    What's the problem? Just call it Prologue.

    Will they be updating FFXIII constantly to?

    Square Enix can shove it, i'm still annoyed that they're going to do a staggered released, they're not Nipon Ichi ffs they're supposed to be as big as freaking Konami and Capcom, both of whom can do simultaneous multi-region releases.

  • MrXBob #8 4 years ago

    Ooooh NOW Sony's "Business Model" is starting to make sense... delay huge games for years and then charge for demo versions with still no actual release date on the horizon!

    I could say 'this is living' but it's so overused ;)

  • MrXBob #9 4 years ago

    @Triggerhappytel

    In the days of Xbox Live and PSN, nobody should ever have to pay for demos. Nobody ever had to pay for PC demos, even way back when - if there was a demo in a magazine it was usually a month later and had alreayd been downloaded for free anyway.

  • DFawkes #10 4 years ago

    I'll pay for it if it's on a nice Blu-ray disc at a reasonable price. I like having physical discs, which is why I bought prologue. Yes, I am an idiot for it, but I'm okay with that :)

    But it should be optional, a disc and short manual for mugs like me, a download for everyone else.
    Edited by DFawkes at 02/09/08 @ 11:53

  • mcbi4kh2 #11 4 years ago

    @MrXBob
    Did you even read the title?

    "Square Enix To Charge For Demo"

    Square Enix != Sony.

  • KungFuSpoon #12 4 years ago

    So to find out if your product is worth paying for I have to pay....................or I could just not buy either.

  • Triggerhappytel #13 4 years ago

    Yeah, I agree with your point, MrXBob. The sad thing is that this would still sell a million or two.

    Also, I love the way this is clearly Sony's fault.

  • Steroyd #14 4 years ago

    Ooooh NOW Sony's "Business Model" is starting to make sense... delay huge games for years and then charge for demo versions with still no actual release date on the horizon!

    Yes it all makes sense now, Sony charging for their Final fantasy ga-- ...hey wait a minute!?

  • crazyhorse174 #15 4 years ago

    Would you really want to play a demo of it anyway, unless it was a chunk of story that doesnt happen in the full game?

    Isn't finding out more about the story half the fun of playing an RPG??

  • Widge #16 4 years ago

    quite, FF is always about the journey of discovery...

  • Brogan #17 4 years ago

    think they misunderstood me massively when i said they couldn't pay me to play another FF

  • menage #18 4 years ago

    @crazyhorse

    Indeed sir. JRPG's make horrible demo's. No stat building, micromanagement, story evolution or characterbuilding = fail.
    Edited by menage at 02/09/08 @ 12:24

  • Machetazo #19 4 years ago

    Chances are that foreigners who would have imported AC: Complete to play the demo, wouldn't have been able to run the movie on their Blu Ray player, anyway. The only value to their purchase would have been the game (demo) disc. It's a seperate sku that they're creating, and so it's charged separately. Maybe some people literally DON'T WANT to see Advent Children again (extra content be damned), and just want the demo. Plus, it's also a way of keeping second-hand circulation of the "finished" film to a minimum; so they think they make more new movie sales, while still satisfying those who just want the playable demo.

  • ligurmatic #20 4 years ago

    There is no justification for releasing a demo that isn't a free download.

  • Stepharneo #21 4 years ago

    i call mistranslated shinanigans

  • onyxbox #22 4 years ago

    but 90 minutes of HD quality FMV with 7.1 surround sound is bigger than the 360 hard drive capacity... how are they going to do that?

    ;-)

  • dopeonthetable #23 4 years ago

    "There is no justification for releasing a demo that isn't a free download"

    I think there quite plainly is. When you play a demo, whether it's free or not, you're experiencing the product of someone else's labour. People are so accustomed to paying nothing for a demo that they devalue what they're getting: entertainment value for free. This is actually very generous of developers and a risk on their behalf. For example, I was interested in Dark Sector's game mechanics, and after playing the demo I felt that I had had as much fun I was going to get out of it and I didn't need to purchase. Dark Sector's developers therefore made a loss off their labour- I enjoyed their product but they received nothing for it. What price would I pay for the time I spent with the game? I'm not sure, somewhere between 50p and a pound I guess; it kept me entertained for fourty five minutes so that would be pretty good value, better than whatever happens to the 50ps and pounds that just seem to disappear from my wallet. Anyway, there is a blatant justification- someone laboured on an object, you used that object, they should get some money for it,

    The situation becomes more complicated when you consider how demos are also advertisements. When we are exposed to adverts, we are selling our attention to the marketer; they are buying our awareness of their product. In this sense, a demo should be free because we have in effect already 'payed' for it with our awareness of the product as consumers.

    Basically, I think we need to be a bit more humble about the situation. We shouldn't assume that paying for a demo is necessarily inappropriate or beneath us since it would be unfair to moan about paying to enjoy someone else's labour. On the other hand, the pricing of a payed-for demo needs to be carefully considered because the developer is already getting some value out of us by forcing us to consider buying their product.

  • RazorObsession #24 4 years ago

    @Dopeonthetable

    I can see your point and understand where you are coming from, but in the same sense, no-one empathizes with the act of rape from the poor old lonely rapists perspective - poor old ugly soul, couldn't get a chick, yearned for love, so often unrequited - which would be Square Enix in this particular scenario.

  • des #25 4 years ago

    Sony has to approve everything concerning PS3,the only question is can they say NO to Square-Enix?
    Besides people would buy shoddy FF movie just to play demo,this way they can get it cheaper...

  • Luvbeers #26 4 years ago

    I have a feeling FFXXXXIIIII is going to be rubbish (at least the gameplay itself) so they better release a demo that I can try first.

  • hiddenranbir #27 4 years ago

    lol

    Dumb

  • dopeonthetable #28 4 years ago

    RazorObsession: I'm not sure how your analogy refutes what I've said. Your argument seems to run:

    1) No one empathises with rapists
    2) SE are rapists "in this scenario"
    = No one empathises with SE in this scenario.

    How do you make the leap from rapists to SE? A rape is when someone has sexual intercourse with someone without their consent. I don't see how this relates to SE's postion on charging a fee for the demo. Are they 'raping' the consumer, taking without giving? No, they want to take money in exchange for their product. Are they doing this against the consumer's will, taking money directly from their bank account and uploading the demo to their console without permission the consumer's permission? Again, no; however they decide to distribute the demo, I think the consumer will accept or decline the offer as they see fit.

    To make my position clearer, I think the demo should be treated like any other commodity in that people should decide whether or not to buy it depending on how much it costs and how much they are likely to enjoy it. If you won't enjoy it as much as another similarly-priced commodity, then you should buy it. If the price is extortionate, SE should be criticised, but until we know how good the demo is, how long it will last and how much it costs it is senseless to be offended by the idea of someone charging for a product.

  • Widge #29 4 years ago

    KOTOR was awful, the further away any FF game is from that the better. The combat engine sucked, the dialogue sucked (freedom of choice is no good if 4 out of the 5 reponses given to your character make you visible cringe), nowhere near as cinematic as a FF game, nowhere near as involving. The one and only redeeming factor was the fact you got to wander about with a lightsaber. Thought Morrowind was better.

    Can't comment on Mass Effect... I've only played one combat situation so far, the rest of the time I've been bumbling around from person to person in the citadel, and now some cold planet. It does, so far, appear to be KOTOR but much more polished (better script, but can't comment on actual gameplay), but the citadel was a touch much and that is coming from someone happy to sit through MGS4 cutscenes with glee. So new coat of paint perhaps? As with the transition from Morrowind to Oblivion?

    At least Square do try to do something new every time around when it comes to the combat engine, and with this game they are abandoning their usual "main character" for a story that focusses on a variety of characters.

  • Xerx3s #30 4 years ago

    Well, people paid for the GT5 demo so why not for this? Seems to be the thing of the day...

  • michaelius #31 4 years ago

    Now before everyone goes screaming "OMG Sony is charging for demos" do they actualy say it will be only ps3 format demo that is sold for cash on discs ? :)