Say Wha!?!?!? Kitase in an XIII interview mentions Chrono Trigger DS success

[ZealKnight]

http://www.onelastcontinue.com/10398/gamescom-2009-final-fantasy-xiii-demonstration-and-interview/

I know it's small and at the end, but he has much power in SE. Plus Crystal Tools sound like it would be easy to make more games with.

EDIT:

I just posted this but I guess I'll put it on the first page also.
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/29/square-enix-looking-to-develop-more-best-selling-ips/

[ZaichikArky]

Funny, how other dude at SE said that CTDS was not a success at all. I don't even remember who said that. Was it Kitase?

[Truthordeal]

...however the success of the DS release of Chrono Trigger came as something of a shock and therefore it can be surmised that they could very well be considering making another entry in the series.  Nothing was implied of course with regards to a sequel but money talks doesn’t it?

Quoted the relevant portion.

Whoohoo! More hope! Keep up with the letters and whatever else you guys are doing to promote a third installation.

[ONSLAUGHT]

That's good to hear! Nice pickup on the article ZealKnight! They may be starting to get a picture. True, it's very very very small at the moment but they get the idea at least, the SE fans want Chrono!

[FaustWolf]

Nice find ZealKnight! Let's hope Kitase gets a promotion to whatever position in Square Enix decides which games get made.

[x_XTacTX_x]

'BOUT TIME.

[ZealKnight]

Nice find ZealKnight!

Nice pickup on the article ZealKnight!

ZealKnight is a genius!

He kinda is in that position. He worked on Chrono Trigger and He produced FFVII VIII X and now XIII. The only thing is that they need Kato. But Kato is a freelancer now. I'd be iffy for them to do that.

[Truthordeal]

No more iffy than getting Mitsuda to do the scores for Xenogears.

[V_Translanka]

Yeah, idk why people think freelancing is going to change anything but their salaries (though of course that could go into their thinking for whether to continue the series). Kato has, since becoming freelance, worked with SE anyway though so meh...

[ZealKnight]

But not in the same position. It affects their salaries and we all know how much Wada likes money. *Points to the FFVII compilation*

[mav]

This is good news anyway: the more things you have working in your favor, the better. So if more people are agreeing that there's money in the series, that can only help. If they ever decide to make a sequel it might not be too much of a challenge to get the pieces to fall into place.

[V_Translanka]

But not in the same position. It affects their salaries and we all know how much Wada likes money. *Points to the FFVII compilation*

Takes money to make money.

[The Black Wind]

Square has gone out of their way to shut down two fan-made projects revolving around Chrono Trigger, and for whatever reason they've yet to get the point that the Chrono series could be extremely profitable.  

Even if CTDS sold poorly, there would be a legitimate reason for it. The game has been released twice already, and just look at their other games on the DS  (i.e. The World Ends With You, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Final Fantasy IV). Look at how much effort was put into those games as opposed to CTDS, which was just another port of a 16-bit game with a few more extras. How many copies did they expect to sell?

I hope someone at Square watches the videos of Crimson Echoes on Youtube and realizes, "Holy crap, these guys were so dedicated to our series that they managed to tell a story better than most games we've made in the past ten years. Maybe we should make a game like this. King Zeal is the FUCKING SHIT."

[FaustWolf]

King Zeal is the FUCKING SHIT.

Yes he is.

Yes he is.

[Enigma Outlaw]

Not to be an ass or a downer but it sounds more like trying to cover their asses following the bullshit that they pulled with CE. First they kill that project. I don't want to get the right/wrong aspect of that debate going again but I will say that I still find it hard to believe that they had no clue about the project until mere days before it was suppose to come out. In any case you have them claiming poor sales on the DS version. Let's figure that about 5% of the game was the new script, the PS1 anime cutscenes, the new content, the DS features, ect. Either way they seem to have forgot that about 95% of it was a pure port of a game already released not once but TWICE! Frankly not enough people wanted to buy something that many already had two copies of despite the 5% that was new. Personally I wouldn't fault people for that.

Anyway someone at SE seems perplexed about questions in regards to the Chrono Series (can anyone find that interview somewhere?). Then they had the backlash from the fans for not only killing CE but trying to claim it was a dead series in another interview. Needless to say I think following the claims that CT DS was a poor seller and the fact that CE got killed some damage control was in order. The whole incident seemed to put SE in a very bad light. Don't forget that the story made top news on several big gaming websites. In any case this whole "surprising success" story seems to be Square's attempt to keep the fanbase at bay following the fallout created by the Crimson Echoes incident.

Do I hope to see a third official Chrono game come out in the future that answers some long standing questions? All the time. Do I expect to see it in the next 5 years much less ever? To be honest I wouldn't hold my breath. If it ever gets done at all I think it's going to be a fan effort thing that finally gets Square Enix off their asses. Don't forget the whole ordeal over the TV show Jericho on CBS about two years ago. Granted in the end they still got fucked by the network but I think a well run fan effort along the lines of what those fans did will get noticed much more than anything else we could possibly do.