Lunchtime Discussion: Cross Platform

Today is the day that Xbox 360 owners outside of Japan can get their hands on a Final Fantasy title for the first time. Whilst there have been other titles that have had the ‘which console’s version is better’ argument, the huge fan base of Square-Enix’s series of RPGs and the great respect that the series carries seems to have propelled this one further and longer before.

Maybe the argument over Final Fantasy XIII has gone on-and-on as the titles are pretty close to each other, maybe it’s because this is the first Final Fantasy for a Microsoft console. Personally I was willing to let Digital Foundry analyse the title and leave it at that. There’s no point taking peoples’ opinion on this, humans have notoriously bad judgement in these matters. On the other hand relying on a computer to do the analysis means that there’s no ‘judgement’ displayed, frame rate, screen tears, output resolution etc… can all be easily quantified by a machine.

The real question is why does this really matter which version is better or worse? You buy it for the console you have. If you have both, then I guess it may matter a little if there’s a major difference, but simply buying it for the lead platform seems the obvious choice. Beyond that why worry? In most cases developing for both consoles has little effect. Sure people will claim that due to DVD’s size limitation cross-platform games get shortened or in some vague way made worse, but I can’t think of many cases where that’s actually true.

In truth it’s just another case of fanboysim gone rabid. There’s no real purpose behind it than to stir up trouble. In certain individual cases, such as Bayonetta, one version may suffer but that seems to be due to issues with the game’s developer rather than any issue with a particular platform. What’s your opinion on the issue? Do people just mindlessly complain about cross-platform game quality? Are they slamming the version they aren’t going to buy just because it stirs up trouble?