Square Enix hints at mobile plans for Final Fantasy

By Steve Palley, GameSpotPosted Oct 28, 2004 12:36 pm PT

The company discusses the likely timeline for mobile products from Japan surfacing in North America.

Yesterday at the CTIA trade show, a high-ranking member of Square Enix's North American team commented on the company's blueprint for rolling out mobile products--specifically, Final Fantasy XI and Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII--in the United States.

Chris Ruff, vice president of marketing and product management at UIEvolution, a technology company recently acquired by Square Enix, told GameSpot that Square Enix acquired his software platform company earlier this year to facilitate its move toward the production of "polymorphic content"--the term Square Enix has coined to describe the process by which game properties and content are promulgated across a variety of media and terminals, including mobile phones and movies.

Ruff added that UIEvolution's scripting tools run on the PC, PlayStation 2, and mobile phones, and are therefore capable of easing network and community interoperability issues between these platforms. When asked whether networked games like Final Fantasy XI could be made to work on mobile devices in some limited capacity, he would not provide any specifics, but said that such a move "would follow the expected progression, and make a lot of sense for Square Enix."

Ruff confirmed that Square Enix was indeed considering North American releases of its mobile Final Fantasy products. "We'll bring Final Fantasy and Before Crisis here when the technology is ready," he said, adding that the present time frame was nine months to a year.

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