14 DAY TRIAL // High Definitions graphics have quickly become one of the most important selling points for modern video games, but at least one legendary developer hailing from Japan believes that game structure and storytelling are more important than looks even on modern home consoles.
Speaking to Satoru Iwata, who is the leader of publisher and hardware developer Nintendo, Hironobu Sakaguchi, one of the main developers behind the early success of the Final Fantasy series, stated, “To be honest, I think that the HD images which have become mainstream in the TV industry are, for me personally, still rather over the top for the world of video games.
“There’s a tendency for developers to allow all their energy to be diverted into maintaining the high quality of the graphics.”
Speaking of The Last Story, the most recent video game he has worked on, the developer added, “I was really averse to allowing the quality of the graphics to drop just because we were working on Wii, which doesn’t have HD graphics. I do really think that, in the end, what we’ve created can hold its own against other hardware.”
Hironobu Sakaguchi was initially the director and then served as the producer of the Final Fantasy series up to the tenth title in the series and he is currently leading developer Mistwalker, mainly working on titles for the Nintendo Wii.
The Last Story has been available in Japan since early 2011, but the game will only arrive in Europe in late February and does not yet have a date for a United States launch.
Nintendo has announced that the upcoming Wii U home console, which should be out before Christmas this year on all major markets, will offer support for HD graphics and roughly the same hardware power as the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.