kasparov77
Bob-omb
- Pronouns
- he/him
Final fantasy 14 is a game that I much enjoyed my time with while playing on pc. It's one of the very few MMOs that managed to grab my attention due to a multitude of factors (world building, the plot, the music and sfx, the art-style and gameplay - well, at least the post-msq and the good parts of a realm reborn).
As someone who doesn't own a Playstation 4/5 (nor do I have the interest), and also no steam deck or deck-like devices, I felt kinda left out considering I couldn't have a comfy console optimized experience (and a portable one at that) while playing the game. I started thinking about the possibility of ever seeing the game on a Nintendo platform. Given that well, the switch doesn't really have much to offer in terms of MMORPGS (I know the nerd in some of you is itching to say "MORPGS! NOT MMO!!" but you get my point).
So I looked into it and now that the game's coming to XBOX, it seems that whatever exclusivity deal square could've had with sony is no longer a thing. And looking a bit further, I noticed that back in around ~2017-2019 there were rumors and headlines on gaming news websites reporting that square was apparently considering on bringing the game to switch.
But well, as we all know, it's already 2024 and there's no signs of that ever happening. So I started wondering: would it even possible for square to accomplish said port on the current switch or is this only something we can only hope for switch 2?
So, taking a look into the PC version, the minimum requirements mentions 4GB of RAM (and considering how much windows usually takes from this, memory seems to be a non-issue so far considering the switch has about ~3GB of free memory for games). The memory situation only gets a bit less optimistic considering how much memory on the PS4 is available for games. In terms of CPU and GPU requirements, this is where things get complicated. I tried making a shallow comparison between a hacked switch's geekbench scores (a popular multi-platform benchmark tool) and the least powerful PC I have at my disposal (an i3 3210) which conveniently, has a ffxiv showcase video on youtube.
CPU-wise, I think the switch could struggle due to factors like cache and IPC. But honestly, considering how the game was initially on the PS3 (which is mind you, a weaker console) and things like, how the PS4's CPU scores compare in terms of single-core, I still think it could be possible. Graphics-wise, I think it's only a matter of reducing the resolution, lighting and texture quality. Good thing is, the game already supports dynamic resolution.
But in the end, we reach the actual obstacle: storage. The PC version's minimum requirements are about 80GB. Which is simply put way too much, even for the switch oled. Of course, we have seen instances of games on switch that had pc counterparts well above the 50+GB being reduced to about 20GB more or less. But as a constantly-updating game with an ever-increasing scope like FFXIV (which is not really the case for say, fortnite - a game with a set-size map that changes from season to season), it's certainly a hard task for developers.
I personally had the game take about ~65GB of storage back when I still played it. But I didn't play expansions, so through a quick lookup, it seems that the game uses about a bit over 60GB with all expansions and 50GB only if you have the free trial. That's way too much even if nintendo somehow managed to convince square to split the game up into a ~32GB cartridge + a mandatory download for expansions.
But let's assume they managed to fit the base game into well a bit over 25GB (so older switch players can still join). How do we progress from here? the game's planned to get multiple graphical patches over time and while the team has made it clear they'll provide options for low-spec players to fallback to less demanding graphics, I still feel like it's a matter of time until say, ps4 support is dropped (assuming they want to keep the game for around half a decade more or so with demanding updates).
That said, a switch 2 version is a complete different story. I feel like even being very pessimistic about it's specs (8GB of RAM, 64GB storage), a port could be more feasible than maintaining ffxiv on the original ps4.
As someone who doesn't own a Playstation 4/5 (nor do I have the interest), and also no steam deck or deck-like devices, I felt kinda left out considering I couldn't have a comfy console optimized experience (and a portable one at that) while playing the game. I started thinking about the possibility of ever seeing the game on a Nintendo platform. Given that well, the switch doesn't really have much to offer in terms of MMORPGS (I know the nerd in some of you is itching to say "MORPGS! NOT MMO!!" but you get my point).
So I looked into it and now that the game's coming to XBOX, it seems that whatever exclusivity deal square could've had with sony is no longer a thing. And looking a bit further, I noticed that back in around ~2017-2019 there were rumors and headlines on gaming news websites reporting that square was apparently considering on bringing the game to switch.
But well, as we all know, it's already 2024 and there's no signs of that ever happening. So I started wondering: would it even possible for square to accomplish said port on the current switch or is this only something we can only hope for switch 2?
So, taking a look into the PC version, the minimum requirements mentions 4GB of RAM (and considering how much windows usually takes from this, memory seems to be a non-issue so far considering the switch has about ~3GB of free memory for games). The memory situation only gets a bit less optimistic considering how much memory on the PS4 is available for games. In terms of CPU and GPU requirements, this is where things get complicated. I tried making a shallow comparison between a hacked switch's geekbench scores (a popular multi-platform benchmark tool) and the least powerful PC I have at my disposal (an i3 3210) which conveniently, has a ffxiv showcase video on youtube.
CPU-wise, I think the switch could struggle due to factors like cache and IPC. But honestly, considering how the game was initially on the PS3 (which is mind you, a weaker console) and things like, how the PS4's CPU scores compare in terms of single-core, I still think it could be possible. Graphics-wise, I think it's only a matter of reducing the resolution, lighting and texture quality. Good thing is, the game already supports dynamic resolution.
But in the end, we reach the actual obstacle: storage. The PC version's minimum requirements are about 80GB. Which is simply put way too much, even for the switch oled. Of course, we have seen instances of games on switch that had pc counterparts well above the 50+GB being reduced to about 20GB more or less. But as a constantly-updating game with an ever-increasing scope like FFXIV (which is not really the case for say, fortnite - a game with a set-size map that changes from season to season), it's certainly a hard task for developers.
I personally had the game take about ~65GB of storage back when I still played it. But I didn't play expansions, so through a quick lookup, it seems that the game uses about a bit over 60GB with all expansions and 50GB only if you have the free trial. That's way too much even if nintendo somehow managed to convince square to split the game up into a ~32GB cartridge + a mandatory download for expansions.
But let's assume they managed to fit the base game into well a bit over 25GB (so older switch players can still join). How do we progress from here? the game's planned to get multiple graphical patches over time and while the team has made it clear they'll provide options for low-spec players to fallback to less demanding graphics, I still feel like it's a matter of time until say, ps4 support is dropped (assuming they want to keep the game for around half a decade more or so with demanding updates).
That said, a switch 2 version is a complete different story. I feel like even being very pessimistic about it's specs (8GB of RAM, 64GB storage), a port could be more feasible than maintaining ffxiv on the original ps4.
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