Following a prior interview in which he stated that the debut of the title was possible on mobile platforms, Square Enix producer Takashi Tokita has now clarified in an interview with Shacknews (via The Verge) that a release of Final Fantasy VII on iOS devices is "years" away because of the space limiations of the platform. Notably, Apple's size limit for an iOS app is 2GB, with the over-the-air download limit raised to 100MB last month.
"Unfortunately, it's not that it's not impossible for us to develop Final Fantasy 7 for mobile," Tokita told Shacknews. "It's that currently, space will be an issue. Phones won't be able to contain the space it takes. It's over a gigabyte. People are probably going to have to wait a few years."
It is unclear exactly what Tokita is referring to in stating that "it" is over a gigabyte, and thus whether any work has actually been done on the project. A number of current App Store apps do, however, come in at over 1 GB, although as The Verge notes, a recent PC re-release of the title checks in at over 3 GB.
Tokita announced plans to bring Final Fantasy VI to iOS devices this fall in the prior interview, which follows the release of various Final Fantasy games over the past few years on iOS. The last title from the series to appear on Apple's platform was Final Fantasy V [Direct Link], which was released by Square Enix this past March.
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Square Enix's own The World Ends With You is 2.4 GB.
The PS1 version landed in at 3 discs. At 650 MB each, that's 2 GB in total max. But the only differences between each disc were the FMVs - the entirety of game content, including software, music, character models, landscapes, backgrounds - was exactly copied between each disc. That means that the combined game must be less than 2 GB - and indeed, the Steam version runs in at 1.5 GB apparently. Also, all those FMVs lie in a codec from 1997: with H.264, they'd save a lot of space.
Thus, bull.
They pretty much invented the JRPG genre and single-handedly ruined it too :o
I wonder if they meant something else (e.g. RAM requirement).
The only thing that is "years away" is Square Enix's ability to catch up with other game devs.