Hideo Baba, producer of the Tales of series, announced that the PS4 is not on the table for upcoming Tales titles.
Baba‘s full statement on the matter indicates: " As of now we have no plans to release new titles for the PS4 or the Xbox One. Of course, the improved CPUs and GPUs will be important for the new generation of consoles but I think the greater memory of the consoles will prove to be very crucial." Upon speculation, his statement shows that he has indeed looked over the new consoles, which leads to believe that he doesn’t wish to jump ship just yet. Considering that he and his team have two localizations in the works and one HD Collection on the way, a new title for a next-gen console would definitely be very daunting for any studio to undertake.
With the first localization title Tales of Xillia nearly a week away from launch, Baba directs his attention towards his work on Tales of Xillia 2, which is etched into a localized launch in 2014. Specifically, he touches on dual-audio, a feature which includes both regional and Japanese languages, and he, to the dismay of many JRPG fans, all but shot down any chance of dual-audio coming to Tales of Xillia 2:
"There are many problems that make it difficult to include japanese voice-overs in western versions of video games like licensing problems or various costs. It took a long time to solve the problems that hindered Tales of Symphonia from including japanese voices but we finally could make it available for the HD version. As of now we don’t have any plans to include japanese voice-overs in Tales of Xillia 2 because it takes such a long time to solve the problems for the inclusion of japanese voice-overs."
The lack of dual audio in Tales of Xillia 2 isn’t exactly a change of pace considering that the first Xillia title releasing next week will not feature multiple languages either, but certainly the die-hard fans will be disappointed to hear that both will only have their regional language. On the contrary, as Baba dictated, the recently announced Tales of Symphonia Chronicles, an HD collection which will feature both Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, will in fact have dual audio.
Is the news that dual audio won’t be included in the Tales of Xillia series game changing? Let us know in the comments below.
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Tim Nunes, US Managing Editor at PSU, has waited a long time for upcoming title Tales of Xillia, and, after August 6, the rest of his gaming time in August will be mostly dedicated to it. For details and conversation on the title, reach out to him on his Twitter @BossSnake.
Via JPGames.de