Final Fantasy XIV Online currently offers cross-play support between PlayStation 4 and PC, but one of the reasons the game hasn’t released on Xbox One yet is because Microsoft apparently won’t allow cross-play. Game director Naoki Yoshida told wccftech that he recently spoke with Xbox boss Phil Spencer and informed him that Square Enix is “prepared to do cross-play any any time.” However, Microsoft isn’t budging, it seems.
“Two months ago, I discussed with Phil Spencer. I have explained this before but we are prepared to do crossplay at any time,” Yoshida explained.
According to Yoshida, things like in-game chat and social networking in the form of creating and joining guilds are essential for MMOs like Final Fantasy XIV Online.
“I would like to have Microsoft change their regulations,” Yoshida said.
Yoshida told GameSpot in March that Final Fantasy XIV needs to support cross-play to have its playerbases united and offer the best experience. That’s currently possible on PS4 and PC, but not with other systems, which has presumably kept the game off Xbox and Nintendo systems so far.
“Talks with platform-holders has been going on,” Yoshida said about Microsoft, Nintendo, and Google. “The fundamental philosophy with Final Fantasy XIV is we want it on labels with cross-platform play with any devices, hardware possible,” Yoshida said through a translator. “So as long as the regulations with the counterpart hardware companies … we can actually pass that, then the possibility, the chance is quite high [of Final Fantasy XIV coming to Xbox and Nintendo systems].
Toy Story 4 currently has a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 84 on Metacritic, which makes it universally acclaimed. It made $118 million in its first weekend, which set a record for the franchise. But something about this fourth outing rings hollow. In the process of putting a bow on things (assuming this is the last Toy Story film), Pixar has simplified the story to its detriment.
To explain what is wrong with Toy Story 4, and why it retroactively mars the prior three films in the franchise, we must first establish a good-faith premise: that these films aspire to be more than “just kid films.” If these were “just kid films,” they would not have endured, across generations, for close to 25 years. They would not elicit uncontrollable weeping from adults.
Beneath the main conceit of toys coming to life, the first three movies wrestled with deeper, more existential questions. Woody, Buzz, and company were toys, first and foremost, designed and conceived from the outset to be played with and loved by children. This is the reason why they freeze or go limp when humans are present; their toy nature overrides all other impulses, even that of self-preservation.
Toys universally desire to be owned and loved. It’s why Sid’s toys don’t just hop over the fence and say, “Screw this.” On some level, they have no choice but to love Sid despite his mistreatment, because they are his. Even when they break the rules at the end of the first movie, it’s to correct Sid’s treatment of them. There’s no effort or plans to escape from the house. They only break the rules to help everybody, so that they can continue to live under Sid’s care.
And when Woody convinces Buzz that he’s better off as a toy than as a space ranger, he makes his meaning plain: Bringing a child joy is the peak of a toy’s existence. Hs speech is framed in such a way that we accept it as a truth:
“Being a toy is a lot better than being a Space Ranger.. look, over in that house is a kid who thinks you are the greatest, and it’s not because you’re a Space Ranger, pal, it’s because you’re a toy! You are his toy!”
Then, Toy Story 2 went deeper. It asked some uncomfortable questions: What happens to these toys if their owners grow up and give them away, or if they never get sold in the first place? We get our answer in the form of two hard luck cases: Jessie is scarred by Emily’s abandonment of her, and the Prospector turns resentful and duplicitous because he was never sold and never loved in the first place.
And what’s more, Jessie and Prospector may have lived with this for decades (assuming they were made in the 1950s, when Woody’s Round-Up was on TV), and they still desire to be loved. It’s a dark but logical extension of what we learned in the first film: because toys were made to do this, they will always desire to do it. As Jessie says, just because the owners forget the toys, doesn’t mean that the toys forget their owners.
This evolves into the central question that Woody must answer: does he want to become a museum toy, which means he’ll be loved and adored by children through glass? Or does he want to go back to Andy? Will he be satisfied with a limited, distant love that lasts forever, or will he risk destruction and oblivion for the intense, genuine love that Andy offers, if only temporarily? Woody makes a decision:
“I can’t stop Andy from growing up, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
This is so brave–to risk everything for a chance at real, genuine love. And the parallels that can be made to ourselves are obvious: do we live timidly or do we live boldly? Do we open ourselves up for love, knowing we may get our hearts broken, or do we close ourselves off?
Toy Story 3 deals with the fallout of Woody’s decision. Andy is now 17 years old, and Woody is resigned to a life in the attic. He reiterates that a toy’s job is to be there for the child (even a grown child) when he or she needs him. He even suggests an optimistic possibility–that perhaps, one day, Andy will have children, and those children will play with Andy’s old, forgotten toys.
Of course, it doesn’t work out that way. The other toys get accidentally thrown to the curb. And notice what their reaction is afterward: They don’t give up and abandon their purpose, they donate themselves to daycare so they can continue serving their instincts. Even Lotso, the villain of the third movie, has this urge to seek out children. When he’s replaced by Daisy, he takes over Sunnyside Daycare to ensure that he’ll always be played with. Every toy in the first three movies gravitated to the same end goal.
Even if the toy ends up alone, or in a dumpster, it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
At the end of Toy Story 3, Andy gives his toys to Bonnie, a young kid who will love and play with them after Andy’s gone to college. It’s a happy ending–sort of. We all die, and eventually, we know these toys will get thrown out or burned in an incinerator. But not today. For now, they’re staving off the inevitable. For now, they’re loved again. And they must live every precious day to the fullest.
To recap: We’ve been told, in multiple ways, that toys’ overriding desire is to bring children joy. If they are deprived of this, they will seek it out, even for decades, until they find it. Their love is unconditional; even when they’re abandoned or broken, they still remember their owners.
And given the chance to experience this connection more superficially, either in a children’s museum or at a daycare where relationships are temporary, a toy would be justified to decline it; it’s a poor substitute for the genuine thing. Even if the toy ends up alone, or in a dumpster, it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. It’s analogous to any loving relationship where one person gives more than he or she receives. It’s unconditional, and despite the drawbacks, it’s worth it.
Toy Story 4 throws all of this away.
When Toys Become People
It turns out that toys can overcome the desire to want an owner. When Bo Peep is given away, she sits on an antique shelf for years. And finally, she gets tired of waiting for an owner, and she sets out on her own. She builds a vehicle for herself and teams up with other abandoned “lost toys,” and she finds personal satisfaction and fulfillment in her new, wandering life, helping other toys in need. At the end of the movie, Woody takes a page out of her book and decides to pursue his love interest; he stays with Bo Peep rather than going back to Bonnie.
Put aside that Woody has a closer companionship with Buzz than he ever did with Bo, and this ending still flies in the face of everything we’ve learned, so far, about a toy’s nature. By allowing toys the option of walking away, Toy Story 4 undercuts the poignancy of the earlier films.
When Woody told Buzz that being a toy was better than being a space ranger? It turns out he was wrong. Buzz could have just walked away. Sid’s toys could have done the same. They’re just suffering from a massive case of Stockholm Syndrome; they probably could have even killed Sid if they wanted to.
In Toy Story 2, it turns out that Jessie and The Prospector’s biggest problem was that they weren’t self-actualized, and they lacked a go-getter’s attitude; they could have found purpose in their lives by leaning on each other. In Toy Story 3, it turns out that the toys didn’t need to give themselves away to Sunnyside. They could have gotten all the emotional fulfillment they needed by escaping into the woods and bonding with each other.
According to Toy Story 4, the difficult choices of the prior films, between real, temporary love and shallow but everlasting existence, were binary fallacies. There was an Option C the entire time: to basically cut the children out of the equation. Bo and her ragtag crew of lost toys still want to be played with, but the terms and conditions of the arrangement as established by the other movies have radically shifted. Here, lost toys do just fine helping other toys find kids, while themselves being played with only sporadically–and sometimes even broken, in Bo’s case. “Some kids play rougher than others.” (Dark stuff, right?)
The previously established no-win scenario–the difficult choice between love and security–is what made these films so resonant in the first place; they played on our deepest, primal fears of being alone, being in danger, and growing old. Woody no longer has to choose or risk anything; he can fall in love with another toy and find emotional fulfillment away from humans. He never has to risk the incinerator. The narrative tension is gone.
It’s not that this is narratively impossible. After all, we were never explicitly told that toys couldn’t escape their initial, functional purpose. But the prior films’ implications strongly indicated that they were trapped. By allowing them to become little autonomous humans in plastic bodies, Pixar was able to give Woody an unearned and damaging happy ending. It came at the cost of the franchise’s poignancy and central message. The limitation inherent to being a toy created the characters’ central dilemma, and by eliminating that limitation, Pixar has decimated the narrative stakes.
Maybe, if there’s a Toy Story 5 on the horizon, Woody will walk this decision back. He’ll go back to Bonnie or another human, and he’ll realize that he can’t find true fulfillment with a fellow toy, because, after all, they’re toys–not people. But if this is truly the final film, then the story ends in a simpler, safer, less complex place than it originally began. It’s only a tale of toys that magically come to life, and it doesn’t mean anything more than that, which is a shame.
Here are some of our favorite games of the year so far across all platforms, from Outer Wilds, to Devil May Cry 5. Check them out in this sweet montage!
Noah Hawley, known for creating and writing Fargo and Legion, has confirmed he’s been in conversations with MCU head Kevin Feige about a Doctor Doom movie.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hawley referenced the Doctor Doom movie he was writing for Fox, and confirmed he’s still in talks with Disney about making it.
“I did sit down with Kevin Feige recently and I said that I look at myself as sort of the Marvel R&D department. I know the genre can do all of these amazing things that
is doing, but my feeling is, what else can we do with it? Can we make it surreal? Can we make it musical? Not as a gimmick, but all of these techniques are about putting you into the subjective experience of these characters… I wrote a script about Doctor Doom, an antihero story I really like, and we’re still talking about making it.”
The EON Super 64 is a plug-and-play HDMI adapter for the Nintendo 64, allowing you to play this classic console on a modern HD television, but it’s going to cost you.
For $149.99, this device connects to the back of the N64, allowing you to get HDMI output. It’s available for preorder now and is estimated to ship on July 22, 2019. The N64 looked okay on an old CRT television but looks blurry and generally bad when upscaled for modern HDTVs. The EON Super 64 claims to fix this problem. It allegedly delivers a 480p image, featuring lagless input, custom design, and a “Slick Mode” that cleans up hard pixelated edges for a more polished look.
Gears of War’s esports scene has evolved quite a bit over the franchise’s history. It started as a mainly community-led endeavor with occasional tournaments by companies like Major League Gaming. Since then, Gears developer The Coalition has made strides to give the scene a professional edge beginning with more in-game competitive features in Gears of War: Ultimate Edition and The Coalition’s development of the Gears Pro Circuit. However, with the scene’s grown, the team behind Gears esports has been careful to make sure there’s still respect and a celebration of the scene’s grassroots origins.
Spider-Man: Far From Home almost had a cameo by Sam Wilson as Captain America following Steve Rogers handing over his iconic shield to the MCU hero previously known as Falcon.
Speaking to Comicbook.com, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and creative executive Eric Carroll discussed how this cameo almost came to pass, but ended up not making it so the focus on this newest film would be on Spider-Man having to “step up and do it himself.”
“We briefly talked about bringing in Falcon as Captain America at the end, like maybe once Peter’s arced, and he’s sort of like leading the team, like maybe he calls in a favor,” Carroll explained. “But we also thought it was really important to the arc of this movie that there not be other Avengers available to Nick Fury or Peter, so he’d have to step up and do it himself.”
IGN is celebrating Pride Month this year with a livestream where we’ll be playing games with LGBTQ+ themes and/or made by LGBTQ+ creators, as well as chatting about the importance of queer representation across the pop culture zeitgeist. You can tune into our livestream this Friday, 28th June from 1pm-5pm PST.
Most importantly, we’ll be raising money for The Matthew Shepard Foundation. The Matthew Shepard Foundation empowers individuals to embrace human dignity and diversity through outreach, advocacy, and resource programs. It strives to replace hate with understanding, compassion, and acceptance.
You can donate to The Matthew Shepard Foundation here!
Welcome to Daily Win, our way of giving back to the IGN community. To thank our awesome audience, we’re giving away a new game each day to one lucky winner. Be sure to check IGN.com every day to enter in each new giveaway.
Today we’re giving away a digital copy of Forager for PC/Steam. To enter into this sweepstake, fill out the form below. You must be at least 18 years old and a legal U.S. resident to enter. Today’s sweepstake will end at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Entries entered after this time will not be considered.
