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Square Enix to start smartphone game rental service Dive In for Japan
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MacNN Staff
Join Date: Jul 2012
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Japanese video game publisher Square Enix announced a new initiative this week, putting some of its most popular games in the hands of mobile device users. The new program, called Dive In, allows users to rent Square Enix titles through a dedicated application ,and play them on their Android or iOS tablets and smartphones.
The service features a tiered rental period, much like Sony offers with PlayStation Now. Prices are different for each game, but one of the differences from Sony's rental service is that Square Enix allows gamers to play the first 30 minutes of a game for free. Four rental tiers also stretch much further, ranging from three days to a year.
Only three titles will be available when Dive In launches on October 9, including Final Fantasy VII International, Final Fantasy XIII and Season of Mystery: The Cherry Blossom Murders. The lowest three-day pricing starts at 150¥ ($1.40) for Season of Mystery, but raises to 1800¥ ($16.80) for a year of Final Fantasy XIII.
More titles are coming as well, including Final Fantasy VIII and The Last Remnant in November. Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Murdered: Soul Suspect are set to be added in in December, with Financial Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns and additional games coming in 2015.
Dive In is also a streaming service, as the announcement warns that users will be responsible for the billing that is a result of using the rental platform. Square Enix recommends at least a 3Mbps bandwidth Wi-Fi connection for stable play, or a 6Mbps for high-quality play.
With the popularity growing of exclusive pass and rental service, it wouldn't come as a surprise if Square Enix expanded the program to North America. Electronic Arts has its own publisher-specific, older-game membership program, but Dive In would still have to compete with services like Xbox Live and PlayStation Plus as well. If the pricing holds, the titles being offered could be cheaper than they would turn up in Steam sales in some cases.
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Last edited by NewsPoster; Sep 16, 2014 at 08:47 PM.
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Aug 2001
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On one hand, being able to play FF XIII and its sequels with full console-grade graphics on a phone or iPad would be pretty sweet, even if I personally would never pay Squenix any rental fee, even if justified.
On the other, any modern iOS device could easily handle FF VII and VIII natively without breaking a sweat, so why on earth should someone pay an ongoing fee, *plus* have to deal with the bandwidth overhead and potential lag of a streaming service, when they could have just ported the games?
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Managing Editor
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Originally Posted by Makosuke 
On the other, any modern iOS device could easily handle FF VII and VIII natively without breaking a sweat, so why on earth should someone pay an ongoing fee, *plus* have to deal with the bandwidth overhead and potential lag of a streaming service, when they could have just ported the games?
Sure, they could have, but this makes more money.
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Senior User
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They're playing with fire here. Kudos for giving iDevice owners the option to play. However, most of these titles have lackluster controls (these games were not designed for touchscreens). Turning this into a subscription service is a mistake, in my opinion. Perhaps only the die-hard fans are paying $15+ for the premium titles in the app store? Is this their contingency?
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