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16 June 2015
- From the section Technology
More than 3.5 million people have watched the online trailer for the remake of Final Fantasy VII since it was unveiled at E3 last night.
The Japanese role-playing game was originally released in 1997.
The game, which will be exclusive to the PlayStation 4, is currently the most watched trailer on PlayStation’s E3 channel with 3,591,553 views.
It is a “marker game” for a generation of players now in their 30s and 40s, said the BBC’s Adam Rosser.
“For lots of people Final Fantasy reminds them of that moment when games started to make sense to them,” said Mr Rosser, who presents the Game On podcast on BBC Radio Five Live.
“There is a lot of love for Final Fantasy VII. People liked it when they first played it, they have very fond memories of it.
Is it any surprise that it attracts an enormous amount of attention?”
Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda, released in 1986, has similar appeal for an older crowd, he added.
“If you sit down with a Japanese role-playing game and you engage with it, it’s going to have a quality that keeps bringing you back,” he said.
While there have been many sequels and spin-offs of Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VII has become a firm favourite among fans.
Many videos of people reacting ecstatically to news that the remake was under way have also been posted online.
The game, which will initially be released for the PlayStation 4, has no launch date yet.
Fellow fantasy role-playing game The Last Guardian, which has been 10 years in the making, has racked up 1,074,069 views on Playstation’s YouTube channel while 874,322 have tuned in to preview action shooter Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.
There is comparatively little interest in Ubisoft’s new addition to the Assassin’s Creed series of games , – Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – the walk-through of which has amassed only 52,690 views on the PlayStation channel.
It’s predecessor, Assassin’s Creed Unity, was beset by problems at launch including major glitches and bugs.
Over on the gaming event’s Xbox channel, Microsoft’s trailer for Halo 5 Warzone has been watched over a million times since yesterday.
A hardware video about the console’s new wireless controller, Xbox Elite, has had 617,956 views.
According to a report by analysts IHS Technology, worldwide consumers are forecast to spend $92 billion (£59bn) on games this year, more than movies ($62bn / £40bn) and recorded music ($18bn / £11.5bn) combined.
You can follow all of the BBC’s coverage from E3 2015 via the hashtag, #e3bbc
