Definitely the highlight of Microsoft’s otherwise lackluster E3 press conference was the announcement that Final Fantasy XIII is heading to the Xbox 360 in the United States and Europe. Despite being initially announced as an exclusive Playstation 3 title, it appears as though the latest iteration in the Final Fantasy franchise will be appearing sometime after work on the Playstation 3 version is finished later in 2008 (or more likely in 2009).
While shocking to many (especially to Xbox 360 owners) Square-Enix’s decision to take Final Fantasy XIII is not entirely unexpected. They’ve already made it clear that they don’t mind developing for Microsoft with the exclusive Star Ocean: Last Hope, and multiplatform titles Infinite Undiscovery and Last Remnant also appearing on Microsoft’s gaming console. They have realized that developing titles exclusively for only one game console is not financially viable; developers Rockstar and Capcom have also realized that with their decisions to take Grand Theft Auto IV and Resident Evil 5 multiplatform. Even with Playstation 3 sales rising in the United States and Europe, there’s no denying that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has a huge presence there. Square-Enix wants a piece of that. With production and development costs often times in the millions of dollars for a title as huge as Final Fantasy, publishers want as large of an audience as possible in order to cover expenses and hopefully turn a profit. Square-Enix is not developing Final Fantasy XIII for the Xbox 360 in Asia, however, where the Playstation 3 dominates the market and Xbox 360 owners are few.
According to Kotaku’s liveblog interview with Yoshinori Kitase, producer of Final Fantasy XIII, there’s no official statement on how many discs Final Fantasy XIII will ship on. In all likliehood, given Final Fantasy XIII’s graphical intensity and the fact that Lost Odysee had to ship on four discs, I’m going to hazard a guess and say it will probably ship on more than three discs just like Final Fantasy IX did back on the Playstation.
How Microsoft managed to get Final Fantasy XIII is unknown. Maybe they shelled out enough cash to make Square-Enix go back on their previous statements. Maybe Sony just didn’t pay enough cash to keep Final Fantasy XIII as an exclusive. Who knows? It looks like Final Fantasy XIII Versus is still a Playstation 3 exclusive, but given today’s events, anything is really possible.
What does this mean for Sony? There’s no denying that losing Final Fantasy XIII as an exclusive is definitely a pretty big blow to their 2008-2009 lineup. Will it be crippling though? Sony still has exclusives like Little Big Planet, Resistance 2, and Killzone 2, but the loss of a huge RPG like Final Fantasy XIII will be hard to make up for. I have trouble beliving that Sony will take the bad news sitting down, however. I’m sure they have some big announcement up their sleeves for tomorrow when they take the stage at E3.
Will it be enough to make their fans forget that they lost Final Fantasy XIII as an exclusive?
I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.
Click HERE for Final Fantasy XIII’s official E3 trailer.
Mark Fujii: I'm your typical college student who plays too much video games. I also work as an electronic sales associate, meaning I sell Ipods and violent video games to your children when not trying to sneak off and play Super Smash Bros while the boss isn't looking. Oh, and I'm totally awesome. True fact.
Comments
Myke (Myke) says:
(Posted July 16th, 2008 at 5:28 pm)
hmm, i think i really won’t be surprised when compatibility and game console wise, the xbox and playstation would somehow have to meet somewhere in between wherein both can be playable in the same setting and could be interchanged.
wouldn’t that be an idea? ^_^
stefan (stefan) says:
(Posted July 27th, 2008 at 7:33 am)
well the fact that square moved the series to the Microsoft Xbox 360 in my veiw is that they find the system easier to make games for. there is no denying that since multi-format games that come out for the PS3 is always a month or two delayed due to the blu-ray sony are using in their media discs and also that, the xbox 360 has sold out in Europe and North America due to high demand (just not as high as the Nintendo Wii but its high) but it is surely a win for microsoft and their Japanese RPG campain.
Sal N. (Sal N.) says:
(Posted August 30th, 2009 at 4:04 pm)
How did it cost to start up this blog…I want to start my own.
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Mark Fujii
I'm your typical college student who plays too much video games. I also work as an electronic sales associate, meaning I sell Ipods and violent video games to your children when not trying to sneak off and play Super Smash Bros while the boss isn't looking. Oh, and I'm totally awesome. True fact.
nikki (nikki) says:
(Posted July 15th, 2008 at 10:07 am)
If Versus ends up eventually going multi-platform as well, I may have to rethink my plans on buying a PS3 at all in the near future. XIII and Versus XIII were really the only exclusive titles that had me completely sold on buying the console prior to a significant price drop. The announcement that XIII would be coming to the 360 was a little bit of a shock.