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E3 2008, News

E3 2008: Final Fantasy XIII for the 360

By Reggie Carolipio on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 10:24 PM EST  

Final Fantasy XIII

One of the biggest bombshells to explode at E3 was the surprise announcement at the end of Microsoft’s press conference on Monday when Square-Enix President, Yoichi Wada, announced that Final Fantasy XIII would be coming out for the Xbox 360. It’s a huge coup for Microsoft’s console for a title that had been previously touted as an exclusive to the PS3, but hints had been dropped in the past two years questioning how firm Final Fantasy XIII’s exclusivity could be, especially with the cross-platform specification of Square-Enix’s Crystal Tools which are part of its development.

In a Q&A session afterwards, longtime Square-Enix executive, Shinji Hashimoto, and producer Yoshinori Kitase (Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VII) fielded questions on the announcement. According to both 1Up and Gamasutra, Hashimoto was reported answering “We considered the situation, and we would like to provide the game to as many fans as possible given the spread of the hardware.” when asked why Square-Enix had decided to make Final Fantasy XIII available to the Xbox 360. As surprising as it was, it may be the best move that Square-Enix could make as a business in hedging their bets by banking on the strength of their IP across as many platforms as possible. Let’s be honest here: who hasn’t heard of Final Fantasy? Square-Enix’s behavior is also far from being an isolated event as more developers continue to spread their properties as far and as wide as they possibly can to help recoup rising development costs.

The PS3 version of the game will be completed for Japanese audiences first and as the localization work for the North American and European versions starts up, work on the 360 port will begin to prepare the title for a simultaneous release on both platforms. A new trailer released at E3 shows off more of the impressive CG work that Square-Enix’s presentations are known for, again providing little detail on what dungeon crawlers on the 360 and the PS3 will be facing when it is finally done.

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