No such thing as a coincidence...only inevitability

Sony Fanboys can pass the blame on Square-Enix for lying, misleading fans, and betraying Sony for bringing Final Fantasy XIII to the 360.  A fanboy part of me tends to agree. However, the other side of me begs to differ because we must not forget what Squaresoft (before the merge with Enix) did in the past. Let's take a brief history lesson, shall we? Final Fantasy VII was actually meant for Nintendo 64. From FF I-VI, Squaresoft provided groundbreaking gameplay to the genre with their unique story and intriguing battle system. Then, the unthinkable occurred. Squaresoft abandoned Nintendo for Sony by bringing in their epic-RPG, Final Fantasy VII (We can save the argument for if it sucks or not...but just deal with me here).

I bring this history back to the present to show how it is not as different as people claim. I'm not going to say something stupid like 'Deal with it', 'It's for both consoles so shut up', or 'stop whining, you fanboy'.  Reflecting back on Squaresoft’s corporate decision, you can say that it was inevitable. For example, FFI to FFVI was for Nintendo consoles only. FFVII to FFXII was only available for the Sony Playstation consoles (remember, we are talking about consoles, so I am not counting PC when Squaresoft also released FFVIII and FFXI for the PC. Initial release also falls under this jurisdiction). By looking at this pattern, it almost seems like Square-Enix makes a transition of loyalty to another conglomerate after releasing 5-6 titles of Final Fantasy to a certain platform(s). The merge didn't alter any strategies Squaresoft had with their Final Fantasy franchise.

The first true sign that Final Fantasy was coming to the 360 was when Square-Enix announced FFXI for the 360 which was years after its initial release for PC and PS2. No one really took it seriously since Sony Fanboys believed that it didn't fit the Final Fantasy brand. They would consider it as a consolation price to Xbox fanboys who wouldn't shut up that a FF game will never come to the 360.

I don't believe for a fact that Kitase (Yoshinori Kitase, the FFXIII producer) and Hashimoto (Shinji Hashimoto, executive of Square-Enix) brought FFXIII to the 360 due to a bigger hardware spread as the sole reason.  There are a lot of issues that people overlook. Development cost and advance technology does not soften the corporation's financial statement.  Here is a list of popular titles and their development cost.

courtesy of DiggingTheWeb.com

DVD media is still at its prime. Eventually, it will dwindle down like the VHS. Blu-ray was introduced too early for its time. Evaluating the market for Blu-ray, why wouldn't Square-Enix use this opportunity to gain more revenue for their corporation? Wouldn't this just strengthen their company to release better games and new IPs in the future? Are we to blame them for something that we would have done also? 

The fanboy within me hates this decision. The realistic human form in me understands it.  In my stance, I guess it's bittersweet.

* I aplogize for the late post since the web site has been working out its problems. I couldn't upload anything (including pics and blogs) for a long time until now.