Final Fantasy Ditching Sony Exclusivity?
More signs that multiplatform is the way forward.
There are those that point to Final Fantasy VII as the game that helped PlayStation - and by extension PlayStation 2 - to become the dominant force it is, and there's some truth to that. But the days of console exclusivity may be coming to an end for the successful series.
Square Enix president Yoichi Wada told the Japanese press this week, as reported by GameSpot, that the reality of making games in the current climate means that there's a chance his company would be taking a more multiplatform approach to development.
Already the massively multiplayer online RPG Final Fantasy XI is out on PC and PlayStation 2 and soon Xbox 360 will get a version too.
Wada said that, for the meantime at least, the offline instalments of the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series would stay exclusive to one console, but he added that that could change in the future.
For several years Square Enix, then separate companies, made games only for Sony consoles. Since the merger it has been diversifying which machines it makes games for, though each has usually received its own exclusive. If Wada's comments are to be taken seriously, we may soon see an end to that.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games
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