Square Enix shocks the gaming industry announcing Final Fantasy XIII for the Xbox 360.
A Fantastic Surprise for the Xbox 360
Square Enix Add FFXIII to the Xbox 360’s Games Roster
At the Microsoft Media Briefing at E3, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada, appeared to announce the release of three new games for the Xbox 360 – Star Ocean, Last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery. Polite applause ensued. Then, as the conference drew to a close, Wada-san pulled a Steve Jobs and reappeared, to casually add that, oh yes, Square Enix was releasing one more game on the Xbox: Final Fantasy XIII.
Along with this announcement came a new trailer: dragon-like creatures float through the skies, while elsewhere a warship filled with yellow-clad soldiers readies an attack. Meanwhile, previously revealed protagonist, Lighting, is surrounded by the yellow soldiers and pulls some fancy footwork to get out of her tricky situation, using some impressive weaponry and pretty magic tricks. Meanwhile, another female character catches a CD-like object and looks delighted when something that looks like a penguin dressed in a clown costume with green wings for ears appears out of it. A blue lady humanoid, which looks like it may be a summoned creature, plays a harp. The scene switches to a forest, with Lightning wearing a red cloak and a white armour-like outfit. The clip then spans to a red-headed girl, a blonde man in a blue hat and Lightning, before showing the title: Final Fantasy XIII, in case we hadn’t noticed.
This will make it one of a handful of well-known RPG titles available on the Xbox 360, a console usually dominated with first person shooter games. However, that’s not to say that Xbox players are averse to RPGs – Mass Effect is one of the Xbox’s bestselling games and, perhaps a precursor to the decision of putting FFXIII on the console, Final Fantasy XI ranks as one of the more highly played games on Xbox Live.
This is not the first time Final Fantasy has appeared on a different console. For those who have followed the Final Fantasy series since the 1980s, fans were in shock when then-named Squaresoft announced that it would stop making the Final Fantasy games for Nintendo and instead would be moving to Sony and its new console, the Playstation One. In a Square Enix press conference following the announcement, FFXIII producer Yoshinori Kitase and Square Enix executive Shinji Hashimono said that part of the reason for the game’s release on the Xbox was because of the console’s popularity in the West, hence there is no set decision on whether it will be coming out on the Xbox in Asia.
Of course, Sony fans need not fear, as FFXIII will still be coming out on the PS3 – the first trailer for FFXIII was in fact released during a Sony press conference. No release date has been announced so far, though it is looking likely to be sometime during 2009. Also, there will be a simultaneous release for both the PS3 and Xbox 360, though rumours of the US and Europe version being released at the same time proved wrong – on the aforementioned Square-Enix presser, Kitase and Hashimoto said that they will try and make the release dates as close as possible, but the need for different languages would cause the need for more time on the Europe version.
As for Final Fantasy XIII Versus, Kitase and Hashimoto confirmed that that would remain a Sony exclusive, coming out for the PS3 alone. I guess that’s an indication that Square Enix isn’t jumping ship from Sony just yet, but time will tell. We await the next Final Fantasy announcement with bated breath.
