3) It’s a money-grabber
The Final Fantasy franchise, you can probably conclude for yourself, is hardly a small one. It’s been going 21 years spawning 28 games, two CGI films (one good and one atrocious), three animated spin-offs and a huge stack of merchandise. You can’t even begin to approximate how much money has been brought in by the entire franchise. To try and guess how much has been brought in by a single game, Final Fantasy XII has sold around 5 million copies, there or there abouts, give or take a couple of hundred thousand. If each of those was sold in America for $60 (unlikely, but to try and generate a speculative figure) Square Enix would be rolling in $300 million from that game alone.

In comparison Final Fantasy X, the last ‘proper’ numbered game in the series (not counting spin-off FFX-2 or MMO FFXI) sold 3 million copies, so it’s obvious more and more people are buying into the franchise with each new game. It’s probably obvious that Microsoft have been studying the sales figures and figured they want a slice of the profits.

As discussed in the press event, the Square Enix executive present said that their relationship with Microsoft needed to be “adjusted” before some sort of deal for multi-platform releases could be made. My guess is that this adjustment was a nice big lump sum offered to Square by MS in order to secure a 360 release for FFXIII, and are wagering that the profits from a Western 360 release will be more than enough to claim this money back. I wouldn’t be surprised if all of the money was recouped.

Of course, the extra platform to sell on will only improve Square’s profits when Final Fantasy XIII is released. With a console-exclusive game, you can only sell as much as the console has sold, but with a dual or tri-console release you can potentially exceed the number of consoles on that single platform and net yourself an absolutely huge turnover. Square aren’t stupid, having already dabbled in 360 RPG territory with Blue Dragon, and with (what I believe to be) Microsoft’s offer they will have been eager to capitalise on this new business opportunity. Of course, I’m merely speculating, so don’t take my word for it.

4) It’s a kick in the groin to Sony
If there’s one thing the PlayStation 3 really needs at the moment, it’s a good, reputable list of exclusives. When the PS3 was first launched, the list of truly appealing console exclusives was pretty small: Killzone 2 wasn’t proving too popular following the pre-rendered footage fiasco, and MotorStorm was fun for a week. Metal Gear Solid 4 was the biggest exclusive at the time and Final Fantasy XIII was the next game that had me (among others, probably) convinced that PS3 had a good range of exclusives lined up.

Over time the PS3’s list of console exclusives has grown, admittedly (Killzone 2 looks good now, Little Big Planet’s on the horizon, and the console has Uncharted and MGS4 under its belt already) but FFXIII was still the jewel in the crown.

Of course, that’s now gone and taken the shine off of PS3’s already-not-too-gleaming list of exclusives and effectively allowed Microsoft to flip off Sony with a great big “nyah nyah, there goes your one big exclusive” and left the PS3 with perhaps a little less prestige than it had before. After all, it was only the biggest RPG franchise in the world and so Sony will be feeling the burn a little from profit they could have received had FFXIII remained exclusively on their platform. Think of the potential buyers who may have bought FFXIII for their PS3 rather than their 360, before they were given a choice, or even those people who may have been willing to buy a PS3 just to get their hands on the new game.

That’s that then, really: time for a wrap-up over on page three.

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