I remember the day Square Enix announced that an upcoming little game called Final Fantasy 13 would be released on Xbox 360 as well as PlayStation 3. It wasn't just the simultaneous release that put the fandom in trouble. It was an innocent concept for a Final Fantasy title to go to Microsoft in the first place. It made people angry (because they were so stupid) and the graphics debate between the two platforms lasted until people got their hands on FF13. At that point the conversation veered towards whether it was a particularly good video game.
As it happens, all of this could have happened much earlier. In a recent interview, former Xbox executive Ed Fries offered a surprising lament. The thing is that he tried to transfer his old FF to the original Xbox.
lost odyssey
There was a relatively short period in video game history when Xbox not only courted JRPG publishers… but also successfully negotiated them. Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's early post-Square projects, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, were released straight to Xbox 360. Tales of Vesperia has been a 360 exclusive in Japan for almost a year. absoluteness I went somewhere else with my PS3. (This left some great additional content beyond the reach of the game outside of Japan until the Definitive Edition was released a decade later.) The list goes on.
In short, Microsoft has made real progress. But there's something to be said for everything I just quoted. These are all Xbox 360 games. None of them are from the era in which they originally appeared on consoles. This is where Ed Fries' regrets come in. If they had pulled it off, Final Fantasy 10, 12, and maybe even an online-only 11 would have appeared on the OG Xbox. It's best used with the PlayStation 2 or, if the example above applies, as an exclusive that comes with Halo.
Speaking with The Expansion Pass on YouTube – Thanks for the announcement from GamesRadar! – Fries looks back on Xbox's early days and the largely failed attempts to woo Japanese game makers. He met Square often, but nothing got in the way. He did the same for Sega, Capcom, and Konami. So there was a time when Persona, Breath of Fire (remember that one?), and Suikoden could have shared paths on Xbox or even become synonymous with the brand.
But Final Fantasy is the best, and Fries refers to the series as “really the best” in terms of what would have delighted and fascinated him. (And of course you could potentially move more units, that's the idea.) He also makes a rather interesting claim.
“[Xbox] We've been able to do a few deals since I left Square, but it was always a tough discussion because Sony wanted to be able to compete. But they couldn't make their support for Xbox too obvious. “They couldn't make it too obvious that they were supporting Xbox.”
When it was revealed that FF13's Lightning would be crossover to the Xbox 360 along with the PS3, it certainly took the JRPG-loving world by storm and generated quite a bit of enthusiasm, but it was a bit of a secret partnership. Not to mention the fact that Mr. Sakaguchi himself entrusted his business to the Halo family. It all feels a bit strange these days. But even if Ed Fries couldn't bring Tidus and Yuna to Xbox, Microsoft has made quite a splash in the years since.
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