Last night, Square Enix riled gamers up with a bizarre quote from a Wall Street Journal article on the looming competition between Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii this fall. As the publication examined each of the platform's expected strengths, they turned a focus to the RPG powerhouse, who didn't exactly respond with the resounding exclusivity support we saw last generation.
"We don't want PlayStation 3 to be the overwhelming loser, so we want to support them," says Michihiro Sasaki, senior VP of Square Enix. "But we don't want them to be the overwhelming winner either, so we can't support them too much."
Er, what? Most came away from this quote convinced Square Enix was readying massive support for Wii, which, while possible, probably isn't the underlying message here. Rather, Square Enix likely realizes PS3 doesn't have ensured dominance this generation, and rather than pool all their support behind Sony right from the start, they're going to let the market play itself out for a while -- case in point, Square Enix so heavily supporting Nintendo DS over PSP.
Earlier in the story, however, the journalists make mention of where various Square Enix franchises are landing, specifically noting the high-end Final Fantasy sequels will find themselves on PlayStation 3, but more importantly, they have yet to decide who will receive the next Kingdom Hearts.
We can't imagine Xbox 360 being on the publisher's radar, so Wii appears the only logical option, unless they take the route expected from Kingdom Hearts at the start: multiplatform.
At this point, it's simply too early to know what Square Enix's plans are. 1UP's fired off a request for follow-up comment on the Kingdom Hearts mention, and we'll update if we hear more.
