The shift of the Final Fantasy series from Nintendo platforms onto PlayStation helped shape the future of both publishers, but it took some social engineering from Sony to make it happen.
In an interview with GameSpot, former Sony Interactive Entertainment lead Shuhei Yoshida shed some light on the inner workings of Sony throughout his lengthy tenure at the company.
In the interview, he explains how Sony managed to win Squaresoft (now Square Enix) over to the PlayStation after multiple console generations of primarily releasing their games on Nintendo platforms, which played a major role in cementing the PlayStation as the dominant console in Japan.
According to Yoshida, the key to making that happen was some serious “schmoozing” from his boss.
Schmoozing Their Way To Dominance
Nintendo and Squaresoft famously had a falling-out over Nintendo’s refusal to make the change from cartridges to disks with the Nintendo 64, despite Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s efforts to convince them to reconsider, leading to plans for Final Fantasy VII to be released on the console to be scrapped.
However, the PlayStation wasn’t the only console of the upcoming generation to use the CD-ROM, and Sony was scrambling to get Squaresoft to commit...
