Speaking with The Wall Street Journal, Square Enix's senior VP Michihiro Sasaki got downright cryptic when asked about his company's next-gen alliances: "We don't want PlayStation 3 to be the overwhelming loser, so we want to support them. But we don't want them to be the overwhelming winner either, so we can't support them too much."
The statement seems to be a clever way of masking Square Enix's uncertainty about the PlayStation brand. There's no denying that the PS3 price tag will affect the console's user base, and Square Enix clearly doesn't want to commit its franchises solely to a Sony platform that won't necessarily dominant the developing generation of hardware. Of course, Final Fantasy XIII & Final Fantasy Versus XIII are already locks for PS3 -- but ultimately, both could also be released onto other platforms. But then there's Kingdom Hearts, which as 1UP notes, has not been bound to a next-gen platform.
Keep an eye on Square Enix developments. Either the company will spread its franchises across several platforms -- including Xbox 360, if the console starts picking up sales in Japan -- or Square Enix will dive head first into multiplatform agreements, which may be the only economically viable solution.
