Sony: FFXIII PS3 exclusivity under discussion

One more platform-exclusive title may be going multiplatform, it has been revealed. The latest news appears to be that Square Enix's latest epic role-playing game, Final Fantasy XIII, may follow other titles--including Saints Row, Assassin's Creed, and Devil May Cry 4--that have now been announced as appearing on at least one other platform as well.

Sony Computer Entertainment France president Georges Fornay dropped the bombshell in an interview with French-language newspaper Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace (subscription required). He said, "The development costs of games have exploded, and it has become more difficult to have exclusives, outside of our own games. But we have for launch day [in France] 30 games, including MotorStorm, Resistance: Fall of Man, and Virtua Fighter 5. Moreover, we are expecting 200 games [for the PS3] by the end of 2007...As far as Final Fantasy XIII goes, I can tell you that the exclusivity is in discussion."

Fornay went on to say that he believed that the PS3 would be particularly successful in France, and that there had been approximately 60,000 preorders made (compared to 40,000 made for the Xbox 360, and 75,000 for the Wii). France will be getting approximately 150,000 of the 1 million consoles allocated to PAL regions.

He also answered questions about backward compatibility for the next-gen console, responding to fears that the console would not support many PS2 titles without the Emotion Engine. Fornay said, "Now, if you ask me whether this was a blow to the launch, I would say that [Sony] would have done better to be sure that the console would be completely backward compatible before announcing it. But hey, when it becomes clear what the PS3 is capable of, gamers won't really fancy playing PS2 [games] anymore..."

Square Enix had not returned calls to comment as of press time.