There was a very brief period of crossover time, between 2002 and 2006, when E3 was still a gargantuan, money-wasting event and high-speed internet access was ubiquitous. During these years, gamers across the English speaking world regularly crashed websites following videocasts and liveblogs of press conferences as the biggest game announcements of the year hit the public. In the wake of the old E3’s dissolution and 2007’s lackluster event, the press cycle for the games industry seemingly changed forever; game announcements, platform holder initiatives, and publisher events have been spread out over the last eighteen months, no longer restricted to only a handful of days in the summer leading up to the usual holiday deluge of high-profile releases. The days of “breaking the internet” appeared to be over.
Then Microsoft announced that Final Fantasy XIII would be coming out for the Xbox 360 and it was the good ol’ days all over again.
Today’s big reveal has not only overshadowed all other big E3 news so far, including all of MS’ other announcements, it’s emblematic of a genuinely important shift in the way we as players are going to consume games going forward. As development costs have risen, third-party game exclusivity has been declining. Square-Enix’s commitment to multi-platform releases is one more nail in its coffin, if not the final one. What this is ultimately going to mean is that videogame consoles are going to further diversify beyond the current generation. It means that consoles are going to stop trying to compete solely on the software front and move into the realm of unique experiences, a la Nintendo’s Wii.
What the announcement means for the current console cycle, where software exclusivity is still the central competition between Microsoft and Sony, is that Sony is in a legitimately dire situation. Disregarding the hyperbole getting tossed about that Final Fantasy XIII was literally all the company had left to hook a mass audience, it was the last of Sony’s third-party exclusive stable. They have now lost Final Fantasy, Monster Hunter, and Dragon Quest, the three most-important non-Nintendo franchises in Japan. Their remaining first-party exclusive franchises with a serious global audience are God of War and Gran Turismo, games that simply do not have the appeal of a Halo or a Wii Play.
Tomorrow is going to be a very, very interesting day.