Final Fantasy creator feels like he cheated on Nintendo by going to PlayStation
Back in the day, Final Fantasy was a franchise that was strongly tied to Nintendo. Up until Final Fantasy VI, you could always see the series’ different RPGs on platforms like the NES.
Final Fantasy VII is where things took a turn though. While the game was originally planned for the SNES and some consideration was given to the N64, it ended up releasing on PlayStation instead. That move made Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi feel like he cheated on Nintendo, especially given how the NES helped jumpstart his career.
Sakaguchi said in an interview with One More Game:
“And this isn’t necessarily development related, but I look back at my career and I really got a huge part of my start from the NES and Nintendo. So, without the NES, I would say none of any of this would have been possible, but then, you know, I cheated on Nintendo and went to PlayStation, but whether it was Nintendo or Sony, I think both of those companies in addition to Final Fantasy VI kind of represent a lot of my origin story in terms of my career development.”
Switch is actually where Square Enix finally made things right with the Final Fantasy series on Nintendo platforms. Aside from Final Fantasy VII, a ton of other games from the franchise are available – both in mainline and spinoff form.
Sakaguchi himself moved on from Final Fantasy many years ago. However, for his newest game Fantasian Neo Dimension (which you can read about it here), he’s actually teaming up with Square Enix to bring the game to consoles.
The full interview with Sakaguchi can be found here.