The biggest news is of course the announcement that Final Fantasy 13 is coming to the Xbox 360. I was watching the press conference “live” and was absolutely floored when this information was revealed. I knew something was up when Yoichi Wada (current president of Square Enix) came on stage seemingly only tell us things about games we already knew. They even let him walk off the stage! But then he politely came back on stage, interrupting Don Mattrick (Senior Vice President of the games division er, “Interactive Entertainment Business” at Microsoft) and said there was one more thing that he wanted to show the audience. I had a gut feeling it was FF 13 on Xbox 360 but the IGN video feed I was watching shifted to a camera looking on the stage and a large portion of the audience from way way behind the audience for the duration of the video. Only when the FF 13 logo came up at the end of the trailer was my feeling confirmed.

The internet erupted with chants and cries of how this effects Sony. After all, now countless Xbox 360 owners who were debating buying the PS3 just for the game no longer have to. I’m personally amazed that SE is actually giving the Microsoft’s Xbox 360 the time of day so to speak. SE didn’t do anything on the original Xbox, what made them change thier minds now? Could it be that SE has noticed that PS3s just aren’t selling at the same rate the PS2s did? It would be pretty cool if the Xbox 360 version sells more copies than the PS3 version of the game. I’ll probably be getting the PS3 version myself eventually though.

Apparently the game is only coming out on Xbox 360 in territories outside of Japan. This probably isn’t a big deal for the five people that own Xbox 360 in Japan since they probably own a PS3 anyway. In North America though, the console wars just got a whole lot more “war-y” and once again, it’s all due to a Final Fantasy game.

Personally, I think this game is going to help persuade people still clinging to their PS2s to upgrade to the next gen. The general consensus is that the PS3 version looks prettier whereas the Xbox 360 version will have a plethora of downloadable content to extend the experience. I lack a PS3 or Xbox 360 but seriously gave purchasing one of the two consoles some thought. I just couldn’t live with myself playing either console on my ancient CRT television though and I’m not really interested in upgrading to an HD TV just yet. I think the Xbox 360 version offers the better bang for the buck since apparently the online capability of the PS3 version isn’t all there just yet whereas the Xbox 360 version uses Xbox Live which is already proven to be rock solid (even though it will probably be crashing all kinds tonight). I’d still probably go with the PS3 version though since I know I’ll inevitably be buying one for Final Fantasy 12 (I refuse to use Roman numerals for the games anymore). If the PS3 hardware itself were a little cheaper, I’d probably be all over it. Anyway, have fun tonight (and tomorrow) boys and girls.

The really cool thing about Johnny Lee’s story is what he touches on at the end of the talk. The fact that he’s just a humble researcher but thanks to the internet and sites like YouTube, everyone around the world know about his work. There is no doubt in my mind that without the internet, no one would have ever heard of Mr. Lee and the fact that we are hearing about him is a remarkable thing.