Recap of Square Enix’s E3 2008 press conference

Square Enix held its E3 2008 press conference today (12:30 p.m. PT, July 14, 2008) and it had a rather unusual format. Well, unusual for E3.

More like a sports press conference than a staged videogame conference extravaganza/laser light show, game producer Yoshinori Kitase and Square Enix’s Shinji Hashimoto sat at a table and answered questions from the media.

The majority of the chatter was, of course, about Final Fantasy 13 (FFXIII) since it is no longer a Sony exclusive and will, instead, be released for both the PS3 and Xbox 360.

Here’s a quick recap of some of the goodness that was revealed at that Q&A:

• Final Fantasy XIII is no longer exclusive to Sony to “provide FFXIII to as many fans as possible in the world.”
• Final Fantasy XIII may or may not require more than one game disc (with the implication that Blu-ray allow for more space, therefor if the game is multidisc, it may not be for PS3).
• FFXIII is being developed for the PS3 first, will be released in Japan first and then ported to the Xbox 360 while the PS3 US version is being localized (read: translated into English). The Xbox 360 and PS3 release will be simultaneous in the US, followed by Europe.
• The game is being developed using Crystal Tools.
• No footage was shown but they said some will be available “in the near future.”
• The battle system will be “an evolution of the series traditional ATB”

Read [Gamasutra] Also Read [Kotaku]