There's no doubt that Square Enix's Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is one of the company's best handheld releases. The publisher has made quite an impact with it on Sony's PlayStation Portable, and this leads some to wonder why the game wasn't released on the Nintendo DS which has a larger user base.

To answer that question, Pocket Gamer contacted two of the game's main men: producer Hideki Imaizumi and executive producer Yoshinori Kitase. The two bosses gladly explained the choice behind the exclusivity.

The two explained that the install base on each platform wasn't the top consideration for choosing the handheld to release the game in. Knowing where the target market is was the more important question at hand.

"The demographic was higher teens to young adults as opposed to small children," said Kitase. "The PSP seemed closer to that demographic than DS in general. So we feel we really made the right choice."

The move was likely to have been motivated by considerations on which age group the story's theme would appeal to. Square must also have been going after fans of the original Final Fantasy VII who have grown up and are likely to own a PSP than a DS.