News from NVIDIA's centralized gaming community, nZone, has slapped us - the "PC master race" (as dubbed by ol' Yahtzee, bless his "whiteness") - back to planet Earth. According to NVIDIA, Square Enix was proud to have said that the PC-based development tools they created allowed them to get Final Fantasy XIII (PS3, Xbox 360) working on the PC.

We all know that Crystal Tools is the improved and renamed White Engine, a development tool suite that Square Enix used for all of it's previous games. And as reported by fellow news twitter Sally "Bo Bally" B., Crystal Tools' debut on the next-generation era also heralded the end of PlayStation-exclusivity. Crystal Tools was compatible with the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and even the Wii.

Unfortunately, someone forgot one minor detail: Crystal Tools was primarily PC-based, and not only that, it rendered the game completely playable on the platform. Well, gee whiz.

"Currently the game is being built on PC, where it's actually functional," said producer Yoshinori Kitase at E3 2008. "Now that we're developing on a PC base, the pace is going a bit faster."

Kitase informed NVIDIA that the game was still very much in development, however, and they weren't able to give any footage of the game back at E3. They hope to release some soon, but guess what platform it could be played on: the PC or the Xbox 360.

The little geek in most of us knows, it's going to be showcased natively - aside from the Xbox 360, my money's on Crystal Tools on PC. Why? Because Kitase shed a few more words that clued in to its status on the other platforms:

The content will be the same on all platforms. However, we have yet to determine how many discs will be required for the 360 version. ... We'll have to consider the differences between formats. We're still focusing on making it work on PS3, so it's difficult to know how long the process of taking it to 360 will take.

It's starting to look like the ol' days of Final Fantasy VII and VIII are up ahead in a new light, friends. More updates as we get them.

[Via nZone]

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*UPDATE*: Kotaku's got the actual scoop, but they didn't realize it until the whole "OMG WHY SQUARE ENIX!" cries died down. The venerable Kitase has said that the development cycle of Final Fantasy XIII is as follows (in chronological order):

• PlayStation 3
• Windows
• Xbox 360

Yes, there's a PC version. Well, Windows for sure, if the past PC versions were anything to go by. That's what we also get from Kotaku's live blog:

Kitase says they're currently running it on a PC, so they don't know the work load of getting it on the 360. They are putting priority on the PC version.

Well, cool beans. Time to polish that LCD monitor for the grand debut, eh? Oh and NVIDIA, don't tell me you're going to dab a splash sequence on it, because that would be...weird.

[Via Kotaku]

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*UPDATE*: Square Enix replied to inquiries about the branching off of Final Fantasy XIII on PC, and they say that the game is ONLY planned for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 for now. There are no official plans of late to release the game on PC. Oh well.

It's been a good run thinking of all the good times we would have had with this addition to the PC's gaming portfolio, but right now, it's not even on the horizon yet. The full reply, ad verbatim, is as follows:

The game is being built using PC-based development tools, but that doesn't mean it's being created for the PC platform. Our current plans are to release FFXIII for the PS3 and Xbox 360 only. Sorry for the confusion!

Well, maybe it'll come after FFXIII had it's run, eh (ala FFVII and FFVIII)? It never hurt to dream...

[Via Kotaku]

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Related articles:

• Square Enix's White Engine renamed, goes multiplatform including Wii
• GDC 08: Taku Murata on the technology of Final Fantasy XIII, Crystal Tools