Squaresoft's announcement that they were not going to release Final Fantasy XIII as a Playstation3 exclusive but rather will release a version for both Xbox360 and Playstation3 at the same time probably saved me roughly $400 today. Since the Playstation3 was first released, I have always felt I would buy one, although the initial price was too much for my meager college budget. The other major problem was lack of exclusive titles on the Playstation3 to warrant its purchase. Although the games do look beautiful, the Blu-Ray player has never been a selling point for me because most of all my movies are not digital on my computer or in my dwindling DVD collection, so the main incentives for me to buy the Playstation3 would be a decrease in price coupled with some exclusive titles that I could only find on the Playstation3.

Final Fantasy XIII was that game. I have been a longtime Final Fantasy player, although the most recent couple I have not found as enjoyable. But all the videos, screenshots, and other information surrounding XIII made it the one game I wished to buy in the future, enough to warrant a purchase of another system. Thankfully, with the removal of the exclusivity, I can now play this awesome game and not have to shell out for a full system to play it.

I am not sure how many people might be similarly affected as I was by the announcement, but I am sure Sony will have some type of major announcement in the near future to try and negate any losses from this. Anytime a major title becomes non-exclusive, it has the ability to remove the deciding incentive that might be the difference between a consumer buying a new system, or just sticking with their old one. Think back if a title such as Call of Duty 4 had been exclusively Playstation3, or if Halo3 was nonexclusive (not possible, but lets stick with the theoretical). Either of those situations could have caused a major influx of business for the Playstation3, just because it would either provide an incentive to purchase that Playstation3 to play the game, or remove the incentive to purchase the xbox for Halo 3.

Either way, Playstation3 sales took a hit today.