Yes, Final Fantasy XIII is coming to the Xbox 360. In fact, not only is it coming, but the 360 version is slated for simultaneous American and European launch alongside the PlayStation 3 release. Sony fans no doubt feel betrayed; Microsoft groupies have something to mitigate the bitter banality of the company’s E3 press conference. Discussion threads will burn bitterly into the night on forums across the Internet. E3 is smaller this year, but it still offers great conversation pieces.

But is this new twist in the long-running FFXIII saga really surprising? The writing was on the wall at this year’s Game Developers Conference when Square Enix announced it’s multiplatform Crystal Tools Development environment. Designed to facilitate the simultaneous creation of games for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 (and Wii, to a lesser extent), Crystal Tools mostly served to paint a clearer picture of the schizophrenic divide between the company’s two very different halves. Western-focused games like The Lost Remnant come from the Enix portion of the corporation, which means it’s being developed by an external studio on Unreal Engine 3. Crystal Tools appears to have been created exclusively for the use of Square’s internal teams, for the creation of games with the self-described "Square style," that elusive mix of cutting-edge technology and beautiful-yet-angst-ridden characters struggling to simultaneously save the world and emote. At the moment, Square’s known, internal current-gen projects boil down to FFXIII, it’s spin-off, and a mysterious massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Coupled with the rising costs of game development and the fact that nothing substantial has been revealed of FFXIII since its debut at E3 2006 more than two years ago, the subtext of Crystal Tools should’ve been obvious: FFXIII was destined to go multiplatform, if only to cut the company’s losses.

Immediately after Microsoft revealed the news of the game’s new platform destination, Square Enix’s Shinji Hashimoto and Yoshinori Kitase (a corporate executive and FFXIII’s producer, respectively) met with the press for a question-and-answer session regarding the game. The actual substance of the press conference was expectedly lacking; Square Enix’s intentions for E3 clearly began and ended with announcing the game’s move to Xbox 360. New details on things like "gameplay" and "characters" won’t appear until the company’s big Final Fantasy event next month in Tokyo. Still, the subtext was every bit as enlightening as the details we were given.

Perhaps most notably, FFXIII’s move to 360 is exclusively a development for the West. "The Japanese plans for 360 haven’t changed," said Hashimoto. "We considered the situation, and we would like to provide the game to as many fans as possible given the spread of the hardware." As the Xbox 360 is extremely popular in the West and practically a nonentity in Japan, the split decision makes sense. Furthermore, the migration to 360 is clearly a recent decision. According to Hashimoto, development has yet to begin in earnest for Microsoft’s console. "We’re ready to start developing FFXIII for 360," he said. "First, we will complete the game for PS3 in Japan, then begin localization for America and Europe while developing the 360 version simultaneously. The PS3 and 360 versions will be released at the same time outside of Japan ? although, due to language and other conditions, the game may not be released simultaneously across territories."

In short, the series’ core market -- Japanese RPG fans, who have a long history of loyalty to Sony platforms -- will be catered to first and foremost. Hashimoto promises the company will do its best to bring the localized versions of the game to market more quickly than previous FF games, which have often taken nine or 10 months to hit the U.S. -- and even longer in Europe. Good intentions notwithstanding, this essentially makes cross-platform development in Crystal Tools a function of localization. It will be interesting to see if Square takes this approach with future releases or if it’s simply a side effect of the fairly recent decision to take FFXIII to 360. And Square has yet to determine its plan for other Asian markets, where the console industry lacks the clear-cut distinctions that characterize Japan and the West.

One gets the impression that FFXIII’s multiplatform plans are an experiment -- the less charitable might even suspect the company is groping in the dark. Hashimoto freely admitted that he doesn’t know how this shared-platform approach will work out. "We want to ask your opinion," he said. "We’ve just made the announcement [of the 360 version], and now we’ll begin to research the market. Further decisions will be made after some research."

The company’s in the dark even on technical considerations. "The content will be the same on both platforms," said Kitase. "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. Currently the game is being built on PC, where it’s actually functional. 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."

But don’t despair, Final Fantasy fans; the conference wasn’t all cautious no-comments and bad news. The move to Crystal Tools seems to be serving a dual purpose; not only will FFXIII be appearing on 360, but the development process has reportedly sped up. "Now that we’re developing on a PC base, the pace is going a bit faster," Kitase said. "We haven’t introduced new footage of the game, but we should be able to show something new in the near future."

For the time being, though, FFXIII remains nothing more than a very pretty prerendered trailer. With luck, or at least a little more openness on Square’s part, we’ll have more concrete details to report soon.