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Final Fantasy VII was a landmark release not just for Japanese role-playing games, but for the PlayStation brand itself. Square's revered classic was PlayStation's first taste of Final Fantasy, with the series having made a name for itself on Nintendo hardware.

As many of you will know, Square actually shifted its focus to the original PlayStation console after Nintendo's decision to stick with cartridges for the N64 - a format that simply couldn't handle a title like Final Fantasy VII. Indeed, we need to remember that Cloud's memorable adventure originally shipped on three separate PlayStation discs. Those were the days, eh?

Square made a seemingly logical decision to jump over to Sony's system, then, but this apparently didn't go down too well with Nintendo. According to Polygon's Final Fantasy VII feature, which quotes character programmer Hiroshi Kawai, Nintendo told Square: "If you're leaving us, never come back."

"[Nintendo's] philosophy has always been that Nintendo hardware is for their games, and if a publisher wants to publish, 'OK you can do it.' But if you don't like it, 'We don't want you'," explains vice president Yoshihiro Maruyama. Old Ninty's never been that great with third parties, has it?

Anyway, despite all the bad blood that this business decision brought about, we're at least thankful that history played out the way that it did. If it hadn't, PlayStation may not have become the brand that we know today - which is pretty crazy when you think about it.

[source polygon.com, via nintendolife.com]