4 Reasons Why Star Ocean: The Last Hope is Coming to Playstation 3

Although Star Ocean: The Last Hope was first revealed with no specific platform in mind, many speculated that the latest game in the popular role-playing series will be coming to the Playstation 3. However, Star Ocean: The Last Hope ended up going to the Xbox 360 as an exclusive title. The exclusivity didn't last long, however, as Square Enix will release the fourth mainline Star Ocean game on the Playstation 3 nearly a year after the Xbox 360 version. So why did Square Enix decided to port Star Ocean: The Last Hope to the Playstation 3? Here are several contributing factors.

Low Sales
Although Star Ocean : The Last Hope for the Xbox 360 did well enough in both Japan and North America with 400,000 copies shipped so far, the sales were disappointing when taken into account the past's successes of the series. With role-playing games being more expensive to develop than ever, Square Enix needed to find more ways to earn back their investment. The most logical step financially is to port Star Ocean: The Last Hope to the Playstation 3.

Playstation 3 User Base in Japan
Many were shocked that Star Ocean: The Last Hope was originally released for only the Xbox 360. This is because the install base for the system in Japan was relatively small for the exclusive game to do well. Porting Star Ocean: The Last Hope to the Playstation 3 makes more sense since its install base is far bigger in Japan than the Xbox 360. The 25 million Playstation 3 units sold worldwide also tempted Square Enix to port the game.

Fan Base
Although the first Star Ocean game was originally released on the Super Nintendo, the rest came out on Sony platforms: Playstation with Star Ocean: The Second Story, Playstation 2 with Star Ocean: Till the End of Time and PSP with Star Ocean: First Departure and Star Ocean: Second Evolution. Therefore, Square Enix will be porting Star Ocean: The Last Hope to the Playstation 3 since the fan base for the series is on the Playstation platforms.

Square Enix's Investment on Playstation 3
Star Ocean: The Last Hope isn't the only Square Enix game coming to the Playstation 3. The Japanese publishers will be brining some of their most ambitious projects yet to the system in the very near future (Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII). In order to ensure that both games will sell, Square Enix needs Star Ocean: The Last Hope to help attract as much role-playing fans to the Playstation 3 as possible.

Because of the above reasons, it should come at no surprise that Square Enix decided to port Star Ocean: The Last Hope to the Playstation 3.