'Final Fantasy VII': Why We Never Saw A Square Enix Game In Nintendo Console

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Both Nintendo and Square Enix have grown to be two of the most prominent names in the video game industry that the rift between the two companies has been forgotten with time. During the 80s, the two companies actually had a great working relationship up until Square Enix decided to take its "Final Fantasy" video game to Sony's PlayStation.

In an article featured in Polygon, the men behind the company that created the popular "Final Fantasy" video game franchise looked back at its history. A reading of the article reveals that the history of Square Enix is tied with that of Nintendo's. 

During the early days of Square Enix, then known as Squaresoft, the video game company had decided to put all its chips on the Nintendo NES game console. Though Square Enix has found a bit of successes by developing video games for PC, the company has decided to tie its fate with the then newly launched Nintendo game console.

Square Enix launched a number of video games for the Nintendo NES but none found real success, not until the video game developer released "Final Fantasy". The "Final Fantasy" video game gave the company its first real commercial success.

The increasing popularity of "Final Fantasy" has also generated substantial revenue for Nintendo. The collaboration between the two video game companies has resulted in six "Final Fantasy" games and a number of other more titles.  When it was time to launch the "Final Fantasy VII", Square Enix found it really difficult to integrate its planned 3D graphics in the limited space provided by Nintendo 64 cartridges. It was at that time that the company decided to explore other routes which led them to Sony PlayStation.

Hiroshi Kawai, the character programmer of Square Japan, said that when they told Nintendo about their decision, Nintendo told them that if they decide to leave then they should never come back. After Square Enix took "Final Fantasy VII" to PlayStation, no video games from the company were launched for Nintendo.