Electronic Gaming Monthly · Issue 94, May 1997 · Final Fantasy VII
EGM's extensive pre-release coverage of Final Fantasy VII — including its announcement as a PlayStation exclusive following a stunning E3 1995 tech demo — was instrumental in positioning the game as a cultural event and establishing the PlayStation as the home for Japanese RPG fans.
Final Fantasy VII's Western arrival was anticipated with an urgency unusual even for the most anticipated games of the era. Square's decision to abandon Nintendo in favor of Sony's CD-ROM platform was documented and analyzed by EGM in real time, creating a narrative of platform allegiance and genre migration that made the game's eventual release feel like the culmination of a years-long drama. The magazine's coverage tracked the game from its famous pre-rendered tech demo at E3 1995 through Squaresoft's Sony partnership announcement, its 1996 Japanese release, and its August 1997 North American launch. EGM's role in building Western anticipation for FF7 was substantial, and the game's commercial success — over ten million copies sold globally in its initial release — validated both the PlayStation platform and the JRPG genre's mainstream viability.
Chronicling Square's seismic platform switch and building the Western anticipation that made Final Fantasy VII's launch one of the most commercially successful RPG releases of the decade.
Square's defection from Nintendo to Sony was one of the most consequential business decisions in gaming history, and EGM covered it with the urgency it deserved. When Square announced at Space World 1996 that Final Fantasy VII would be a PlayStation title rather than an N64 cartridge, it signaled to the industry that Sony had won the hearts of Japanese developers with the CD-ROM format's storage capacity and more developer-friendly licensing terms. Nintendo's cartridge format, beloved for its loading-free gameplay, had become a liability for complex, cinematic games that needed gigabytes rather than megabytes.
EGM's coverage connected the business decision to its creative consequences: Final Fantasy VII could tell its story with full-motion video cutscenes, orchestrated music, and three discs of content precisely because it was on PlayStation. The three-CD format was itself a statement — this was not a game but an event, something that would unfold over dozens of hours and require physical management of media that no Nintendo cartridge game had ever demanded.
The Western gaming press's sustained coverage of the platform switch and its implications helped create a sense of historical significance around FF7 before most Western players had played it. By the time the game arrived in North America in August 1997, it carried the weight of years of anticipation and narrative, which contributed to both its commercial success and the emotional intensity with which fans received it.
Final Fantasy VII's Western commercial success — built on EGM and other publications' sustained coverage — was transformative for the JRPG genre's status in North America and Europe. Before FF7, Japanese RPGs were a niche enthusiasm, enjoyed by dedicated fans but unknown to the mainstream gaming audience. After FF7 sold hundreds of thousands of copies in its first week in North America, every publisher with a JRPG in development suddenly had a path to the mainstream market.
The game's success also demonstrated that Western players would engage with the genre's conventions — random battles, turn-based combat, elaborate equipment systems — if the story and production values were compelling enough. FF7's cinematic ambition, its emotional story beats, and its genuinely shocking narrative turns (Aerith's death remains among gaming's most discussed moments) proved that the audience existed. EGM's role in preparing that audience for what they were about to experience cannot be overstated; magazine coverage in the months before the launch familiarized players with the game's systems and built the emotional investment that made its story beats land so hard.