Odds are, sometime in 2007 Square-Enix looked at the market and saw the following:
Japan:
DS is huge in Japan and has the highest attach rate in Japan, PSP was making inroads on a hardware basis, but cost more to develop for and sold fewer games. Wii will have a big base in Japan, but has a low attach rate, especially for 3rd party games. PS3 has a base too small for Final Fantasy XIII and the like until at least 2009, but the gamers buy more third party games on average, despite a comparable overall attach rate to Wii. Xbox 360 has a tiny base in Japan, but the users buy six or seven games relative to the 3-4 a Wii, PSP or PS3 owner buys, and relative to the 5-6 a DS owner buys.
Decision:
Low tech games will go on DS short term.
Projects that would have been standard PS2 fare in 2002-2005 will be split between PSP in the short term, and Wii in the longer term for Japan.
High tech projects will go to PS3 when it became viable.
But...
It also became apparent with PS3 launching 18 months after 360 in Europe, and with Xbox 360 selling better with a wider base already established in the Americas it would be foolish to keep content off 360 given that through at least 2009, potentially much longer, the Xbox 360 will have a bigger base in the Western markets, and by extension, the world.
Even though the Wii attach rate is quite high in the west (6-8) Square-Enix probably wouldn't have reached the numbers it wanted for FFXIII and similar games even with that base because of the situation in Japan.
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
When there are more laws, there are more criminals.
- Lao Tzu
