"Development of Final Fantasy VII began in 1994 and the game was originally intended for the SNES , but it was later moved to the Nintendo 64 . As the system's cartridges lacked space, Square decided to release the game for Sony's PlayStation instead." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_fantasy_7

It was a coin toss between the Playstation and the Sega Saturn .If Soft decided to put their masterpiece on the Saturn, Sony's reign of dominance that lasted for over a decade would have been cut short with Sega taking its place .

Theres no "if" for Nintendo they stubbornly wanted to stick to cartridges and.....well the rest as you all know is history.

Square announced on 01/12/1996 it would be developing Final Fantasy VII for the Play Station

Sega Saturn was released 05/11/1995

Sony PlayStation was released 12/03/1994

"Sega Saturn was released 05/11/1995" - Wrong, saturn was released 1 week before PS1 in Japan.

Also, Sega Saturn and PS1 were neck and neck in Japan before FF7 came out, so I actually agree with the rest of the post. Had it been announced for the saturn, PS1 would have still won that gen, but saturn would have been a close second and would have owned Japan.

Would have been 70 mil for ps1, 50 mil for saturn, 30 mil for n64.

The Saturn released Nov 22 1994

The Sony Brand does other things besides games. Its also alive because of there great gameS and hardware.

So i guess other games such as say...
Final Fantasy 8/9
Gran Turismo 1/2
Metal Gear Solid
Resident Evil 1/2/3
Tekken 1/2/3
Crash Bandicoot 1/2/3

Had absolutely no affect on the Playstation.

playstation still exist only because of grand turismo, the other titles were helphul but not as much as grand turismo was.

Well, considering that the PS2's DVD drive made it extremely popular, I doubt that FF could have saved Sega after the PS1 generation.

You have to understand the ripple effect FF7 caused.

Here you have Saturn actually leading Ps1 in Japan... In US it was getting outsold  2 to 1 but it just had Virtua Cop, Virta Fighter 2 and Sega Rally come out which shut up the critics. Saturn actually looked promissing in early 1996...Sega boss told everyone to stop making all sega consoles other than Saturn. But then... Square announces FF7 for PS1. BAM!

Tomb Raider - a saturn exclusive gets a PS1 port, all other developers realize PS1 is the shit this gen...Sega starts getting owned in US and finally loses Japan christmas 1996. FF7 comes out January 1997 in Japan...destroys all.

All the other games were PS1 exclusives due to the fact that PS1 got the giant lead because of FF7.

Wow, this thread is massive fail.

You have a much better case with Gran Turismo

Not true. GT came out long after PS1 was established as the dominant platform. FF7 made the difference when Saturn and PS1 were still duking it out in the trenches. Neither had a substantial lead to justify exclusive development...