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The floor caved in when Nintendo announced their freshly re-dubbed N64 would be cartridge-based, not CD-ROM.

Nintendo’s about-face left Square hanging. Their passion project simply would not fit onto a cartridge, and Sakaguchi refused to diminish it. He and Kitase both had long experience chopping game elements to fit Nintendo hardware limitations, but this time they just couldn’t do it. They took their epic to Sony instead.

As far as Nintendo saw it, that betrayal made Square the enemy. Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi publicly vowed Final Fantasy would never appear on a Nintendo console again. Each company dumped the other’s stock, burning off all financial ties and severing every connection.

Here’s a pleasant surprise for the day.

From the Atlus press release:

OPERATION DARKNESS DEMO NOW AVAILABLE ON XBOX LIVE® MARKETPLACE
Download WWII strategy RPG action with vampires, werewolves, and the undead!

IRVINE, CALIFORNIA — APRIL 24 — Atlus U.S.A., Inc. today announced the launch of the official Operation Darkness demo on Xbox LIVE Marketplace. This epic fantasy WWII turn-based strategy game demo features one mission offering a variety of attack options and access to some of the more unique spells in the game (werewolves, anyone?).

Operation Darkness is currently scheduled for release on June 24 for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft.