The most surprising announcement from the Microsoft Press Conference held today at E3, video gaming’s biggest expo, was the news that Final Fantasy XIII is coming to the Xbox 360. Square-Enix’s next installment in one of the most successful franchises of all was previously to be released on the PlayStation 3 only.

Ever since the original PlayStation was launched Final Fantasy has been a franchise whose main installments have all been exclusive to the Sony format. This includes Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2 and XII. Final Fantasy XI is a massively multiplayer game that has appeared on other formats such as the Xbox 360 and PC. The first six installments were on Nintendo consoles, and the move by Squaresoft to the PlayStation over the Nintendo 64 is said to be one of the factors in the success of Sony over Nintendo in that generation of consoles. In the previous two console generations Final Fantasy has been the third biggest seller after Pokemon and Dragon Quest, so this is a big coup for Microsoft, one sure to rattle gaming forums the world over.

For more information about how it happened, we have posted a summary of the Microsoft press event.