Multi-Platform Games You Associate with a Particular Platform

[Moonface]

I just saw a trailer for a Katamari game coming out soon for Switch 2, and not knowing much about that series I had been under the impression it was a Sony IP only to learn it actually belongs to Bandai Namco and also never exclusive to PlayStation (even if the other earlier games came out on mobile at a time mobile gaming was an afterthought). It got me thinking about other games that have never been exclusive to a platform, but are heavily associated with one as if they were exclusive to them for a time.

The most famous example will probably be Final Fantasy, which a lot of people probably view as a PlayStation series despite not being heavily associated with the platform for anything before FF7.

Another one that I always consider as a PlayStation series is Tomb Raider, even though it was always released simultaneously on both PS1 and PC until 2006's Tomb Raider: Legend when the series expanded to include Xbox and Nintendo consoles.

[Maniakkid25]

The most famous example will probably be Final Fantasy, which a lot of people probably view as a PlayStation series despite not being heavily associated with the platform for anything before FF7.

That would probably be because Sony consoles didn't exist when FF1-6 came out. Before then, Square/SquareSoft was a Nintendo series, bay-bee! Funnily enough, Square originally planned for FF7 to be on the then-next Nintendo console (the N64), only to find out that it was going to be another cartridge-based console, and walked out on that basis alone. Cartridges just didn't have the capacity to meet their demands compared to that new-fangled "CD-ROM" technology everyone was getting hyped over.

Resident Evil is probably a strong contender for this sort of thing for Playstation. While games did come out on other consoles, Resident Evil was biggest on the Playstation consoles until Resident Evil 4 came along. SMT is another example; while starting on Nintendo consoles, they didn't come to the West until the Playstation was a thing, and mostly released on those consoles until SMT 4 on the 3DS, so most Westerners would probably associate them with Sony. Which is peak irony, because they're owned by SEGA now, a former hardware manufacturer.

[Moonface]

The most famous example will probably be Final Fantasy, which a lot of people probably view as a PlayStation series despite not being heavily associated with the platform for anything before FF7.

That would probably be because Sony consoles didn't exist when FF1-6 came out. Before then, Square/SquareSoft was a Nintendo series, bay-bee! Funnily enough, Square originally planned for FF7 to be on the then-next Nintendo console (the N64), only to find out that it was going to be another cartridge-based console, and walked out on that basis alone. Cartridges just didn't have the capacity to meet their demands compared to that new-fangled "CD-ROM" technology everyone was getting hyped over.

Oh yeah, I know those games had no choice but to be associated with anything but PlayStation prior to FF7, which is why I find it so wild how the series isn't more heavily associated with any of the consoles prior to the PlayStation. Or rather, at least in the West where the Final Fantasy games were repackaged and released at random times whilst in Japan I wouldn't be surprised if more people associate it with Nintendo because that market had the most exposure to that era of Final Fantasy.

Resident Evil is probably a strong contender for this sort of thing for Playstation. While games did come out on other consoles, Resident Evil was biggest on the Playstation consoles until Resident Evil 4 came along.

I had to go look this up because I actually thought Resident Evil was initially just a PlayStation title until Xbox and GameCube came along, only to see it's very similar to Tomb Raider. Rayman is another one too that I know was on other platforms but for me it's a PlayStation game, despite knowing that Rayman 2 was released to enough different platforms to make Skyrim blush and the PS1 version of Rayman 2 is one of the most altered versions on home console.

[Dragon Lord]

The most famous example will probably be Final Fantasy, which a lot of people probably view as a PlayStation series despite not being heavily associated with the platform for anything before FF7.

That would probably be because Sony consoles didn't exist when FF1-6 came out. Before then, Square/SquareSoft was a Nintendo series, bay-bee! Funnily enough, Square originally planned for FF7 to be on the then-next Nintendo console (the N64), only to find out that it was going to be another cartridge-based console, and walked out on that basis alone. Cartridges just didn't have the capacity to meet their demands compared to that new-fangled "CD-ROM" technology everyone was getting hyped over.

Oh yeah, I know those games had no choice but to be associated with anything but PlayStation prior to FF7, which is why I find it so wild how the series isn't more heavily associated with any of the consoles prior to the PlayStation. Or rather, at least in the West where the Final Fantasy games were repackaged and released at random times whilst in Japan I wouldn't be surprised if more people associate it with Nintendo because that market had the most exposure to that era of Final Fantasy.

Well, Final Fantasy didn't take off in the West until the "golden era" of the series, which to many is 7-10 and Tactics, which were all PlayStation exclusive titles when they originally released. Before that, the series was really rocky over here, because the releases were so inconsistent. We got the very first game on the NES, didn't get the original Final Fantasy II or Final Fantasy III, instead our "Final Fantasy II" on the SNES was actually Final Fantasy IV, and our "Final Fantasy III" on the SNES was actually Final Fantasy VI. For whatever reason, SquareSoft was very inconsistent at releasing the titles over here. Outside of those three, we also got one of my personal favorite games of all-time (no matter how bad it is, I will always love it dearly) in Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, which was actually created by the North American branch of SquareSoft at the time and was made for the purpose of giving "those stupid Western folk" a piss-easy "baby's first JRPG" experience. Back then they thought Westerners were too stupid to handle their games, and one of the big reasons why they didn't bring the original FFIII/FFV over here was because they thought we'd be too confused by the job system to be able to play the games.

It took many years for Square to finally get around to fixing those terrible release decisions. It wasn't until the late 90s/early 2000s when we got PS1 ports of FFI, II, IV, V and VI that the series naming was corrected for us. They still didn't give us FFIII though for whatever reason, and we'd have to wait until the eventual DS remake of the game to get our first official release of the title in the West (which is hilarious because they didn't bring OG FFIII over because they thought it would be too hard, but then they brought over the extremely ball-busting DS remake of the game as the first localization of it -- and yes, the DS remakes of FF3 and FF4 are known for being extremely difficult compared to any other versions of the game). 

As for Japan, it's probably because Final Fantasy is not nearly as popular over there. Dragon Quest has always owned the love of the Japanese gamers, and Final Fantasy was looked upon as an inferior little brother by a lot of people. Final Fantasy is one of those weird cases where it wasn't until they started to really invest in western localization (again, with FF7) that the series skyrocketed in popularity outside of Japan. But the series has always lived in the shadow of Dragon Quest in Japan. Dragon Quest's popularity over there is so large that there's a running joke that the release day of a new Dragon Quest game is a national holiday and a lot of people actually do call out of work because they want to stay home and binge the crap out of it. 

tl;dr: Final Fantasy is associated with PlayStation mainly because the series didn't explode in popularity until the PS1 era of games, starting with FF7 and the series was never mega popular in Japan just because everyone over there is all about Dragon Quest.

EDIT: There's also the fact that mainline FF was exclusive to PlayStation all the way through 12, until 13 finally broke that streak by releasing on Xbox 360 as well. But then FFXVI, VII Remake and VII Rebirth all having timed exclusivity with PlayStation reinforcing that image once more. Nintendo only continued to get spin-off titles like the Crystal Chronicle games, the two Tactics Advance games, etc., which not many people outside of mega Final Fantasy fans paid attention to during that time period. Kingdom Hearts games being exclusive to PlayStation during this time probably really helped reinforce the image of FF being a PlayStation series as well.