The White Engine is a games engine produced for Square-Enix's future next generation games on the Playstation 3. It was originally going to be developed on the PS2 but was moved to the PS3 after the FFVII Tech Demo was made. The White Engine is capable of displaying graphics similar to pre-rendered CG without lag or slow frame rate. At GDC 2008, Square-Enix announced that they were renaming the White Engine to "Crystal Tools" and that it had been further developed to work on Xbox 360, PC and soon Wii.

Crystal Tools Logo

Currently Square-Enix has announced FFXIII, Versus and an un-named MMORPG are being developed on this engine however more may be announced in the future. For more detailed information on the Crystal Tools read the 1up.com Interview with Taku Murata.

The new technology made possible by the Playstation 3 means Final Fantasy XIII is capable of going far beyond the realms of any previous Final Fantasy. Here is some of the new functions made possible by the PS3.

The PS3 SIXAXIS controller comes with a motion control mechanism that allows you to control vehicles by tilting the controller back and forth and side to side. This is made easier by the new wireless controller using bluetooth which allows up to 7 players to be connected to the PS3 at once. FFXIII will have controllable vehicles and developers have hinted that SIXAXIS control will be used to control them. The release of the Dual Shock 3 controller means that vibration will most likely be included in both FFXIII and Versus.

SIXAXIS Dual Shock 3

The PS3 is capable of displaying games in High Definition thanks to the Blu-Ray medium. The huge amount of space available on these discs means the game can be displayed in far larger resolutions but still have the same amount of content. There are two types of HDTV which display either 720p or the slightly better 1080p. So far the only images released for FFXIII have been displayed in 720p. The likelyhood is that the game will be released in the full HD 1080p format.