PlayStation 2's CPU Was "So Overpowered" That It Raised Military Concerns
Final Fantasy 9 was harder to test than expected.
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It's no secret that Sony makes amazing hardware. Sometimes a bit too amazing perhaps.
Final Fantasy's designer Kazuhiko Aoki revealed that back in the 90s, Final Fantasy 9 was supposed to be tested on PlayStation 2, but shipping to the team in Hawaii was complicated because of the device's "overpowered" CPU.
"Towards the end of my time in Hawaii, there was talk of sending me some sort of PS2 testing equipment so that I could check if FF9 would run on the PS2," Aoki told Famitsu (translated by GamesRadar+). "But at that time, the PS2's CPU was so overpowered there was the possibility that it would be used for military purposes, so exports were restricted."
Eventually, the developers received the console, but "it took quite some time": "It was a very difficult situation."
It's not the first time military and government decisions have baffled us: in 1999, the National Security Agency (NSA) announced a "Furby Alert", prohibiting the evil-looking toys from its spaces because it thought the creatures could learn languages by listening to their owners and analyze sensitive information.
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