 Following the public's positive reaction to the graphics of the Final Fantasy VII Technical Demo for PS3 presented at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 2005, it was decided to release the RPG Final Fantasy XIII on the PlayStation 3 rather than the PlayStation 2 as originally planned. In August 2005, the Technology Division began working on the White Engine, a PlayStation 3 engine that was supposed to be exclusively used for Final Fantasy XIII. Eight months later, however, it was decided to repurpose the engine to further make it compatible with other projects such as the action RPG Final Fantasy Versus XIII (later rebranded and repurposed into Final Fantasy XV) and the massively multiplayer online RPG (MMORPG) Final Fantasy XIV. In order for the company to stay competitive in a multi-platform environment, support of the engine was extended from the PlayStation 3 to the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows, both of which were successful in Western markets. This marked the official development start of a company-wide engine for whose purpose the Technology Division was expanded into the Research and Development Division in September 2006. Murata remained the division's general manager with a full-time staff at his disposal.
