Quote Originally Posted by Rase View Post
Bernie Stolar is the guy you're thinking of. As the first president of SCEA he implemented a "no RPG" policy in the early days of the Playstation because most at the time were 2D, which he felt didn't showcased the PS1's power. Therefore it's logical to infer he discouraged any games from being 2D during his time there. He was released from Sony after the first holiday season of the PLaystation and then went over to Sega, where he oversaw the Saturn and the time leading up to the Dreamcast launch, before being let go from there also.
He left Sony before Square had begun developing VII and we find games like Suikoden and Beyond the Beyond, which are 2D RPGs, being developed and released during his time and which were more likely to be affected by his influence.

What happened with VII was that "Kitase [...] was concerned the franchise might be left behind if it did not catch up to the 3D computer graphics used in other games at the time." (Wiki), and so they decided to make the game 3D. Sony may had preasured other developers to make their games 3D but when it comes to developing VII in 3D, it was all Square's doing.