After the recent announcement of the release date of Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, which will once again be available on virtually all existing platforms except Xbox, it is clear how Square Enix has no intention of factoring Microsoft platforms into its release plans and one really has to wonder what went wrong between the two companies, because something must be behind it. There is no mention of delays in releases or time exclusive agreements, which have always existed and which are now considered normality especially between Japanese publishers and Sony, but of cases in which Xbox is regularly banned in the planning of exits, which perhaps still include multiple platforms. In addition to the historical case of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, whose exclusive relationship would seem to have expired but which never arrived on this console, we are talking about the aforementioned Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, Octopath Traveler 2 and various others.
The most widespread idea, also implicitly supported by developers in some situations, is that Square Enix games they don’t sell enough on Xbox, but this too is a motivation that has several dubious elements. Apart from that in the case of Pixel Remasters, as also noted by Jez Corden in his article on the state of relations between Square Enix and Microsoft, we are talking about games that are made available on any format, including the Amazon Fire Tablet but not on Xboxes. In any case, to give up with such conviction a potential audience of 50-60 million users (considering Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S according to very low estimates) would mean regularly forecasting sales equal to almost zero, considering how the cost of conversion of some of these titles seems to be extremely low and the recovery of at least this cost requires modest sales, therefore it would seem an overly pessimistic forecast.
The hardware architectures are already particularly similar to each other but what’s more, nowadays, if you convert to PC, the additional work to be done to launch the title on Xbox is not exactly prohibitive, and most Square Enix games they come out on the Windows platform. Of course, they must be taken into consideration costs of licensing, certification, optimization and all the consequent support, but on an already multiplatform title they should be recovered even without reaching shocking sales.
Especially since some titles would certainly count on a potential audience, such as Final Fantasy 7 Remake for which Xbox users have always shown great interest or Final Fantasy 16: the previous chapters released on this platform have certainly sold much less than the PlayStation, but not a quantity tending to zero such as to justify the deleting any port projects on the platform. There therefore seems to be a sort of “political” choice behind it, or some strategic evaluation that goes beyond the simple quantity of copies, also because the trend of these exclusions is rather erratic given that it does not concern some titles whose commercial potential on Xbox is at least as doubtful as The DioField Chronicle and Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, regularly released on Microsoft consoles. We have also witnessed the absurd case of Octopath Traveler which has the first chapter present on Xbox but not on PlayStation, while the second comes out on PlayStation and not on Xbox: despite the explanations given by Square Enix on sales and the desire to concentrate resources , the result is at least bizarre.
The question therefore seems to be related to a difficult relationship between the two companies, as also highlighted by Corden on Windows Central, also because the low retail sales could be compensated by agreements related to Xbox Game Pass, for example, but on this front even Microsoft itself does not seem to want to commit itself too much with the Japanese publisher. After the grace period that led to the launch of Outriders and Octopath Traveler at the launch on the Game Pass, something seems to have definitely cracked. Indeed, the difficult relationships in terms of time exclusives and partnerships could go back to the notorious time exclusive of Rise of the Tomb Raider, given that the estrangement between the two entities seems to date back to that period and to the rash reactions that this agreement unleashed between the public and press. The simplest explanation certainly concerns the issue of poorer sales on Microsoft consoles, but the idea is that there may still be something else behind it. This may not have to do exclusively with agreements made between Square Enix and Sony, but also and perhaps above all with the lack of harmony and capacity for agreement between Microsoft and Square Enix.
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