Phil Spencer: Xbox is Looking Forward to Partnering Closely With Square Enix on Future Games - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 August 2023 / 7,455 Views
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer today announced the MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV, is coming to Xbox Series X|S in Spring 2024 with the release of Patch 7.0, while an open beta will start earlier with Patch 6.5X.
Spencer sharing his excitement on Twitter teased that the Xbox team will partner closely with Square Enix on future games from the publisher.
"Enjoyed being onstage with Yoshi-P and Kiryu-san to announce Final Fantasy XIV coming to Xbox," said Spencer. "We’re thrilled that the Xbox community will join the Warriors of Light and we look forward to partnering closely with Square Enix on future games."
Enjoyed being onstage with Yoshi-P and Kiryu-san to announce Final Fantasy XIV coming to Xbox. We’re thrilled that the Xbox community will join the Warriors of Light and we look forward to partnering closely with Square Enix on future games. pic.twitter.com/zq0ETkDFq1
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) July 28, 2023
Square Enix CEO Takashi Kiryu on stage during the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival 2023 keynote said, "First off, I have thank you Phil-san for making the Xbox version of Final Fantasy XIV a reality. This is a project that would not have been possible without Spencer's support. Please give him the biggest round of applause. As CEO of Square Enix, we want to continue to deliver fabulous games to fans across the globe.
"We want to welcome the Xbox community as well. Starting with today's announcement of Final Fantasy XIV coming in Spring 2024 and whenever possible, we are planning to bring our games to Xbox for players to enjoy."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Well at least they didnt buy them.
I don't think sony fans have to worry much. Considering square is not the company it used to be.
Damn! Makes me wonder what kind of announcements could be made at the Tokyo Game Show!
I'm all for it
As long they don't buy Square, I hope they get as many exclusives as they want
If they output is good I can even consider buying a better PC to play the games
"Whenever possible" Keep that in mind
Yeah but only the PC version has been announced and even Yoshi-P said to not expect the PC version to be ready in 6 months. Probably at least a year and if an Xbox version ever releases, even longer than that.
LOL yeah I played FF7R on PC and there was sooooooo much filler! I had to force myself to finish it. The last few chapters were really good though. The combat, music, and presentation was really top notch. I'm hoping with Rebirth the filler is kept to a minimum.
The graphics on my ps5 was stunning.. the combat grew on me.. if they cut 3/4 of the filler sidequest and kept the minigame, the game would been perfect. And between 20-25 hours which is just right lol. The graphics and the combat what got me to finish the game.
I hope rebirth has zero side quest and just have minigames like the gold saucer!. The final fantasy team has proven that they lack the ability to make decent sidequest. It's not their forte lol
FF16 is one year console exclusive, 6 months is only for PC. FF7R was supposed to be 1 year as well, but it has now been 3 years and still no Xbox port. We don't know if Sony paid to extend it beyond the original 1 year deal, or if Square just didn't think an Xbox port was worthwhile, but if it's the latter, seems like this new Square President may do a late FF7R port on Xbox.
Those trips to Japan have really paid off. The amount of Japanese games on Xbox these last several years is big improvement over last gen.
Seems to me like SE played a game of chicken with Xbox, and won. I mean, I don't necessarily blame them. I might´ve done the same thing if I was them.
Since the reason Square made FF16 exclusive for PS5 was because Sony offer was better than MS, so will that mean Xbox will start offering more money than Sony?
IIRC, FF14 specifically could've been on Xbox a long time ago, but SE had specific requirements that for a long time, Xbox wouldn't accept. I think SE running the servers rather than Xbox for the game was one of the demands. So FF14 is a special case that's been years in the making. Only time will tell on other games concerning SE at least.
https://kotaku.com/final-fantasy-14-xbox-series-xs-ps5-crossplay-dawntrail-1850687759#:~:text=Yoshida%20was%20asked%20as%20early,split%20into%20two%20or%20more.
According to the article, seems like the reason MS didnt get FF14 was because MS didn't want cross play back then and had restrictions, and this was before Sony started not wanting cross play a gen later. Also, I'd imagine it would've looked bad on MS part as they forced players to buy XBL to play online for 360 while it was still free online for PS3.
After 100 years,
ff14 finally made its way to xbox
The same company Microsoft PR-suckers were complaining about being locked down by Sony, magically being able to do business with Microsoft. It’s almost like Microsoft’s whole thing was a corporate spin?
Shocking! :D
You missed the "whenever possible" quote from SE's CEO. Meaning not everything is suddenly going to be coming to Xbox. Moneyhats are still going to be constraining what can and cannot come to Xbox. So yeah, lockdowns from Sony and even Nintendo will continue.
With how receptive SE's new CEO is towards Xbox though, it'll be interesting to see how new games are handled when it comes to platforms.
It's a new President, the previous Square President, Matsuda, was selling timed exclusivity deals to both Sony and Nintendo quite often the last few years, on games like FF7R, FF16, Forspoken, Babylon's Fall, Triangle Strategy, and Live a Live remake, and even on the games that weren't locked down by timed exclusivity deals, Square was skipping Xbox on many of those such as Neo TWEWY and Trials of Mana Remake and the FF Pixel Remasters.
The new President here seems to be indicating that the plan going forward for Square Enix is to release day one multiplatform as often as possible. Pretty telling that things suddenly change regarding Xbox support at Square Enix within about a month of Matsuda stepping down as President and being replaced by Kiryu.
MS could have got FF16 as well Sony made a better offer.
MS knew what kind of PR disaster that would be. It would make Tomb Raider in 2015 look like childs play. That would've been idiotic of Phil to do that and that reasoning really shouldn't even have been considered a possibility.
Partnering with SE to ensure their games come to Xbox in the future consistently is the best way to go. Also, it's a strange coincidence that for years SE didn't release their games on Xbox with the old CEO, then within a matter of months when the new CEO took over SE, suddenly they're much more receptive to working with Xbox.
That’s what being a major publisher is all about baby. Xbox going on a spending spree means they are now one of the big guns, which means that big 3rd parties can’t ignore you anymore. Or paid to “ignore” you.
It’s a different landscape now & This is exactly what Sony was terrified of.
As a consumer I’m ecstatic. Oh & I’ve owned every single console since the PS 1 era & I Don’t care who “wins”, I just want good games.
Why, why build games for the waste of time the SS is. If they come out and say the X is all we will focus on, then ok but i dont get why support a platform that have such a weak hardware offering that you cant skip due to ms policy
Took long enough. Probably MS funded the porting.
Xbox does finally have a development team specifically designed to assist developers in getting their games to work on Xbox called the Xbox Advanced Technology Group. They're who have been assisting Bethesda on Starfield and Larian on Baldur's Gate 3.
I wouldn't be surprised if they had a helping hand in getting FFXIV ported.
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/91344/xbox-advanced-technology-group-helping-optimize-starfields-performance/index.html
Phil closing his eyes as much as possible to blend in
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