New Rumour Weighs In On Difficulties Between Xbox And Square Enix

Can't be all that bad if they let xbox have octopath traveler 1 and not playstation. Unless that was something to do with Nintendo.

If you have basically no presence in their 'home' territory, don't sell enough copies of JRPG's to make the cost of porting, optimising, manufacturing, distributing, updating and 'supporting' for the life of a game to break even, then you have to ask is that SE's fault or not.

Not saying that is the case - but Sony and Nintendo dominate in Japan where Sales of Japanese games are at their strongest. They can reach the vast majority of Consumers without needing to release on Xbox and Sony has a lead in most regions too so the 'cost' to port and release on Xbox may not equate to enough sales to justify the cost.

They may also expect MS to pay more/take less from each sale to offset the costs and ensure profitability on Xbox but MS may not be willing to compromise.

At the end of the day, we will probably never know. If you 'must' play SE games, you are better off owning a Playstation and/or Switch. You'll never get EVERY game Day/date on a single 'Platform'...

These vague statements are all so annoying. They do nothing to dispel any current speculation and only end up creating more questions and wild theories. It's almost like he's just out for attention...

I checked the tweets and it doesn't seem to be stating anything. With how vague his responses are, he could just be trying to stir the pot

Jez, Square is selling to Sony as soon as actiblizz goes through. Cmon man it's been obvious for quite a while.

Microsoft peed in Squares Cheerios.

I'd bet my last dollar they tried to purchase Square and someone took great offense.

Square-Enix still thinks Rise of the Tomb Raider underperformed and blames Xbox/MS. 😄

As for Jez Corden, "you can't just say 'not what I heard'", or you are stoking more rumors and conjecture.

I wonder if Microsoft were gonna buy the western part of Square Enix but pulled out when Activision Blizzard came knocking.

"I know a thing but I can't say it's true for sure and I won't tell anyone what it is I know or why it is I know it"
-Internet gaming news of 2023.

I don't imagine it's likely that Microsoft is intentionally doing bad business with Square given their intentional push toward getting Japanese devs onboard, unless it's a situation where Square is being unreasonable in things they want, or due to their business with Sony isn't presenting opportunities MS is amenable to. I can see "not enough sales" being the reason, but, then, just like with Nintendo before Switch, if you don't build a market for your games on a platform, of course sales are low for your games on that platform, so it's very chicken and egg. There's definitely something wrong there though, it's not normal for a publisher to just cut off a platform suddenly.

I'm still also not convinced Sony is buying them. Unless it's a Jim Ryan knee jerk response to ABK, a bad one, which I'd expect nothing less from him, but it just doesn't make a lot of business sense, they have the milk, they don't need to pay for the cow, and if they do they also get a heap of dung. It mostly ends up an expensive IP purchase as there's not much for them from the company itself.

@BAMozzy Games like FF actually sell better abroad than in Japan. Japanese gaming outside Switch is really in the toilet, and most Japanese games outside really niche stuff really sells best worldwide. I'm not saying they sell well at all on Xbox currently, but regions where Xbox is strong is where those games actually do most of their business, not Japan, anymore, so it's still relevant for them.

@cragis0001@grumblevolcano had thought the same thing, if not all of Square west, then Crystal Dynamics at least. I could see a planned buyout that fell through setting off bad blood. From the outside though the whole situation seems incredibly unless it's in prep for a Sony buyout, but I still think Sony buying Square would be "dumb decision #4732" from Jim. Popular with the fandom though. Which might be the first time he's ever done anything popular with fans, lol. Sony's strategy (good or bad) benefits more from purchases like Square's western studios, not the Japanese studios. They're looking for more prominent services games to fill that Minecraft/CoD/Candy Crush niche MS is getting, not more niche JRPG customers that they already have under lock and key.

I think people just want answers regarding why this is happening. It sucks for Xbox-only gamers to not get these games without any concrete reasons.

At least give us something resembling truth rather than leaving the internet to stir up garbage.

@Jenkinss Maybe. Would Sony really want to buy them, though? Sony seems pretty miserly. They would rather spend tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to block games from Xbox (and PC), than spend billions to take on debt and further responsibilities. It is odd that they bother to make multi-plats exclusive so frequently these days (considering their market share). Got to wonder if actual data tells them, it pays off.

Sony likes having market share weight to through around and extra cash to buy exclusivity. They seem risk averse and would rather ABK foot the bill of CoD development and Square do the same for their RPGs, while they make 30% and promote their platform. What if Sony owned SE, developed and released Forspoken as an exclusive? Japan would not be pleased.

We will see what happens. They can't make any acquisitions while complaining about ABK.

@GamingFan4Lyf Truth, from Square-Enix? I also like riding unicorns that shoot rainbows from their tails.

That's what irritates me most about square these days. They simply never state the truth about anything, and they make up ever more bizarre rationale for things. (Yet they don't comment on Xbox at all.) If they just said the cold reality of anything we could understand it but they always have this "Spot isn't coming back, we brought him to a farm where he'll be really happy", vibe to absolutely everything that comes out of their mouths even when it makes no sense.

"Nothing to say about DQXI on Switch"
"Still nothing"
"Can't talk about it due to adult reasons"

"KH was never about FF characters, that was just something use to make the first game sell better, it's all about Disney and unique characters"

"FF is all about epic stories, characters and best in class visuals" (Omits ever saying it's actually an RPG...)

"Tomb raider 2013 under performed."
"Guardians underperformed"
"We need to better align studios we assign projects to because Avengers failed badly"
"??????? Underperformed"
"FFXV Underperformed"
"We sold all our western studios for $20 and a pack of Pocky Sticks. and will invest the proceeds into NFT (we won't.)"

Today's winner "The game (FFXVI, coming to PC after a delay) would still have been in development without the memory and SSD of PS5" - because somehow not dumping as much into memory would have made the game take drastically longer to develop and the SSD that the OTHER console also has and the PC players WON'T be required to have changed the whole game design?

"Truth" and "Square" just don't go together. I do feel like that company has something of the same work culture as ABK, just in a "more Japanese way." These guys sound like hostages. Heck, there's the whole Yuji Naka Balan Wonderworld lawsuit thing....I mean from before Yuji was dragged off to prison for insider trading, lol.

This producer is all in on the company Kool Aid because they gave him a long leash. But most of anyone else that meant anything in the company bailed ages ago...doesn't seem healthy in there.

At this point I trust Andrew Wilson far more than anyone at Square-Enix. He's been righting his ship, somehow.

Edit: I forgot the other recent classic from them that was actually against Sony players: "We didn't want to put Octopath 1 on PS because it would confuse people about the sequel."

It's not just anti-Xbox, even when it's anti-Sony they just have a smarmy, scripted, company-legal-endorsed canned statement ready for every question whenever they talk, and the reason is always blatantly obvious it's a PR stonewall answer and not anything close to an actual answer.

SE has been at war with other console manufacturers for decades. They just had to find a new target after making up with Nintendo.

Maybe it has something to do with the NFT shop that Sony has been working at, and Xbox saying to SE they don’t want to develop such a thing…?

Those 2 follow-ups tweets from the other twitter users seem like really random responses to the initial tweet. “This isn’t even Xbox’s fault”… like okay but the initial tweet didn’t hint that it was? Maybe I missed something as I don’t really understand twitter.

Anyway would love to know the reason. Maybe Phil Spencer should comment.

@Friendly To be fair to SE, they were never at war with Nintendo, Nintendo was at war with them. Yamauchi's arrogance let to the "if you take FF to PS, don't bother coming back" schtick that was accompanied by a low cost lunch invite which in Japanese business culture at the time was basically like the US equivalent of arranging a business meeting at a McDonald's in the bad part of town to tell them if you do business with a competitor you're cutting all ties with them.

So Nintendo earned that blacklist, they specifically asked for it. And Yamauchi's ego wouldn't let that change until Iwata spent years mending fences.

Microsoft is a different kettle of fish. They had an agreement to buy Square at one point that fell through because Square revised the price too high. Then Sony owned a stake for a while. But we don't, publicly, now of any bad blood, and there's no way that Spencer is a Yamauchi-like "my way or the highway" kind of figure. IDK what went down. I don't think it's all down to Sony. But IDK that it's simply down to low sales, either.

No matter how you spin it or slice it. They are being petty. Is call of duty pulling off of Sony cuz it's behavior? No. So this pretty much wraps it for me with square. I just wanted to have ff3 available to me for the millionth time on the console I play the most. I have no interest in playing every ff game. I'd rather ms team up and fund a bof game and still let it be multiplat. Cuz square allows Sony to do this to them is on them. I don't even buy their half arsed games anyway. Remember Sony pulled their d4 ads in retaliation to ms. They are trying to make it look strangely personal but it's not really. So personally when it comes to stories I just like riot forge games and stories. But back to a bof remake I think it's time for some giant dragons and a transforming main characters. I also think capcom has really good beast mechanics and remakes are where they are getting good. Just fund it so Sony doesn't try to leave you out again like sf5. Lol yea Sony funded it but sf6 sure did seems like it came out much faster. Fund it! Fund a bof!

As a spectator it is a weird relationship but I wouldn’t mind if Sony would buy SE (still a big if imo). At least then everybody knows what to expect and carry on but the first Octopath Traveler wasn’t on PS. Maybe they are using a dartboard for releasing an OT game 😄

@NEStalgia thank you for your comment, i didn’t know all that, very informative!

Sony is the one at fault I guess, they pay square enix to stay on ps and keep games from xbox in protectionism to rule in japan, and that's why they don't want the blizzard Activision Microsoft deal to ne concluded.

Whos this Jez character and why should I trust such a claim

is this the end of square enix games for xbox?

@theduckofdeath I look at it more from the other side. Square's relationship with Xbox began to take off in the latter half of the 2010s and then hit a fever pitch at X019. Games like Octopath Traveler were coming to game pass, not to playstation. The entire back catalog of Final Fantasy games were coming to Game Pass. We got a near promise that FFXIV was coming to Xbox.

This was flirting, and extreme flirting at that, and it worked. Sony saw their best girl messing around and (I believe) they put a ring on it. What has happened since that X019 show and that huge promise of a bright future for Square and Xbox? Game, after game, after game, after game no showing on Xbox. Final Fantasy VIIR, which literally printed the exclusivity date end ON THE BOX, and a leaked xbox trailer was uploaded to the xbox germany site, never materialized on Xbox. FFXIV which was near promised by Phil and Square has gone near silent. The entire FF catalog has been pulled from game pass with zero fanfare, and nothing to replace it.

Now all that on its own would lead me to believe ok, Square is back in bed with Sony, but selling to them, what's the evidence of that? Well couple the above with the INSANE firesale of the entire Eidos side of their business. The absolute only reason that makes sense is to prepare Square to be acquired.

Put the pieces together. This is a done deal, it just can't happen until actiblizz completes for obvious reasons.

xbox at fault = Xbox don't wanna pay huge amounts of money for a port of Final Fantasy.

If that's the case, and I really think it is, Xbox os tottaly right.

@eduscxbox Got to wonder...If Sony makes an exclusive offer, and MS gets a chance to counter, do they have to outbid Sony just to get back to a multi-platform release? Double to make it an Xbox exclusive? 😄🤔🤬 A better investment maybe not to bother and move to buy more studios.

@theduckofdeath That's what I think too. Makes no sense to spend tons of money just for the right to have a game from square-enix. Just move on and let them there.

It's always best to not take Jez seriously. But in the case it does seem like Phil Spencer pissed in someone's coffee

Don't fight, please.

@NEStalgia Maybe it has something to do with Game Pass deals blocking PS. Octopath was no doubt blocked from releasing on PS4 because of the 2 year Game Pass deal. It's possible that skipping Xbox completely and releasing a PS4 version in 2021 instead would've been more successful for Square Enix.

Meanwhile other games may have been blocked from releasing on PS+ Extra/Premium because of a Game Pass deal that was made at a time when PS+ Extra/Premium didn't exist. See how PS+ Extra/Premium have been getting lots of Square Enix games recently when the 1-2 year Game Pass deals have expired.

Corporations are full of people, and some people burn bridges, sully relationships, and make bad decisions.

I know the knee-jerk reaction on fan sites can be to defend the brand, but I think this is as plausible as anything else.

As others have said, no console is going to “have it all.” Every console has great exclusives and if you don’t want to miss out, I encourage getting everything you can. In fact I remember when this was just an assumed principle of videogames; it’s weird to think how wanting a console to play everything would have looked like in the N64/PS1/Saturn days or the SNES/Genesis ones.

Can we really just let this go already?

LOL. So, we take twitter tweets and make them into "News" articles.

This is dumb and on both sides of the story everything is pure speculation and hearsay. None of these people have direct knowledge to what is really going on.

And it doesn't even matter whether it is or is not MS's fault that Square Enix is passing by XB. I used to like Square Enix. But, since they don't publish consistently on XB I don't buy their games anymore. On any platform.

Yup its all on xbox/microsoft, you can't always blame sony for games skipping the platform

This wasn't a issue during the 360 era where they were actually under good management and actually investing in japanese games

Phil needs to try as much as peter moore did and not cancel things like scalebound and the phantom dust remake

@Infinite_odyssey IDK if it has to do with Sony, has to do with Square, or has to do with MS, but the one thing that doesn't really make sense is what MS may have done that could burn otherwise good-seeming bridges while they're actively trying to improve their Japanese game portfolio to the point of getting Atlus all-in when Atlus has never been seriously on XB. It's either something grievous like reneging on a purchase deal for Crystal Dynamics in favor of ABK, or it's not really about MS burning bridges as much as just not agreeing on pricing or terms or something more run of the mill. Or it's not MS at all and it's just Square going where the money is easiest.

@SplooshDmg NO!

It's just a giant white elephant. Bethesda snubs Sony becuase....MS bought them. Everybody understands this. Love it or hate it, it's understood what happened, why and how. The whole Square thing is just this unexplainable mystery. Like crop, circles, the pyramids, the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow. The mystery must be solved!

@Grumblevolcano Maybe, who knows, but what they told people was that releasing Octopath 1 on PS4 would have confused them about the sequel so they didn't. The game was originally a Switch exclusive, if they simply said they have business obligations that prevent a PS4 version, I don't think that's a big deal. Saying "Well, we'd confuse you if we released it so we therefore didn't to spare your infantile brain from misunderstandings for your benefit" is just nonsense. That's the kind of gibberish I now expect from Square. No other company really does that. They almost have a "department of transparent lies" that all statements must pass through, lol.

But then we still have the weirdness of them perpetually playing cozy with PS. There's either something not right about their relationship with PS or their relationship with XB, but it's impossible to figure out which is actually the problem entity. Sure they have 16 coming up that will sell big for a month and then crater like most PS exclusives sales. But what have they got after that beyond finishing the 7R trilogy? They don't seem to be in great place to be snubbing a major platform. And despite Sony funding the big FF titles, they're getting burned on Forspoken at the same time, so I'm sure they're only tepidly happy themselves.

But it wasn't long ago Square was all-in on Xbox. Something certainly did change.

@NEStalgia I think you might as well just ask a magic 8-ball why Square Enix doesn't consistently publish on Xbox and just run with whatever it tells you, rather than anyone hang onto hope of ever solving this mystery.

@NEStalgia you have me crying at “pocky sticks”

I'd quite like Front Mission 1st.
Who makes the decision to publish on Xbox. Square enix or Forever Entertainment?

@SplooshDmg Maybe Yuji Naka will leak the intel for a a day out of solitary?

Square, though, is really....squirrely? Like the quotes about Yamauchi and "don't come back" the one person on the interview said that and the other tried to walk it back with some sort of "I remember that a little differently, it was just a pleasant meal and thank you'".....one was the unfiltered reality, the other was the weird Square-Enix Procedurally Generated Truth Engine. And the streams crossed in real-time. Like...they were talking about Yamauchi....nobody in the industry doesn't know how Yamauchi ran his ship. Miyamaoto famously argued with him a lot. We all know how that meeting really went down....

Someone, somewhere will spill the beans I'm sure. I'm thinking some truth may eventually come from the Luminous Team as key people are sure to soon leave.

@NEStalgia Then we'll just be waiting for, "Breaking News: Yuji Naka has mysteriously died in prison."

But really, I just don't know. I like Jez, but this report is kinda hard to take seriously. I really just don't think SE has a lot of interest in publishing on Xbox for no other reason than they don't see a lot of money to be made there. Of course, no one from SE can just outright say that, but SE is hardly the only Japanese publisher still snubbing Xbox. They're probably just the largest one that really does. Seeing the things SE will brand as performing below expectations, those Xbox projects probably performed WAY below their expectations. I honestly just think that's it. They keep setting the bar unrealistically high then wondering why they didn't hit their goals.

@Sebatrox @Sebatrox how many from the past few years, was talked about for more than a week or two, and didn't have Game Pass 'hype', i.e. a game that wouldn't even be talked about or played if it wasn't ''free'', AND isn't a simulator of power washing/farming/firefighter/white knight?

Touting games from very early Xbone gen and before, mostly 360, doesn't justify buying an Xbox. It justifies their eventual transformation into a service when they feel they have enough studios and devs under their control to be able to force their way onto every platform if any competitors actually want third party games for their gamers.

Ffs people, stop thinking of Game Pass when it comes to the state of Xbox, especially if you're still riding on finessed $1 Game Pass. A subscription service with a forced monthly payment with no bundled months payment options for a slight discount is not a reason to say Xbox is 'good'. Their checkbook is literally their only saving grace right now. I'll be glad when this ABK deal is done because I'm tired of hearing about it and it'll shift focus onto the lack of exclusive games once again, like it should be. Buy all these studios over the last 4 years and they've released HOW MANY games? It's straight up embarrassing. When the most talked about games are ones nobody would have tried out and only did because of Game Pass, that's a problem. A big one.

@jolteon23 i was concerned w that when deciding between an xsx and a ps5- missing out on FF. The truth is, tho, that I really haven't enjoyed an FF since 9

@SplooshDmg Other companies have not sold games on platforms because they don't see the desired sales on that platform for their games and they simply say that. See, EA, Sega, Ubisoft, and others regarding WiiU. Only S-E needs to create elaborate smoke and mirrors displays to not say so if that's all it is.

And then SE takes their BIG games and ties them to Sony FF7, 16) but then puts their guaranteed flops for weeb-only niches (star ocean, diofield, Crisis Core, Octopath1) and puts them on Xbox, then says all of the above failed expectations. There's still no actual logic to it.

@NEStalgia Right, but there's also no logic to the relationship is shot all to hell, because they still release some games. If it were truly shot all to hell, they'd just release nothing. I really think a lot of the more middle of the road releases may just have enough money left in the budget to say, "Eh, throw it on Xbox." If a project is running tight on funds they probably aren't going to go ask for more to port it to Xbox. Bear in mind, even games like NieR Automata didn't originally release on Xbone. It's obvious it's just not a priority for them at all.

I think the nail in the coffin for SE releases on Xbox is honestly Game Pass. I think SE is happy with Game Pass but have no interest in day one launches. So, now the scenario exists where they can just prioritize other platforms with better day one sales, then work a Game Pass deal out with MS further down the road. SE brings games to a lot of platforms, and we hear over and over how devs like to focus on less. I really just think this is probably what's happened. MS has essentially just created a distribution method that the publisher prefers, but that method comes with its own criteria.

@SplooshDmg Ironically when they did port Automata it was superior on Xbox....it kinda ran dodgy on PS. And they never fixed it....

Well it doesn't matter #TeamGreen has FFXIII Exclusivity!! WOOOO......oooo.......

@NEStalgia Yeah, Platinum and optimization aren't a thing. The One X version was surely the best version of the game. The PC port on Steam was terrible. The Windows Store version was better, but still terrible.

Oh, boy. FFXIII... I tried to replay those, and I just couldn't do it. I even sort of had some fond memories of XIII, but it was really just my younger self coping and being an FF fan boy, but looking back as an adult, those games just freaking blow.

I hope MS's acquisition of ActiBlizz goes through. I also wouldn't mind Sony buying SquareSoft...I mean enix 😅

@GamingFan4Lyf square doesn't want foreign companies (Xbox) anymore

@jolteon23
After the embarrassment of Final Fantasy 13 and 15 I could care less if 16 ever comes out. I miss the old turn style Final Fantasy games this action adventure method is visual nonsense

@SpaghettiYOLOKing
"Buy all these studios over the last 4 years and they've released HOW MANY games?"

Good games, take a while to make. How many PS5 exclusives are coming in the next 6 months to a year?

Well, whoever is to blame this hurts me.

I would only need an Xbox if Square Enix released all the Final Fantasy games on Xbox. Hell, I would even be okay if they just released all the FF7 games only.

Unfortunately, I’m still stuck between a rock and hard place and whoever is at fault, it seems none of them care enough about us gamers who are the ones who ultimately lose out to this kind of thing.

if microsoft or xbox is well known in the past to put road blocks in their own relationship or feets because of divergence or conflicts of interests i hardly see microsoft doing the same mistake from the past, are they aren't learning from their past struggles, i know everything behind the scene cannot be going so well that they showing us on twitter, i hope they don't butcher their relationship with japanese publisher when his community and platform so desperately needs it.

@UltimateOtaku91
I imagine Octopath 1 is more of a Nintendo thing. Just like Ori is on the Switch and some MS stuff appeared on the DS ages ago (Blue Dragon spin-off, VIva Pinata), seems like MS and Nintendo have a very strong relationship.

@NEStalgia we will probably never know as it isn't the first time Jez Corden has hinted to things & never revealed what he knows due to protecting his sources.

@jkald and yet nintendo never share its library to xbox lol.

@SplooshDmg Getting FFXIII at launch, and then playing it when I got home from school on my 360 will always be one of my most vivid memories of pure disappointment.

They haven't released a good numbered single player entry since 2006. :/

@Ralizah I know FFXII is kind of divisive, but I love it. The OG was great, and the international edition is just fantastic. I honestly like it considerably better than X. XIII is just... I dunno. I think in a lot of ways FFXIII-2 was better, but it was still just not very good. Lightning Returns is why I can't trust Yoshinori Kitase ever again. Not to mention the myriad of issues that the entire Fabula Nova Crystallis saga encountered managed to turn one of its side entries into a full blown somewhat rubbish numbered entry. It all boggles the mind what was going on at SE during the gen 7 years. It just seems like they never really snapped out of it either.

@SplooshDmg FFXII was awesome, and felt like a true evolution of the franchise. Almost proto-Xenoblade in terms of its gameplay and environmental scope. It also demonstrated that the series could attempt a more grounded, politics-heavy storyline while still feeling like Final Fantasy, which is more than I can say for XVI so far.

XIII took every problem I had with X (weird characters; lack of exploration, towns, etc; excessive narrative railroading) and made them 100x worse, while tacking on new problems as well. I never even bothered playing the sequels.

@Ralizah I think the sort of dry narrative in XII just didn't click for a lot of fans. I mean, it was basically just Star Wars. But Darth Va... I mean, Judge Gabranth, is probably one of my favorite FF antagonists, period. I was an FFXI player too, so the whole MMO type combat, I was down with because it was just already familiar to me. I wish I could say I'm excited for FFXVI, but I'm really just not. I'm sure I'll get around to playing it, but I really don't care a lot for hack n slash as a genre, and the whole grim dark for the sake of appealing to edgy westerners isn't doing it for me.

Your synopsis is correct. XIII is just X, but with little to no redeeming qualities. As much as I don't love X, I do like X. A friend convinced me to play XIII-2 and it wasn't totally awful, it's certainly the best of the three. I think Lightning Returns has one of the worst combat systems I've ever seen. Not to mention the time looping mechanic. It's utterly hideous.

At this point, I just want the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection and Octopath Traveller II. I can wait until I beat my huge Xbox backlog.

so we are basing this on twitter posts

How long before Sony outright buys Square Enix?

@Auglicious
When Sony has enough money to do such an acquisition. Microsoft has walking around money, Sony has a sinking ship propped up by the PlayStation brand

Microsoft is worth roughly $2 trillion, and has kept $100 billion liquid for years
Sony is worth $112 Billion and has nowhere near that amount liquid for large acquisitions. That's why the only things they have bought are studios like Naughty Dog (who were only making PlayStation) games and one trick ponies like Bungie.

@BrilliantBill you gave First/second party examples there. Square Enix isn't first or second party. Also, video gaming is the only medium where this happens. You don't buy a book and can't read it because you have the wrong eyes. Back when DVDs were a thing, you didn't have DVD players that only played Warner Bros games.

I just hope they fix it whatever the problem is...