Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Producer Defends Lack Of Xbox Series X|S Release

What a load of crap, being exclusive to PS5 has proven a disaster, low sales and poor performance

This seems like the sort of thing that's "technically true" but isn't actually what happened. I've never heard a Dev say "We would have made a better world if we didn't have to make different ports".

They could have picked any other aspect like performance, fidelity, gameplay, polish, or even budget and my first response would have been "Fair enough" but "content vs porting" just instantly feels like the response of someone who really doesn't want to say "because money".

@UBERSICKO Agreed. Complete nonsense. Both systems use SSD. Sony just offered a lot of money. Nothing wrong with that, but don't insult your fans to save face. Honesty is non-existent in this industry. A lot less outrage would happen with more honesty.

He is full of crap. Sony offered a lot of money. End of story. The performance is not the best on the PS5. Perhaps they should rethink their strategy and release on PC and Xbox as well as their sales have been lackluster to say the least.

Id actually respect these people if they'd just come out and tell the truth.

@Phantasystar77 Boxed sales are apparently 30% under Remake in the UK, but there's a lot of mitigating factors.

• Digital software probably sells more in 2024 than it did in 2020.
• PS4 had significantly more units on the market at that point.
• Remake launched during the pandemic, when software sales were soaring across the board.

Certainly nothing to do with the game not launching on Xbox. Realistically, Xbox sales would barely even contribute to the boxed sales number. It's a primarily digitally-driven platform.

Translation: I really like when Sony gives me money.

Kind of weird that the Push Square article says Sony has locked the FF 7 trilogy as exclusives and not to ever expect them to come to Xbox or Nintendo unless Sony themselves changes their minds. This article makes it seem like the exclusivity is just for a period of time and gives more leeway that they could come eventually. Which is true?

Tried final fantasy 16 and my god what a bore....so I doubt il ever try this one as I've never got around to trying the first remake

@awp69 Considering we've seen neither hide nor hair of Remake on Xbox, I think it's realistic to expect this won't hit Xbox either. A PC port within the year is almost guaranteed, though.

@Phantasystar77 Admittedly, if I was some hardcore Xbox fanboy, I'd be pretty angry and disillusioned right now as well. Unhappy communities retreat into angry tribalist attitudes as a self-defense mechanism.

I for one am not done loving Final Fantasy 16 yet.
I know it’s the unpopular opinion, but I enjoyed 16 significantly more than remake part one. Clive and Torgal for the win baby.

There we go, now maybe people will shut up about this coming to Xbox when it's not going to happen.

As I've said in previous articles, Microsoft is more than welcome to fund projects for Square Enix but choose not too.

@ShadowofTwilight Really wish Microsoft would help fund exclusive Japanese releases for the system like they did during the 360 era. Games like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey were dope, and a big part of what made the 360 the more attractive console that generation.

Developer gives his opinion on why exclusivity was good and the random commenters on a website KNOW he’s just lying. Amazing.

@Ralizah

Microsoft keeps crying about the lack of Japanese support but puts the bare minimum for games from that region.

I remember the pre-2010 Xbox 360 where they actually got exclusive Japanese games and paid off Namco Bandai from releasing the full version of Tales of Vesperia so Westerners were stuck with the beta 360 release for over a decade.

@ShadowofTwilight It was smart overall. Really helped to expand their pool of owners when it was also the go-to console for a bunch of big Japanese releases as well.

I don't understand why Microsoft isn't partnering more with third-parties like Nintendo and Sony are. I guess all the money they're pouring into the console division is going toward supporting and expanding Game Pass.

Im amazed how many arm chair commentators think they know better than the devs who craft the games? Sign of the times I guess.
Its a huge shame if it doent come to xbox. Its a fantastic game if you like jrpgs heavy on exploration and variety and I hope everyone who wants to gets a chance to experience it.

I don't doubt that it would be more work but why not just push the release back if the extra effort is the main reason they accepted the exclusivity deal. They could have created that seamless experience he is talking up if the extra effort was backed up with extra time. Why are they married to the early March release date if the extra effort would mean reaching a wider audience?

They didn't want to say that greed was the reason its exclusive and Sony offered them a lucrative deal.

This is very interesting considering Xbox's multiplatform strategy, especially with new rumours saying Starfield is coming to PS5 in November.
As a gamer, I'd rather be on PS5 than Xbox and regret my decision to go with Xbox.

I played remake and as a big fan of the original I hated it. I hated everything about it that was new and changed from the original game, it was ridiculous and added nothing, just convoluted the story even more. The only good thing about that game was the graphics and music so I won’t in a million years play rebirth.

@StylesT FF16 is one of the most overhyped games I’ve ever played, absolute garbage.

What's better is that is Playstation is actually one platform.

Meanwhile if they did an Xbox releases that's atleast two drastically different sets of hardware between the Series X and S alone.

@UBERSICKO Where's your sales numbers? Because SE haven't released them yet. Also performance is pretty solid the issue is the visual hit the game takes to get it at 60fps.

@ironcrow86 The irony of the comment considering how toxic the community here is at times.

@InterceptorAlpha they’re gonna hate releasing it on PC then if they can’t cope with 2 sets of Xbox hardware 😂

Just give us the pixel remasters 😭

There was no reason that FF7 couldn't of been run on the X1, even the base model would of worked, in my opinion. Both intergrade and rebirth should run fine of the series Xbox, might need minor tweaks for the series S. SE signed a 3 month exclusive deal with Sony, so anytime after that the game has the potential to get a Xbox release. At the same time after playing FF7 remake I really am not concerned about a Xbox release since I found it underwhelming. Still most other JRPG games get a Xbox release, outside of games by NIS.

@Fenbops Why do you think it wasn't a day one PC release like say, Helldivers?

That is the downside to developing for PC. You can't optimize for one or two things. Which is why late generation you normally see consoles running things the specs have any rights to run.

My brain still hurts that we had things like Crysis and Witcher 2 on 360.

It's always great to se the Sony supporters who are eternally sceptical about pretty much everything Microsoft says, diligently defending Squeenix about their utterly garbage nonsense reason😅😅....whilst calling out people who pointed it out for what it is.

we're not doing this again right? a wink and a nod about it just being at launch. the original remake never came to xbox, this won't either. don't string ppl along

Is it exclusive? Or they just had the desire to only focus on PS?

I still hope they come to Xbox at some point.

@UBERSICKO If the FFVII Remakes' sales continue to underperform, Square will become increasingly dissatisfied and ask for more money from Sony or drop the practice altogether. The Rebirth exclusivity is supposed to be 3 months, and I doubt we will see a PC version immediately afterwards. We'll see. That will restrict sales and dampen interests for the eventual PC release.

People always more concerned about games they don’t have on their console than the games they do have.

If you want to play all games you have to own multiple systems, it’s always been that way.

Author of the Washington Post article had to put a correction saying that FF7 is not forever exclusive to PlayStation. I still believe we’ll get it someday….

Push Square article also amended.

All I know is I played the demo on my PS5 and decided to not buy it because it looked wonky to me. Combat was great though, so there's that!

@awp69

It won't be coming to Xbox, Sony have funded this project and it is staying console exclusive.

I love OG 7 dearly, grew up with it. I liked remake alot. i'm still playing through rebirth but nothing about this is screaming "exclusive made this better!". it has alot of graphical issues...especially the LoD, thats really busted atm. The game itself feels like chunks of open world, nothing i haven't done before. Alot. Totally not really tired and exhausted gameplay with that one. way. WAY. too much filler.

but seriously, there has been nothing that screams that statement they said.

It's kinda like the time Phil Spencer paid MASSIVE money for two huge publishers for ALL of their IP's to be exclusive. We were all outraged over that, right?

@Ver
Phil Spencer paid $7bn for Zenimax and $69bn for Activision. So far there is zero proof that future Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Spyro etc will come to PS or Nintendo. CoD has been forced over the FTC trials.

Not that bothered tbh.
Xbox has more than enough to fulfill my gaming needs.
I would like more Xbox exclusives. A must have title to really sell the system.
A Minecraft, Pokemon quality game that simply sells Xbox that everyone wants to play and is exclusively on Xbox.
That's my dream. Not handing out titles to other systems ' for the gamers'.

This is some next level corporate BS. FF7R does nothing what other multi plat games haven't done before. Stop shaking your ass in front of Sony's face!

Sega said the opposite about Yakuza, when they went from being exclusive on PlayStation to multiplatform. And have been more successful.

Square enix just chatting crap, which is why I'll never buy another game off them.

@StylesT ff7remake is different and way better than 16. Please try that out and see how it is before skipping it

@Ver so sony bad for doing it, then you hope MS do it? The logic isn’t there?

@PsBoxSwitchOwner if you're going to spend money to buy all systems, might as well just get a PC only, coz you can play almost every game on PC. And exclusives will eventually reach PC.

It's interesting how the people that bash Xbox every day so truly, as genuine Xbox or multiplatform players, are exactly the same people defending the lame excuses made by Square Enix about any PS5 exclusivity. The sales of FFXVI and FFVII Rebirth on PS5 have been disappointing according to all sources, there is only a 3-month exclusivity period this time and both games will come to Windows as soon as they are ready. Once they are on Windows, the only reason to skip Windows-DirectX-based Xbox consoles will be Sony's cheques, exactly the same situation as Final Fantasy VII Remake, as proven during the FTC trial. I still think that the latest Final Fantasy games will come to Nintendo (not to Switch, for obvious reasons) and Xbox consoles, but it's taking a long time. For some reason, Square Enix and Sony agree about Final Fantasy VII being sacred, but that didn't stop Square Enix from porting the original game to Xbox and even including it in Game Pass.

@DJKingaling The first one sony had a deal with enix to keep it off of pc for a year and off of Xbox indefinitely so people should just accept neither game will ever come to Xbox

My only problem with this is their continued refusal to simply state whether or not it's ever coming to Xbox. We shouldn't have to decipher statements and infer intent. This is a simple yes or no question that they (and Phil Spencer for some reason) refuse to answer directly, and it's gotten BEYOND annoying. That and the tone deaf way Microsoft keeps letting Square show up to showcases to announce things no one asked for lol

@Deityjester never! 🤣

Sad fact is Square saw FFXV didnt sell for ***** on Xbox. Xbox gamers dont play these games. They have Phil by the balls. Pay, or we have no reason to develop for your tiny userbase that doesnt even want our games.

We get blips like X018 and now where Squeenix and Xbox are suddenly chummy. That's Xbox paying. Theres no other reason. Otherwise it costs Sony pennies to keep Squeenix games off Xbox, because the games dont sell on Xbox. This isnt even close to a symmetrical situation.

Testing for one platform when anything can happen on another bug, API, dev kit or otherwise. Software is very picky sometimes and hardware can do whatever the case with it.

Focusing on one platform makes sense. Yes it's a partnership I totally get that in this case but still. But coding plays a part besides the partnership being the case really here.

Is it usually due to marketing/deals with company partnerships yes usually I won't deny that but I mean people seem to forget that it's not just oh the hardware is similar it can run it. Also audience size, genre, appeal. It has an audience, but how many played the JRPGs on 360. Many sure but most people no, so sales reflect that. Nowadays probably more yes and numbers show when Japanese games are on Xbox then not as much of Xbox OG of course and 360 had abetter push of them.

Tell me how different Java and C# are of coding languages. Well think about that with each API and dev environment. Making their engine work with each piece of hardware.

People that don't get coding or how tech works and seem to think oh it's similar hardware it's easy. It's not.

They have too much impulse on I want this game giving emotional response means to them and have no idea how coding works.

Same way you can say oh it has to support this and that peripheral. Say Bioshock Infinite Move support, why none for Kinect. Did it suit the game probably not of voice or gestures, could they find anything that would make it suit, probably not. Move and a Wiimote of buttons and aiming is different but less work then gestures. They just have to work around the motion controls and still similar buttons. But also again it depends on say the Wiimote and Move APIs with games that were those controllers focused like say No More Heroes or something else.

Or Wii and Kinect with say Just Dance. The tracking isn't the same of Kinect and a Wiimote.

Same could be said for this. In the case of PS5 not all really use the cards system PS5 has (and how they use it) but how many went oh we have to make trophies for PS3 not just Achievements for 360.

Sure they are the same trophies unlocks/triggers and goals (other than the Platinum trophy) across both platforms but at the same time when it happened they had to have more time given to a platform that added them later, did or didn't update the games to have them either.

If they want an identical game on each platform sure. But some things do complicate with how the APIs work not oh similar hardware and player wants. The execution may be the same, the goal may be the same, the APIs are not when trying to get the console to do it.

Hardware can be the same, the firmware and software environments can be totally different by each company that controls it.

People need to think better about how coding works.

I don't even experience this I know what web languages differences are of HTMl, CSS, JavaScript, PHP. Or the differences of Java and the code across each Java Environment makes it more accessible but I still understand even from Minecraft modding or just how gaming is that oh this API and that API don't work the same the code is different, the aspects they use are different. But players go waaaah I want this to work with my Minecraft modding. I care for the modders than I do the players why because the coding is what matters here. There is more than 1 solution and more than 1 modding API why because if the game devs aren't doing it and modders fight they aren't getting access to those APIs are they they are making their own and we get 2 to 3 Modding APIs even though people go oh but 1 always existed, yeah if they don't do their own research 2 was always the case the idiots.

So yeah if fan modding can be the case, so can gaming in a way.

It doesn't work that way. Programmers want options to code, flexibility to code. If one doesn't work for them they do it or work around it. In gaming yes these companies are big in this case with FF7 Rebirth but still, they want 1 console to focus on then port it when the time is right sometimes then to work on both at the same time, they can but they can polish it better with 1 to focus on first, utilise unique things on the consoles (not that many use Impulse Triggers on Xbox anyways)/PC if they want even if it's just a Sony partnership deal for however long in this case likely.

@GeminiReign If you understand how coding for the web or what APIs are it's not hard. I assume most people don't.

Each dev kit/software environment is different by each company. The PS5/Xbox Series hardware may be similar but like with OS Windows and Linux aren't the same. In the Minecraft PC mod space players fight over things too but Forge/Fabric aren't the same. Modders don't care they want a good environment to code with.

From different web coding languages to just each game engine and each team's dev tools they add on even if it's Unreal Engine they still have their own custom tools. Adapting them to an Xbox will take time in the porting process.

If they have less platforms to port to, so 1 controller, it's triggers, gyro, whatever features if they want to or just 1 console, less environments to test the game works in.

Even graphics aside gameplay aspects have been repeated for decades. Very few with good programmers and less care for graphics can pull off some things.

If Star Wars Battlefront Elite Squadron did a cutscene then seamless between ground and space because it was on a PSP as the remains of the scrapped Battlefront 3, even good programmers like with No Man's Sky made it possible with low end hardware while Starfield didn't choose to I guess as they had other goals in mind. If say for FF7 airship open world design.

I think the translation is SE is getting a reasonable amount of money to launch the game exclusively on Playstation. Each game has to launch exclusively on the Playstation else SE will loose a big chunk of money Sony has or will give them. But I do think that sticking with Playstation only for FF7 and FF16 is hurting their bottom line.