Update: The author of The Washington Post's report has since clarified that the full Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy has not yet been confirmed as a PlayStation exclusive, as you can see in the follow-up tweet down below:
Original story: There are a few PlayStation console exclusives that we'd obviously love to see on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, and one of those is the recent release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which arrived on PS5 at the end of February.
Speaking to The Washington Post this week, Final Fantasy Franchise Producer Yoshinori Kitase explained that FF7 Rebirth being a PS5 exclusive came with benefits that couldn't have been achieved with a simultaneous Xbox release.
Here's a short quote of what Kitase had to say:
"Had it not been on a single platform, the world map would not be seamless, and game design may have had to regress significantly."
According to the outlet, Kitase mentioned that the exclusive deal with Sony meant the team could focus on building a "diverse" and heavily-populated world with minimal loading screens, rather than spending time porting to other devices.
The following is a quote from The Washington Post's report on this:
"Developing games for multiple platforms, by contrast, usually creates more work that focuses on porting rather than iterating on a game’s design."
Sony Interactive Entertainment's Christian Svensson was also interviewed for the article, where he mentioned that exclusivity was mutually desired between PlayStation and Square Enix when FF7 Remake was made a few years ago. He also appeared to indicate that the next game in the FF7 Remake trilogy will be PS5 exclusive as well.
Of course, none of this means we won't ever see these Final Fantasy games on Xbox, as the exclusivity only lasts so long and Square Enix can eventually spend the time porting them over. The decision to initially make them PS5 exclusive clearly worked out for the two parties though, and it could be a long while before they show up on Xbox.