Square Enix has made it perfectly clear that after the commercial underperformance of Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, it intends to adopt a multiplatform release strategy going forward. And though it’s looking increasingly likely that Final Fantasy 16 will release for Xbox sooner rather than later, Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth both remain exclusive to PlayStation (while the latter isn’t even available on PC).
And while nothing official has yet been announced on that front, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi seems to be indicating that an Xbox release is very much something that Square Enix is planning on for both remakes.
Speaking with GamesRadar, he talked about wanting to reach “as many players as possible” with the Remake trilogy, saying, “In terms of Final Fantasy 7, there’s nothing really we can say at the moment, but certainly I do want to bring Final Fantasy 7 and the Remake series to as many players out there as possible, so we want to create that situation, that environment, where more players can play the games in future, and we want to look in that direction.”
He added, “It’s so much more diversified now, so I think that’s that’s probably why our CEO, Mr. [Takashi] Kiryu, made that decision to move more in the direction of multiplatform – that’s just the way that the industry is going.”
Hamaguchi went on to add that personally, he’s an Xbox fan himself. “This is just a personal opinion now, but I’ve got an Xbox myself. I think it’s a great hardware platform. I do like Xbox.”
Reports have previously claimed that though Square Enix is internally discussing Xbox ports for Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth, they’re not yet in the works, though based on Hamaguchi’s statements, it does seem like the company intends to bring both games to Microsoft’s consoles sooner rather that later.
Whether that means the final instalment of the Remake trilogy will see a day and date Xbox release should be interesting to see, though that’s probably a handful of years down the road.
