There was a time, not so long ago, when Square Enix used to commit to one system, and then used to develop for that system exclusively. In that age, Square was the king maker, with the fortunes of entire systems determined by which system they decided to support (or not support)- Sega failed to gain a foothold in the Japanese market because Square never supported them, the PlayStation famously won against Nintendo because Final Fantasy 7 jumped ship, and the PS2 getting continued Square support was a catalyst for its early success.
Those days are long past, and Square now has a multiplatform approach to game development, putting titles on all systems- an approach that, Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda said in a financial call with investors, the publisher will be doubling down on going forward.
“Growth in the number of platforms is basically a good thing, and we intend to further advance our multiplatform approach,” he said, suggesting that exclusives by Square Enix may be a thing of the past going forward.
Which… is a curious statement. NieR Automata launched exclusively on the PS4 (and PC), The World Ends With You and Octopath Traveler are Switch exclusives, and Square has a handful of PS4 exclusives announced and in the pipeline, too. Is this an indication that in the end, those might all end up being available across the full range of platforms?
