At this point, I'm expecting Square-Enix is going to stop with the timed exclusivity on big games, going forward. I still very much see SIE getting global marketing rights, but I can definitely see FF Remake Part 3 being both a cross-gen game (PS5/PS6) and also PC Day 1. That just seems like the safest assumption to make at this point, barring an acquisition by SIE...and even then, there's a chance it could play out the same way if SIE haven't re-evaluated their own strategy for PC port release timings.
As for games like XI Remake and Tactics Remake (assuming they release)...I think at this point it's 100% safe to say they're going to at least be PS5/Switch 2 Day 1 releases. If they aren't also PC Day 1, they'll probably get PC ports within a year. I could even see them coming to Xbox Series. On one hand, I
hate saying this because it just incidentally feeds into the incredibly slimy, deceitful, nasty & propagandistic "anti-exclusivity" narrative that certain shills & fanboys of a certain 3rd Place Platform Holder have been wanting to push for a long time now. However, I can turn a blind eye there and just see things from what's likely best for Square-Enix's business and, incidentally, maybe the timed exclusives aren't what's best for them anymore.
Or even for SIE, TBH. I mean again, what necessarily do they truly get out of Rebirth with a 3 month timed exclusivity deal? Wasn't MS laughed at for the STALKER 2 3-month timed exclusive deal? What's necessarily the difference between them? I think it's dumber that SE (or SIE) put the timed exclusivity period in the commercial fine print, knowing full well it'd be longer than that before any port releases. That is just them sabotaging potential PS5 sales of the game, then acting stupid when they don't hit certain expectations. Like, you did that to yourselves, don't act surprised.
Anyway...yeah, I can definitely see this as the thing that has SE basically move away from timed exclusivity and the usual suspects will think that's a win against "evil" exclusivity, but IMO multiplatform support is only a band-aid solution, especially if actual root problems aren't addressed. A lot of exclusives sell much better than most multiplat titles anyhow, so it's not that exclusivity is the actual problem (except for cheap people or people who vehemently don't want to support a platform because muh console warez). Final Fantasy as a franchise has something of a confused identity, and with mainline installments over the past 15 years, have done maybe too much in drastic changes to the point of dividing hardcore fans and alienating more casual ones, regardless of the actual quality of the games themselves.
I mean you look at things going from FF XIII, Lightning Returns, XV, VII Remake, and XVI, you can see there were massive changes in design from entry to entry, mostly decoupled story narratives, and in some cases not only hefty delays but also a
TON of spinoffs with many installments in similar genre types. In some cases, I guess mainly with the VII series, it gets almost Kingdom Hearts level of bad when it comes to important story beats spread out over the main installments and a ton of offshoots/spin-offs, which is a lot for people to keep up with. But at least unlike the Kingdom Hearts games, for the VII series virtually all of those spin-offs and installments have been on the same family of hardware, rather than split across two different brands (Nintendo & Sony) like with KH.
Having said that, I'd go as far to say that the VII Remake series has a similar problem. If you played VII Remake on PS4 but haven't upgraded to a PS5, you can't play the 2nd part of that remake trilogy. And if Part 3 is somehow exclusive to PS6, that just cuts off PS5 owners who had access to Part 1 and 2, but then can't access Part 3. I think that's something of a problem when talking about remake installments for what was originally one singular game, because now not only is someone paying $70 each installment, they're also paying $1500 over three console generation to access them. Looking at it from that POV, getting a PC and just waiting for the ports to come to Steam seems like it'd be a better long-term investment, especially if you're also playing other games that span across generations which may not even be available on new platforms to re-buy, let alone not run on them if certain BC features are missing.
I think Rebirth could've avoided a lot of issues in terms of sales or whatever if it were a cross-gen PS4/PS5 game, specifically for markets like Japan. That said, it's a complicated thing, tho maybe they'd of been better off with a cross-gen release for PS4 & PS5, then do an upgrade for PS5 owners a year later with improved visuals & the such. Just an idea. But yeah, Square-Enix should focus on the root issues that might be stifling growth for FF as an IP; platform exclusivity is on the bottom end of causes for that IMHO. Still though, I can
see them wanting to push for more Day 1 platforms, and SIE being content with just having global marketing rights to new installments.
Square-Enix also need to get better at scheduling releases of their AA titles and having a bit smarter marketing for them. It would suck to see them stop making AA games altogether, but you can't bunch like 4 of them together in the span of a single month and expect all 4 to sell well. There
will be cannibalization happening at that point, especially during a busy release period.
While I do see Square-Enix probably stopping timed exclusivity for the FF games going forward, I would like to see SIE still work with them on new exclusives. SIE have their own JRPG IP that could do well in co-development with Square-Enix teams, so why not do that? IMO that is a net win and a mutual benefit to both parties to make something happen that wouldn't exist otherwise. Similar could probably be said for co-development/co-funding on revivals for stuff like Parasite Eve, or Einhander, etc. It's very limited to only see Square-Enix's value for Final Fantasy when they have a ton of other beloved IP, and SIE themselves have a lot of beloved IP that could benefit from a co-dev & co-fund partnership between them and Square-Enix.
Limiting FF to mainly a single platform for many years kept the fanbase stagnant. Exclusivity money can't pay for all those lost potential fans who could have grown up with FF games and become big fans and drop big money later on stuff such as FF mmorpg, statues and other stuff. Smaller fanbase ofc leads to a less investment and cancelled games.
SE did the mistake 20 years ago and not expanding the fanbase came to bite them. GG!
This is not the reason (at least, not a main reason) and very stupid to cling to considering all the exclusives that actually sell better than most multiplats in the market. Also for going Day 1 on multiple platforms IP like Yakuza aren't doing magnitudes better in sales than if they were just PlayStation exclusives. So likely a lot of sales on platforms like PC are lateral sales of dual-platform owners opting for one platform over the other to buy the game on, and we already know Xbox is contributing very little to sales of new Yakuza games.
Again that's just one example. There are plenty of others. If what you say was true, no one would be leveraging exclusives in any industry.
The biggest mistake was that they cannibalized their own games by releasing stuff to close together. And they did that alot the last few years. People buy square enix game's but time and money is limited.
Yep, this is a massive part of their problem. But too many people are quick to ignore and jump on their anti-exclusivity talking points because that's the easiest thing to do.
No smaller ones are probably gone and sony is probably still paying to exclude pc for a few month.
IMO both of these happening would be mistakes. The smaller games just need better release schedules and marketing. As for timed exclusivity it'll become increasingly hypocritical of Sony to pay for shrinking timed exclusivity blocking out PC when they are already bringing a lot of their own games to PC (a strategy with its own problems IMHO) and potentially with even shorter windows between console & PC there.
I'd go as far to say, if SIE aren't planning to extend the time between console & PC for their own games (primarily non-GAAS) or even start to do Day 1 for them, Square-Enix should reject any offers for timed exclusivity out of principle. Because at that point, if SIE felt that doing Day 1 on PC was best for their financial interests (it wouldn't be, IMO, but again, different convo), why would Square-Enix not think similar for their own games?
Platform holders gotta lead by example on this type of thing.
