Final Fantasy 14 director and producer Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida says the release of the Dawntrail expansion on Xbox is the “starting point” for the release of other Square Enix games on the Microsoft console.
In an interview with Eurogamer, Yoshida was asked about the market potential for Square Enix games on Xbox platforms and admitted that the low number of Xbox players in Japan is an uphill battle. However, it is a battle the company is determined to win, with Yoshida saying that Dawntrail marks the beginning of a policy change at Square Enix that will lead to more and more Square Enix games on Xbox.
“I want you to just look at this as a general argument, but when it comes to the Xbox platform and the fact that it’s been difficult to release Japanese titles on the platform, it’s related to the fact that there are an extremely small number of Xbox users in the Japanese market,” Yoshida said. “And of course, because we’re Japanese developers, we want a lot of people in our country to play our games. I think that’s true for developers in any country, no matter what country they’re from, they want a lot of people from their own country to play their games. So from a business perspective, that’s a really difficult point. I think that’s generally a perspective of how you can look at things in terms of the situation.”
Yoshida said Final Fantasy 14 is the “starting point” of the “multiplatform strategy” Square Enix first announced in May, which could mark the end of PlayStation-first Final Fantasy games. “We want to release more Square Enix games on Xbox, and more of our titles will be released on Xbox,” Yoshida said. “So I hope players look forward to future things that will be released on the platform.”
The controversial Viper changes in Final Fantasy 14 were also a hot topic within the development team, with Yoshi-P admitting that the changes were considered “until the last minute.”
