Square Enix has revealed that its games currently in development will be available on both current and next generation consoles, and games exclusively made and released for next-gen consoles will be “somewhat farther down the road”.
The company, which develops Final Fantasy and will publish Marvel’s Avengers, made the announcement in an investor Q&A. President Yosuke Matsuda said:
“The next-generation consoles will have backward compatibility, so we plan for the time being to make our new titles available for both current and next-generation consoles. It will therefore be somewhat farther down the road that we release titles exclusively for the next-generation consoles.”
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What’s interesting here is that mention of backwards compatibility. It may be that Square Enix is only working on current-generation versions of its games right now, because Xbox Series X and PS5 will both play them out of the box. It’s not entirely clear from the text – we asked for clarification from Square Enix, but received a no-comment response.
Microsoft’s new Smart Delivery policy, which allows players to buy a current-gen game and get access to its next-gen version for no extra cost (already adopted by the likes of CD Projekt Red for Cyberpunk 2077), could also be an option. However, Smart Delivery is an opt-in for third-party publishers, who may not want to give multiple copies away for free.
Either way, sticking to current-gen releases is an understandable move – releasing next-gen exclusives results in a far smaller pool of potial buyers, particularly when you take into account that PS4 is now the 4th highest-selling console of all time.
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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News, and he is playable exclusively on Ouya. Never forget. Follow him on Twitter.
Source: IGN.com Square Enix Won't Release Next-Gen Exclusives for Some Time