Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, the much-improved reincarnation of Square Enix’s online role-playing game, will be out on August 27 for PC and PS3, then later in the future for PS4. No Xbox 360. No Xbox One.
Allow Naoki Yoshida to explain why. Speaking with RPGSite, the new director of FFXIV pointed a finger at Xbox Live’s cross-platform policies—games on Microsoft’s online platform generally can’t share servers with games on other platforms. In other words, if you played the online game on Xbox 360, you wouldn’t be able to play in the same world as people on PlayStation 3.
Yoshida isn’t okay with that.
“The policy has not changed on Microsoft’s side,” Yoshida told RPGSite. “The main reason from our side is that I don’t want the community to be divided; to be split into two or more. For example, one player might be on the PC version, another might be on the PS4 version, and I’m playing the Xbox version – but we’re not able to join the same game servers. That is just… I just don’t like the idea. I disagree with it.
“To be frankly honest with you, there are now so many mobile devices, smart phones, everything — why would you ever just stick to one platform from the hardware aspect? Just — make it open to everyone? That’s my opinion.”
Boom. Funny enough, Square’s last online game, Final Fantasy XI, was actually cross-console on PS2, PC, and 360. But for whatever reason they can’t make it happen this time around. At least not yet.