Final Fantasy XIV Director says they don’t have enough resources to port the game to Xbox & other platforms

[CaptainBojangles]

I thought it was weird when they semi-confirmed it in the past. I'm not trying to be snarky or anything, but I genuinely don't know if there would be enough interest on the Xbox platform to justify supporting the game there

Takes like 10 seconds nowadays. No clue when the last time you tried was though

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I love XIV, but it absolutely can take more than 10 minutes to figure out the nightmare that is mogstation. Took me like 2 weeks to get my account back earlier this month, and that was AFTER I subscribed

 

[arsene_P5]

When has he mentioned issues with Nintendo or Sony? Like serious policy issues?

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Or the tinfoil hat shit about Sony being behind there being no Xbox version... despite all evidence to the contrary.

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This is what Yoshi said...

Yoshida said. "We have had conversations with [Xbox boss] Phil Spencer three times over the last year. It's just a matter of a few more clauses being waived. But at this point we don't have much of an update. Considering how far into the discussion we've gotten with Microsoft, we might have made a little more progress in the Xbox discussion versus the Switch. We've also run into an issue with Sony - being able to play cross-platform. That's another issue that we'd have to take care of as well. In terms of our conversations regarding the Switch, we're still in continuous discussion with Nintendo on that one as well."

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So like it or not, Sony was part of the problem, even though there is no such thing as a exclusive deal some are suggesting. But we've seen with fortnite or Rainbow (can't remember), during the cross play campaign of the gaming community, that cross play worked between Xbox, PS and PC by accident and then needed to be disabled. If only one party would need to agree to cross play, then why was cross play disabled? Xbox was on board for Fortnite/Rainbow at the time, so it must have been Sony telling them to disable it.

I'd imagine with what's Yoshida vaguely mentioned here is that any party joining, would mean SE would need to discuss this with Sony as the already participating party and whether they are accepting the cross play feature expanding and all the policy stuff it entails. He clearly said there was a cross play issue with Sony, which I think is solved, because we all know Sony is onboard with cross play now after the shitstorm. But still, they apparently needed to negotiate with them, as well, because it doesn't seem to be as easy as reaching an agreement with Xbox, Nintendo, ... and then just letting them join the FF14 party.

Don't get me wrong and I've said this in this thread. There are issues with the other parties aswell, so nobody can blame just Sony for this.

You aren't offending me because I never said more players are a bad thing. I said that a spike of players would require additional server capacity to spread out that spike, which would be a cost for the company. It's not at all a dealbreaker, but when you are analyzing whether or not you are going to port a game to another platform you have to consider all of the possible costs, barriers and potential profit and I was using the additional servers as an example of one of the smaller cost additions that could, in addition to everything else, make it not worth it. Everything adds up.

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Absolutely, but I think ultimately more players would be great for the game and SE.

Like I said. MS could foot the entire bill and there'd be no reason for SE to say no to more potential sales and subs if someone else fronted the cash.
After getting the port out the subs would pay for the extra work it'd take to sustain the extra version.

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Money is just one part of this. Yoshida said in the past unrelated to any ports that it's hard hiring japanese speaking developers, who are fine with a never ending game/schedule and the demands MMO have. Porting the game to more plattforms would definitely put stress on the team.

And then there are policies each plattform has and just like no player is bigger than the club, no game is bigger than the policies and Microsoft had a bunch of them that Yoshida wanted to be removed. As much as I like Spencer finally freeing F2P games and so on, it's understandable they won't just make a exception for one game and needed to discuss this on a broader basis.

 

[mentok15]

Is the Mac version ok? Or does it run lot better under bootcamp in anyone knows?

 

[Mochino]

Is the Mac version ok? Or does it run lot better under bootcamp in anyone knows?

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It runs well on my 2016 mbp! I mainly play on my ps5 but it works just fine for doing my dailies when I have some breaks at work.

 

[Balfour]

Well if lack of resources are the issue he should ask the producer.

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i see what you did and appreciate the joke

 

[LaytonWright]

Where is this rumour or basid about Sony aqcuiring Square coming from?

If they do get Square thats huge...

 

[Deleted member 16876]

Hmm I fully thought it was coming. A shame.

 

[Kromeo]

Where is this rumour or basid about Sony aqcuiring Square coming from?

If they do get Square thats huge...

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Based on absolutely nothing but wishful thinking I would think

 

[kurahador]

More like "S-E uses MS's check to cover Avengers loses. Sorry guys."

 

[Vinx]

Would they drop PS4 support that quickly? I can't see them doing it at all.

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That quickly? What are you talking about?

If they drop PS4 support with the expansion after Endwalker then FF14 would have been on the PS4 for 9.5 years.

That would be just shy of a decade (assuming no more COVID like delays), and you think that would be too quick?

 

[Zen Hero]

I feel like the thread title is making this sound too definitive. He's not saying it's impossible or never going to happen. He's explaining that it's not an easy thing to just add on, they would need to weave it into their longterm plans, because it would increase the workload on everything they do going forward.

It's not really his decision whether Square Enix decides to invest in another platform. He's just explaining why it's costly from a project management / workload perspective.

 

[J-Skee]

That quickly? What are you talking about?

If they drop PS4 support with the expansion after Endwalker then FF14 would have been on the PS4 for 9.5 years.

That would be just shy of a decade (assuming no more COVID like delays), and you think that would be too quick?

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I specifically meant dropping support shortly after the PS5 version was available. And yeah, if there's a significant user base on PS4, I can't imagine they drop it even after a decade.

 

[Vinx]

I specifically meant dropping support shortly after the PS5 version was available. And yeah, if there's a significant user base on PS4, I can't imagine they drop it even after a decade.

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PS3 support was dropped a little over a year after the PS4 version was available.

If PS4 support ends with the 7.0 expansion then that would be about 2 years after the PS5 version is available (open beta in April so release should be later this year).

 

[Xils]

You wouldn't necessarily need a new datacenter. Servers are an existing cost regardless of xbox or not. Square already has low population worlds already within the existing datacenter system already. If they needed to spin up additional worlds that would be a good thing for them not a negative. Espcially considering the poor financial situation avengers put them in.

You also wouldn't need checks for Xbox community to play alone as existing games don't require this feature. As far as I'm aware for instance, I'm not able to opt-out of crossplay in warzone. Why would it be a requirement here?

The gold requirement has already come down when Microsoft relented on free-to-play games so seems like a moot argument as the starter edition can exist without gold. The subscription portion wouldn't be any different than any other subscription service already on Xbox.

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I haven't seen Yoshida said anything about these issues for a long time now so I think it's not really an issue anymore. What Yoshida said is more about their tight schedule and regular updates. This is not like SP games that they can just hire a third-party and port all the existing contents to a new platform and be done with it.
They need to keep up with every little updates they do as well as coordinating with the platform holder for the updates. They can't have one platform lag behind either as one of the requirements Yoshida always has is that every platform need to be able to play together on the same server. Coodinating these with a third-party on this kind of schedule is not easy and they don't have manpower to do all it in-house (at least for now) while keeping the schedule.

 

[WarReadyVet]

If this was the case Both Yoshi & Phil should've said something earlier on than just trying to pretend they never said anything. Both of them talked about bringing it to Xbox with some rather strong finality in their words.

My guess is Square expected MS to do the work and MS expected they had the resources to do the work if they paid. So if all there is is a check and no one to do the work, they figured why bother.

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This. At this point I'm just hopeful that when they eventually decide to overhaul the game or move it into it's next iteration, XBox will be considered. Whether that's FFXVII: The MMO or if they follow Sega's lead with PSO2 and do a complete overhaul.

 

[WarReadyVet]

PS3 support was dropped a little over a year after the PS4 version was available.

If PS4 support ends with the 7.0 expansion then that would be about 2 years after the PS5 version is available (open beta in April so release should be later this year).

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I would assume that is largely contingent on how many 5's Sony has been able to manufacture. If by this Christmas we're still seeing critical shortages, it would behoove Square to maintain support until potentially Spring 2022 or frankly for this entire expansion. If Square isn't going to force those with low end PCs to significantly upgrade, I'm not sure pruning one of your consoles from your player base makes much sense at this point.

 

[Remeran]

I thought it was weird when they semi-confirmed it in the past. I'm not trying to be snarky or anything, but I genuinely don't know if there would be enough interest on the Xbox platform to justify supporting the game there

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My primary platform is Xbox and I'm a huge FF fan/play 14 on the PC. So theres one person at least lol. Besides that, with FF games hitting gamepass I'm sure there are a ton of new fans that would be interested. I honestly think this is more due to covid than anything. With the way their schedule works they would need more man power to port the game which I'm sure is more difficult to do these days.

 

[MCD]

Seems there is still hope?

 

[Uzupedro]

EDIT: Beaten lul

 

[Remeran]

Seems there is still hope?

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And there it is. This exactly what I thought it was. Glad that there is hope for the future and still sad that i won't be able to enjoy it at Endwalkers release.

 

[Kida]

Nice! I also think the longer the wait, the higher the number of series X/S players and the easier it is to not bother with last gen.

 

[UltraGashInferno]

Too busy working on FFXIV: Classic NIGHTMARE

 

[AlexFlame116]

Could've said this over a year ago when it was announced for Xbox.

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Last year there was also an article that YoshiP mentioned where he said that talks stopped between Microsoft and Square because they wanted FFXIV to be available on GamePass and Square said no.

 

[Remeran]

Last year there was also an article that YoshiP mentioned where he said that talks stopped between Microsoft and Square because they wanted FFXIV to be available on GamePass and Square said no.

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Source? I have never hear this. The last thing I saw was Yoshi saying they were working on it and making progress. I feel like that would be pretty big news.

 

[Raigor]

"not enough resources" aka "MS is not paying to have the game on their platform so we ain't going to port it"

Square Enix is one of the publishers driven by moneyhats and money in exchange of games, we have seen it this generation and even recently, if someone is willing to pay them they are going to port the games, if not, bad luck.

If Zenimax Online Studios can support a massive MMO on three platforms while delivering more content than FF14 every year they have no excuses, especially when their MMO still got a monthly fee on PS4 and PC.

 

[AlexFlame116]

Source? I have never hear this. The last thing I saw was Yoshi saying they were working on it and making progress. I feel like that would be pretty big news.

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Its super early here but I might have misread it. Basically they wanted it on GamePass and Square said no. Nothing about talks halting but afaik there were occasional updates about an Xbox port of XIV until the Game Pass thing happened. I could be completely wrong tho XD

Here's an article tho!

 

[Uzupedro]

"not enough resources" aka "MS is not paying to have the game on their platform so we ain't going to port it"

Square Enix is one of the publishers driven by moneyhats and money in exchange of games, we have seen it this generation and even recently, if someone is willing to pay them they are going to port the games, if not, bad luck.

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So is Yoshi-P lying?
Because there is nothing unbelievable in either answers on both interviews, they are working on the expansion and can't work on the port until is over.

 

[Raigor]

So is Yoshi-P lying?
Because there is nothing unbelievable in either answers on both interviews, they are working on the expansion and can't work on the port until is over.

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Did i say he is lying? The "not enough resources" point is because Square Enix is not willing to put resources and add another platform on the pipeline. Square Enix has resources, let's not kid ourselves.

 

[ghostcrew]

From reading the actual quote it sounds like the team just need to be constantly creating and looking forward to the next 2, 3 or 4 content drops (because that's what you have to do with a live game) and they just don't have the ability to put all of that on hold to make new ports of the game for new consoles right now without fucking up their roadmaps.

I'm not sure why people are talking about XBLG requirements and stumbling blocks with forced crossplay or whatever.

Yoshida literally says 'there are no obstacles to creating the Xbox version. Our workload and order of steps is the issue'.

 

[--R]

Did i say he is lying? The "not enough resources" point is because Square Enix is not willing to put resources and add another platform on the pipeline. Square Enix has resources, let's not kid ourselves.

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Throwing more money at a department that is already developing Endwalker, the 5.5 patch for FFXIV, the PS5 version of FFXIV in addition to FFXVI is not gonna solve anything. This is strictly a time and number of workers issue. Saying they just want MS to pay for it is disingenuous.

 

[Remeran]

Its super early here but I might have misread it. Basically they wanted it on GamePass and Square said no. Nothing about talks halting but afaik there were occasional updates about an Xbox port of XIV until the Game Pass thing happened. I could be completely wrong tho XD

Here's an article tho!

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This article is all wrong. Phil never said he wanted it on the service he said he wanted on Xbox.

The astute people out there might have noticed there's one Final Fantasy that's missing in our list: number 14. 14 is one I've been dedicated to, working with [director] Yoshida-san to find a solution to bring that game to Xbox. And while it's not in the news today, I wanted you to know, rest assured, that we will be bringing that game to Xbox.

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Yoshi is replying to someone asking if they considered it coming to game pass, never says that Xbox asked them for it to be on Game Pass. It's click bait.

 

[Raigor]

Throwing more money at a department that is already developing Endwalker, the 5.5 patch for FFXIV, the PS5 version of FFXIV in addition to FFXVI is not gonna solve anything. This is strictly a time and number of workers issue. Saying they just want MS to pay for it is disingenuous.

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There's nothing disingenuous, Square Enix loves them money and moneyhats to port games on other platforms, we saw it with Dragon Quest XI on Xbox Game Pass, KH3 on Epic Games Store, and the next Final Fantasy being PS exclusive for the next years.

The department can be expanded i mean, Zenimax Online Studios has opened a new studio in San Diego to work on "several other games", it's not like Square Enix is not capable of doing it too if they are willing, this is the key issue here, wanting the game on other platforms.

 

[ohlawd]

SE is such a joke. good thing they throw me a good bone every once in a while like Triangle Strategy and Bravely Default II

it's gonna take a while but probably better to cut losses and wait for SE to announce their next FF MMO a whole decade later and hope that one's actually day to date

 

[AndrewDean84]

Eh, that sucks. I guess I'll miss out.

 

[jbug617]

Another interview

 

[Remeran]

Another interview

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MY EYESS!!!

Seriously though some one already posted that a little earlier, might wanna just thread mark that.

 

[Tohsaka]

From reading the actual quote it sounds like the team just need to be constantly creating and looking forward to the next 2, 3 or 4 content drops (because that's what you have to do with a live game) and they just don't have the ability to put all of that on hold to make new ports of the game for new consoles right now without fucking up their roadmaps.

I'm not sure why people are talking about XBLG requirements and stumbling blocks with forced crossplay or whatever.

Yoshida literally says 'there are no obstacles to creating the Xbox version. Our workload and order of steps is the issue'.

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Yeah, pretty much. They tend to really want to stick to the roadmap they have laid out for the game and developing an entire new version would likely impact it a great deal.

 

[Luminaire]

People would do well to remember that resources do not just mean money.

Time, money, and talent are resources and simply cutting a check would not resolve their issue with developing and delivering content every three months on an additional platform.

 

[Cogg]

I would love this on Xbox but I also don't want this team stretched thin and jumbled around to get it out. imo not deveating from a successful roadmap for the sake of a port is a good call if not a bit disappointing.

 

[Remeran]

I would love this on Xbox but I also don't want this team stretched thin and jumbled around to get it out. imo not deveating from a successful roadmap for the sake of a port is a good call if not a bit disappointing.

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Where I'm at honestly. At least I can still play on PC.

 

[Arkeband]

PS3 support was dropped a little over a year after the PS4 version was available.

If PS4 support ends with the 7.0 expansion then that would be about 2 years after the PS5 version is available (open beta in April so release should be later this year).

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Keep in mind that the PS3 was uniquely bottlenecking development due to it having a meager 256 MB of RAM (for games). The PS4 has 8GB, while the PS5 has 16GB. The need to drop PS4 is far, far lower than the need to drop PS3.

I would not expect PS4 support to be dropped unless there is a fundamentally massive scope increase with the kind of content the game provides. Everything else, from textures to physics, will need to be adjustable for PC compatibility anyway.

 

[ghostcrew]

People would do well to remember that resources do not just mean money.

Time, money, and talent are resources and simply cutting a check would not resolve their issue with developing and delivering content every three months on an additional platform.

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Yes. You can throw all the money you want at it but if the answer is 'our team is already stretched thin with creating the constant hamster wheel of content needed for a live service game' then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[--R]

There's nothing disingenuous, Square Enix loves them money and moneyhats to port games on other platforms, we saw it with Dragon Quest XI on Xbox Game Pass, KH3 on Epic Games Store, and the next Final Fantasy being PS exclusive for the next years.

The department can be expanded i mean, Zenimax Online Studios has opened a new studio in San Diego to work on "several other games", it's not like Square Enix is not capable of doing it too if they are willing, this is the key issue here, wanting the game on other platforms.

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And you really think the department expansion would just be done in a couple of days or something? This is something that would affect their entire roadmap. Hell, they already expanded for FFXVI. Is it that hard to understand that they'll work on it when they don't have that many projects in their hands?

And comparing this, where Yoshi-P literally says it's due to manpower and not being able to work on so many projects, to timed exclusivities? That's not disingenuous? Give me a break.

 

[CabooseMSG]

Weird, constantly treat other platforms shittily, and then lament how poorly your games do there. Wonder if there's a connection there or something

 

[Oleander]

I certainly imagine that resources would be tight, even without the impact of Covid. These guys run on a strict schedule that they have somehow managed to maintain outside of the initial shock of the pandemic. Even when it comes to updates, they have to ensure compatibility between launching on PC, Mac, PS4, and PS4 Pro. Adding PS5, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X would be a huge QA demand on top of the existing workloads they are dealing with. Which, of course, isn't impossible, but may not have been the priority when they need to cater to their existing playerbase with new content, and the logistical difficulties around development in a pandemic.

 

[Parker Petrov]

I haven't seen Yoshida said anything about these issues for a long time now so I think it's not really an issue anymore. What Yoshida said is more about their tight schedule and regular updates. This is not like SP games that they can just hire a third-party and port all the existing contents to a new platform and be done with it.
They need to keep up with every little updates they do as well as coordinating with the platform holder for the updates. They can't have one platform lag behind either as one of the requirements Yoshida always has is that every platform need to be able to play together on the same server. Coodinating these with a third-party on this kind of schedule is not easy and they don't have manpower to do all it in-house (at least for now) while keeping the schedule.

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You would only use a third party to port the existing content so it's current. So 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 Once it's current, they would just handle the patches internally. If anything, drop mac support if it's a resource issue of creating the patch as way more people would play the game on Xbox than mac. Especially with the changes, apple is doing with creating their own processor not based on x86 architecture.

If they don't want to support Xbox I think it's fine. But then just flat out say that. Everything they offered just sounds like BS and fluff.

 

[lucancel]

Personal bummer Is zero news on a switch release, or something with Nintendo for future pro switch. I am sure many would Jump right away in Japan and outside with the portable Hybrid console...