At a recent event, Final Fantasy XIV producer Naoki Yoshida explained why the long-running MMORPG isn’t on the Xbox One. It turns out that despite Microsoft’s vocal support for cross-platform play, its own policies are exceptionally draconian in certain ways particularly when it comes to games like Final Fantasy XIV. In an interview with WCCFTech, Yoshida explained that there’s no way for players across platforms to chat with one another and that there’s no feature in place to allow players to form a guild or a free company due to Microsoft’s rules which are geared towards benefitting shooters and battle royale titles rather than RPGs. At the moment, Final Fantasy XIV is on PS4 and PC.
“Two months ago, I discussed with Phil Spencer. I have explained this before but we are prepared to do crossplay at any time. To play an MMORPG, there are 2 regulations for Microsoft which stand in the way of making crossplay feasible. Unless these regulations are rejected, there is no meaning. Simply speaking, the matching base FPS style game has no issues with those 2 regulations. If we had made an FPS game [had FF14 been one of those games], then we would already have crossplay,” Yoshida said before going into detail about what’s holding Final Fantasy XIV back from launching on the Xbox One.
“One of the regulations is that players with different platforms cannot chat with each other in-game. Then how do you play an MMO? The other regulation is you cannot make a community with plays on a different platform. You can’t form a guild, you can’t enter into a link shell, [and] no free company. So I would like to have Microsoft change their regulations,” Yoshida said. To him crossplay appears to be a feature that’s been pushed only for shooters and not genres like MMORPGs.
“And this is not limited to Microsoft but there are many players who only have crossplay experience with FPS games, especially with the business scene. For an MMORPG, a game which full communication is possible, regulations need to be created considering how massive an MMORPG is to have true crossplay,” he said. “Final Fantasy XIV will not release crossplay without making this clear because that would only hurt the players. I think we can only try to continue having our discussions with those parties [to communicate and relay what is needed].”
With Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers set to release next week, Square Enix’s distributor has finally announced retail plans for the newest physical edition of the game for India. You can check them out here. Long story short: they’re a welcome change.
In the past, the Final Fantasy XIV retail edition on PS4 included a code that grants access to you and you don’t need the disc to actually play it after installing the client. It is unclear whether that will be the case with this version as well. The PC version will be on disc and includes a code for the EU version of the game usable on Square Enix’s own client, so if you want Final Fantasy XIV: The Complete Edition on Steam, your only option is to well, buy it from there.
