Square Enix has recently primarily released PS5-exclusive games, but in the future the company probably wants to “aggressively” return to a multiplatform strategy.
Square Enix has released a new business plan called “Square Enix Reboots, and Awakens.” It outlines the “aggressive pursuit” of a new multiplatform strategy across Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation and PC platforms. The developer and publisher would thus turn their backs on the exclusive games that have recently been distributed.
Of course, Square Enix has also been active on various popular platforms in the past, but recently it has repeatedly secured exclusive deals around the biggest in-house releases, especially with Sony. Examples include Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth or last year’s Final Fantasy XVI, both of which were released exclusively for the PlayStation 5. Forspoken and the Final Fantasy VII Remake were exclusive to PS5 and PC.
The new business plan, which was presented as part of the current business figures, now suggests that such exclusive deals will be a thing of the past in the future. They want to establish a larger environment in which customers can enjoy the in-house titles. This applies to large franchises and AAA titles as well as catalog titles. Above all, the mention of catalog titles suggests that previous PS5 exclusive games could possibly also come to other platforms.
There were previously reports that both Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth had underperformed commercial expectations. In its annual report, Square Enix itself admits the “low profitability” of such high-quality titles – and that could now lead to a rethink back to a multiplatform approach.
Final Fantasy VII Remake was just the tutorial. With Rebirth, Cloud’s journey really begins to take off. Here comes our test.
