In his response to 111 pages to the UK Competition and Markets AuthorityMicrosoft revealed some details that initially escaped everyone until and account Twitter KoreaXboxNews highlight them. According to Microsoft, due to exclusivity agreements signed by Sony with Japanese publishers Square Enix and Konami, Final Fantasy XVI, Final Fantasy VII Remake and Silent Hill 2 Remake will never be released on Xbox platforms.
Exclusivity strategies are not uncommon in the games industry and other players in the market have access to their own content. Exclusive games from Sony and Nintendo are among the best sellers in Europe and worldwide. Sony’s current exclusive content includes major titles such as The Last of Us, Ghosts of Tsushima, God of War, and Spiderman.
In addition to exclusive content, Sony has also entered into agreements with third-party publishers that require the “exclusion” of Xbox from the platforms on which these publishers can distribute their games. Some prominent examples of these deals include Final Fantasy VII Remake (Square Enix), Bloodborne (From Software), the upcoming Final Fantasy XVI (Square Enix), and the recently announced Silent Hill 2 remaster (Bloober team).
Nintendo’s exclusive content includes well-established, world-famous and iconic franchises, such as Super Mario, Zelda, Xenoblade, Pokémon and Animal Crossing.
We already got a taste of it with the Final Fantasy VII Remake. It’s been two and a half years since the game was released on PlayStation platforms and a year since it was released on PC, with no talk of an Xbox port. Sony was thought to have managed to secure a one-time deal to kick Microsoft’s Xbox out of the FFVII Remake Trilogy, but it looks like the same will be true for Final Fantasy XVI (scheduled for release on June 24, 2023 exclusively on PlayStation 5), even though Final Fantasy XV has launched today on Xbox One.
Likewise, the Silent Hill 2 remake was announced two months ago by Konami for PlayStation and PC. However, Xbox fans certainly hadn’t given up hope that it might one day be available on Microsoft’s console. After all, the original game launched on the original Xbox just three months following the PlayStation 2 version (in North America). No release date has yet been set for the Silent Hill 2 Remake, while Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (the second chapter of the FFVII Remake) is slated for late 2023 as another PlayStation exclusive. 5.
