Final Fantasy XIV producer Naoki Yoshida has revealed that he is “in talks” with Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony about making Final Fantasy XIV the first ever completely cross-platform game.
While the hugely popular online RPG currently offers cross-platform play between PS4, PS3, and PC, Xbox; Switch owners have been left out. When asked whether we can expect to see Dragon Quest X or FFXIV on Switch, Yoshida gave this surprising answer:
“As to whether we’ll see more Square Enix MMOs on a Nintendo platform, we’re still in talks with Nintendo” he reveals. “I would love to do that, but for me, my policy is that you need to have cross-platform. You have this giant game, this huge world and this huge community and breaking them up by console — it’s nonsense.”
Interestingly, Yoshida isn’t complaining about the situation but, rather, actively rallying the console manufacturers to change.
[I] want everyone to be together, and I’ve taken this concept to Nintendo, to Microsoft to Sony and explained this to them. Hopefully, someday everybody will join hands, work together and we’ll see Final Fantasy XIV on all these platforms. We’re working on it, we just ask the players wait, but we want to see that day come as well.
Yoshida isn’t the first major developer to call out the three platform holders for segregating gamers. Since the success of the Nintendo Switch, Epic and Microsoft have both made headlines recently for calling out Sony for not allowing Fortnite and Minecraft players to play together across PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
Final Fantasy XI was the first Sony game to offer cross-platform play with PC, so it’s no surprise that Square and Yoshida are leading the charge in Final Fantasy XIV when it comes to cross-platform.
While FFXI never got around to the Nintendo platform at the time, that’s understandable as it was the Gamecube. Similarly, it’s understandable that Final Fantasy XIV cut support for the PS3 when Stormblood came out — the development costs for the PS3’s unique architecture becoming too costly. Still, it was nice Squeenix offered a free upgrade to the PS4 version.
Yoshida’s words are far from a solid confirmation of cross-platform play coming any time soon, but this is perhaps the brightest hope gamers have had so far of being able to play together as one united community.
