A couple weeks ago many Xbox fans got excited by what they believed to be a tease by the console manufacturer for an Xbox release of the much-loved Final Fantasy VII Remake. This ultimately turned out to be a mistake on the part of Microsoft. That said, it has reignited the conversation surrounding the lack of recent Final Fantasy games on Xbox – with Phil Spencer now directly addressing these concerns.
In a recent interview conducted by IGN during Gamescom 2023, the head of Xbox Phil Spencer was asked about the possibility of Final Fantasy VII Remake and the recently-released FFXVI coming to Xbox consoles, with Spencer stating:
“I recognise that when people buy an Xbox, they want to make sure the great games that they want to play are coming. If there's any publisher out there where that hasn't been true, Square's one of the top. Sarah Bond and I fly to Tokyo and have conversations, and we’ve spent a lot of time with Square. There's obviously business deals and relationships that will have to get worked through on certain games.”
Spencer continued, “But I'll say it was really great to have the CEO of Square and Yoshi there to just talk about their commitment to Xbox. Because I can say, like, ‘I'm the head of Xbox, blah blah blah,’ but having the CEO of one of the third-parties make a commitment to the platform, I thought was a really meaningful step.”
Finally, he concluded by claiming “So you'll hear more. I'm not going to push them. They’re going to have to find their own rhythm. But having them make a commitment to Xbox was really important both to me, and I've heard it from the community, to the community as well. And [Final Fantasy] 14 was more of a commitment.”
While not a confirmation in any respect, Spencer’s words do seem to suggest that Xbox owners will eventually find themselves playing both Final Fantasy VII Remake and FFXVI – though it will most likely still be a while. We will have to wait and see.
KitGuru says: What do you think of Spencer’s statement? Do you believe these games will come to Xbox? How long do you reckon Xbox owners will be waiting? Let us know down below.