They think I’m going to buy a remaster of a crappy psp spin off when the thing people are actually interested in never is coming to xbox?
If you’re going to randomly skip titles here and there why should xbox fans buy any of the stuff you do put out if they don’t know they are actually going to get the rest of it? There’s no trust, xbox fans have no reason to invest
Personally I don’t really care, Square pretty much doesn’t exist to me at this point and not just because they skip xbox, they’ve been a bad publisher for a long time now
Persona 5 is better than anything Square has made since FFX
I would like to hear details, did Xbox really screw up or that SE was demanding stuff that Jez thinks its reasonable but MS did not and instead went to talks with other developers? Bamco and Sega are seemingly very happy.
I’m with the rest of you on how it’s confusing on how it could be Xbox’s fault which is why I said “somehow” and used the “(?)”.
The only way I see that being the case is if, like, if Square was requesting more GP checks and MS said “no”, and then Square took extreme offense to it or something lol, but even then that wouldn’t be “Xbox’s fault” and this is probably not what happened lol
I’ve laid out my thoughts before:
I think that despite Square saying otherwise, their company revolves around the JP market, at least for the smaller releases. Square is notorious for not marketing their games very well, but they do market them good in Japan. Dragon Quest X continues to be a JP only game, even with the recently released DQX Offline Edition. This is a market where Xbox essentially doesn’t exist so Square doesn’t see it as important
Square is immensely risky adverse. Their AAA output is essentially backed by Sony at this point and many of their smaller games are backed by Nintendo. They seem to want a guaranteed “lifeline” for Xbox releases (GP deal)
JRPGs on Xbox aren’t where they need to be yet (moreso, AA smaller ones) and this is essentially the only genre Square deals in. If a typical undermarketed AA Square JRPG comes out on all platforms and underperforms like usual I’m going to say that I bet that the Xbox version is particularly doing extremely bad. For Octopath Traveler 2, we’ve seen all the signs that the PlayStation version is the most struggling version and it’s by a lot compared to Switch/PC, I can only assume an Xbox version would have been even worse.
Do these reasons excuse something like the Pixel Remasters? Definitely not. FF1-6 remasters would sell on Xbox or anything they get released on, even people who don’t really play JRPGs anymore would buy them for nostalgia, they’re games even my mom knows lol.
Something like Live a Live though, I’m going to assume that the late-port, digital only, never-getting-marketed-again PlayStation port is going to sell like shit, whether Square actually understands this or not though, I don’t know.
Definitely gonna need more than just Sega/Atlus and Bandai Namco on board to fill the JRPG hole left by Square.
The best JRPG publisher on Xbox in 2022 was Square Enix, with 4-5 games for Xbox (4-5, because it depends on if you count FF Origin as a JRPG, lol)
Atlus released 2 games on Xbox last year and one was a late port. This year they had 2 more older/“retro” ports. Their next port collection for Etrian Odyssey is not on Xbox/PS. They -may- have -one- original new game this year.
Bandai Namco, IIRC, did not make any JRPGs last year. The genre is not their particular forte.
Capcom doesn’t do the genre. Mega Man Battle Network is their only new release that kinda qualifies but isn’t on Xbox
Koei Tecmo’s JRPG department doesn’t release on Xbox
Konami seems ready to support, Suikoden collection is coming. However Konami is still “waking up” so to speak, and I don’t think they’re gonna be a JRPG powerhouse or anything.
Majority of JRPGs come from small publishers who aren’t on Xbox. From the way some people act you’d think Xbox has most JRPGs and Square are the odd ones not playing ball, obviously this is not the case.
I’ll once again throw out my wishlist of Falcom, NIS, and Gust games. Though it could be said that not having Square games effectively harms the popularity of those games on Xbox.
Sorry to say but majority of the time Jez behaves like a manchild. He tweets before he thinks and often tweets his own assumptions and perceptions as some sort of facts. His first reaction is always assuming that MS is wrong and will retract his own statements after a few days.
Also he is drunk tweeting half of the time.
But don’t call him out or he might call you a fanboy.
As per his own words I believe, unless Jez writes an article about something its just his opinion or things he has heard that he hasn’t necessarily vetted yet.
Maybe it’s a bit stretched… But Square Enix and its contracts with Sony have been mentioned in Microsoft documents to reinforce the theory of how Sony signs contracts with third parties to exclude Xbox from games like Final Fantasy and Forspoken. We now know there is a real risk for Sony to be investigated for its exclusive contracts, many of which were made with Square Enix, and Square is relying heavily on its contracts with Sony to move forward, especially in this period where it is more in financial difficulty and runs the risk of no longer being able to rely on them.
Relations with Microsoft may have been tense before, but now they may have worsened for being mentioned due to the acquisition of Activision.
This goes back to my “risk adverse” point. Marvelous sees potential in putting this game on Xbox, without GP and day and date. Physical release too. They’re taking a risk. Something Square doesn’t want to do without the “lifeline”.
Is it also possible that Marvelous see the absence of S-E on Xbox as an opportunity? If there is a hunger for AA-tier RPG games on Xbox that isn’t being met, they could stand to establish themselves well. It’s hard to stand out on Switch where S-E are pumping out a dozen games, but a pointedly ignored market?
I’m confused as to what the actual implication here is, the only way I can see this making sense is if the games sell poorly enough on Xbox it isn’t worth it for Square to do it without being paid some fee to port/release it on gamepass, and it isn’t worth it for Xbox to pay that fee cause not enough people are playing them? But that doesn’t explain Jez putting it so squarely (hoho) as Xbox’s fault.
Maybe square is charging for ports on everything not just for gamepass, not sure the details yet but the post also makes it sound like Jez might trying to compile more info to post or write about.
To be fair they’d only charge for ports if they didn’t think it was worth it on sales alone. I will be very interested to read what kind of insight Jez has though.
