I was thinking something similar but I wouldn’t necessarily call it a backdoor deal; maybe MS was planning on buying 1 or all the studios once Perfect Dark shipped, or ABK got in the way and then square just sold them off instead to Embracer.
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True, backdoor might not be the word to use there. However, they may have had some type of agreement about acquiring those studios or at least the studios that are offering them support at the moment. That’s the only thing I can think of if there’s bad blood between the two
Wonder if the change in leadership at Square will help mend fences, depending on what the Bad blood is actually about
Eidos Montreal and CD would be such damn good additions to XGS. I’m almost done with Guardians and man, fantastic stuff. This is the kind of games I want to see more of on Xbox, now under Embracer I wonder if they get the necessary budget.
As for SE, situation just sucks, whatever the reason is. If there’s bad blood I wonder if we won’t get any game at all anymore, like the next DQ for example. FF I’ve given up on, we weren’t getting that anymore anyway, regardless of bad blood or not.
Hope so!
Phil Spencer doesn’t seem to be the kind of person that just leaves it at that, he’s well aware of the big player SE still is, solely japanese games now, pretty much.
Speaking of DQ, an updated logo and copyright info were found. It might be getting properly revealed soon. Playstation Showcase or Nintendo Direct (or it’s own event, probably this).
I’m not a believer of this “bad blood” stuff lol, but Switch(2?)/PS/PC DQ would be pretty bad as the IP is bigger than Monster Hunter in Japan.
It would fucking suck to see that skip Xbox. The FF pixel remaster game idgaf about personally, but yeah, DQ is big. As for the bad blood thing, Jez has proven to be a good source many times in the past. I know he often speculates too, but it wouldn’t shock me if this ends up being true. Hope they sort it out sooner rather than later.
I remain in the camp that DQ12 is a game MS “drops the bag” for to have on the platform (not talking about a GP bag)
With DQ Infinity Strash being a this Fall game I can’t see DQ12 releasing before it which also means it’s def not coming this year.
It’s starting to seem like it could be a Switch 2 launch game which has me 
'ing at how crazy the launch would be for the platform in Japan.
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I looked Infinity Strash up on YouTube. I had no idea about this game. Sadly not for Xbox, and this game actually has real-time combat. Something I really like.
We did get 11 and Builders.
With SE it will probably always be inconsistent as hell. It looks good too, so I want to believe this isn’t Xbox saying no to it because…reasons.
The developer of this game, Game Studio, is also making Synduality for Bandai Namco, which is coming to Xbox, so I don’t know if that plays into Jez’s whole “bad blood with Square Enix” thing.
I guess that would be Bandai telling them to develop for Xbox for their game and Square, obviously not seeing Xbox as important, just telling them to do Switch/PS/PC (but most likely not specifically saying “AND LEAVE OUT XBOX!” 
). Platforms also could have just been Game Studio’s decision.
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Synduality looks interesting actually, I’ll be looking out for that.
I guess it’s time I really accepted that (especially SE) it is gonna be inconsistent as can be with Japanese releases. And that I will be better off just getting a PS5 for those games. It’s just that even once I have both systems, I still prefer to play as many of these games as possible on Xbox. But there will always be titles just not coming to Xbox, it is what it is.
A DQ game with real-time combat, I gotta say it looks interesting and fun. I now wonder if they are gonna go all Like a Dragon on us but the other way around, after years of TB combat they go for real time now. We’ll see. Hopefully Jez has something concrete on this soon and most of all hope it gets sorted. I can’t imagine that this is about FF7R, for Xbox, the “bad blood” thing.
Will be interesting to see what happens with KH3 as Disney are involved.
Interesting in what way? Is there some sort of remaster going on, as KH3 released in 2019 and was on GamePass already.
Most likely meant KH4
Or knowing that series, KH 3.117 / KH 3.867 
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From what Jez and Rand were saying it sounds more like a money problem. Xbox doesn’t seem interested in paying SE for every game has it just might become a standard that all Japanese developers demand for putting games on Xbox. Sometime ago square Enix floated the idea of working with publishers on joint development or where one could invest into their projects, perhaps this was the case here.
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You may be right. Big budget games like Forspoken and Final Fantasy have already exclusive contracts with Sony, while for games like Octopath Traveler or Live A Live perhaps Square Enix is asking for more money than Xbox is willing to invest. I wonder if they are at least trying to get Dragon Quest XII or Kingdom Hearts 4…
They really, really should. I can remember posts when DQ 11 came to Game Pass how it was among the most played games. It definitely was a success. I don’t expect it on Game Pass but a normal release on Xbox REALLY should happen. They got people on board with the franchise now.
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I wonder who made that decision on Marvel’s Avenger boost micro transactions. If you remember, after the game arrived in Game Pass, it gave them a huge boost and all the sudden, new mtx emerged that will grant them boost XP or some sort. The timing was very odd. If it was from Square, greed is no shock and honestly, if it is money issue between them and Xbox, I wouldn’t be surprised.
But money shouldn’t be an issue for MS, they got crazy amounts of it. Of course there’s a limit to everything. Maybe SE wanted bat shit crazy amounts of money for the FF Pixel thingy and Live a Live and whatever else skipped Xbox. But for mainline DQ I hope MS is willing to spend a few bucks, lol. Because again, people played the previous one, plenty, they will play the new one too and likely buy it.
I checked Google to find out if the new CEO is there already, but…
Today, during a livestream from Japan, the new CEO of Square Enix Takashi Kiryu introduced himself to the players of Final Fantasy XIV. Kiryu-san will replace former CEO Yosuke Matsuda, who is retiring from the company.
So let’s hope Phil (or whoever’s job this is, Booty?) sits down with the man and they just fix this. Especially since this one might not push so much for nft, maybe he’ll do great things for gaming.
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It’s not about the cost, it’s about a dangerous precedence it would set. An established platform holder should never have to pay to get games onto their platform. Ever. It’s like never negotiate with terrorists. The moment you do you signal you are weak and a target for everyone else to follow suit.
It’s different if the platform is trying to get a marketing deal or inclusion into a service.
You don’t get a crazy amount of money by being dumb and pissing it away fruitlessly.
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