I just want to be on the internet the day MS finally acquires a Japanese publisher ( which I think is inevitable) be it Square Sega or Capcom. I just want to witness the fallout first hand. Hopefully I don’t have to work that day or anything.
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Honestly as the Japanese publisher most likely to sell Square feels a solid possibility, I don’t know how Jez’s reported soured relationship between xbox and square would affect this but it’d certainly be one way to get all these games on Xbox.
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I don’t know if Jez’s soured Square/MS relationship isn’t anything more than them not agreeing upon a price. Which wouldn’t really be a soured relation ship IMO.
One question I have is if Square is acquired by a platform holder, is that the end of their AA output? Considering it’s virtually all outsourced and Square just publishes.
The AA content feels like both Squares greatest strength and weakness - looking at the past year if content I do wonder how some of these titles like Harvestella coulda done on a service like game pass. I feel like there’s no reason to stop these kinds of publishing deals, though they could perhaps be more selective - in fact I think if Microsoft were to acquire Square they should be looking for acquisition potential in them. Even just on the Western side having Avalanche and Deck Nine as first party alongside SE would be solid.
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No, it’s on par with other AAA JRPGs and other AAA games in general, which is what the original post was about. No need to move goalposts.
What other AAA JRPGs
Forspoken and FF7RE are recent examples.
I’m probably mixed up, because I thought the discussion was about Square being the only one making AAA JRPGs
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Yeh I doubt that.
Who knows, nobody would have thought that they would start to buy publishers and now they have at least one and are in the process to acquire the biggest western publisher.
If Square Enix wants to sell and Microsoft makes an interesting offer, it could become reality.
Wouldn’t be surprised, their behavior screams “someone acquire me”
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At the end of the day money talks, so it’s definitely not out of the question. It truly would be something if this were to happen.
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So there are thoughts that there is “bad blood” between MS and SE? I think that may be a stretch considering there is no (public) reasoning behind it. I could see that from a smaller developer/publisher with limited resources to release on all platforms anyway, but I think SE is too big to be like that. I mean you could say the reverse too “MS isn’t letting SE release games on Xbox because SE was mean to them” but that would sound crazy wouldn’t it?
I think Sony paying to keep games off Xbox is more plausible, even if the same games release on PC and Nintendo. I don’t think exclusivity has to be all or nothing, “high end console exclusive” could be a thing. Basically Sony can’t afford to keep games of the Switch, but paying a small sum to keep games off Xbox could be possible. Xbox’s lower install base can make it such that SE will accept such a deal. I say this because it seems like SE platform choices have no consistency and most like every game has some sort of deal linked to it. Also Sony does have an incentive to do this. While they may not be able to stop Nintendo, they still can make deals to hold their 'high end console" position.
Every time this comes up nobody can give a good answer on why Sony did not pay to keep FF Origin and FF Crisis Core off Xbox only and why games that have no Nintendo deal like Harvestella and Paranormasight come to Switch + PC only and skip PS even though Sony is apparently investing this much in Square AA (they’d be published and marketed by Nintendo, and not on PC day one, if Nintendo had a deal like other Square Switch games that do have deals). And in the case of the Pixel Remasters why they weren’t even on PS before and why the PS Asia physical release is cancelled (now Switch exclusive) even though apparently Sony is investing money into them. Because now it sounds like saying Sony is boosting the Switch if it means denying Xbox.
But I do think the “bad blood” thing is laughable and definitely not what it sounds like. I remain on my 3 points:
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Well do you think they can pay to keep everything off Xbox and Nintendo? I’d wager SE just puts everything out for bid and just kinda goes like hey (Sony, MS, Nintendo) we got this game here… you like it? You want to pay for a level of exclusivity? How much you got? Then they go see if the others want to counter that offer. Hence the idea SE not releasing things on Xbox without MS paying for it. It’s probably technically the same for Sony, but they get better deals due to their install base.
If one wants to say that “Xbox owners don’t buy jrpgs” or whatever sure we can use that to assume that it isn’t profitable to port to Xbox. Yet if we can assume that, why can’t we just take a little step further and assume that if there is a minor profit to be made by porting to Xbox, it would be incredibly cheap for Sony or Nintendo to prevent that port?
From Sony’s POV it’s not just about increasing the sales of those games to PS, it’s about making sure an audience doesn’t even get off the ground on the Xbox. This is what they are doing with FF7R, FF16 so why not other games at the fraction of the cost? It’s even highlighted in their complaints to the FTC and CMA stating MS is going to do what they are obviously doing right now. We know they are buying exclusivity, we just don’t know to what extent.
Ms cant do this now but they fucked up major last gen. If they invested in more japanese games they could ha e had their own array of remakes and remasters. Ms paying to obtain a chrono trigger remake or xenogears remake would have been huge but they werent thinking outside the box.
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Just an interesting aside: A link to Forespoken is one of the activities on my MS Rewards page (10pts).
Because Forspoken is available on PC via Microsoft store.
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Ah I didn’t realize, but I was actually going for SE and MS marketing angle. I assume those links are part of some marketing deal, small most likely, but something. Would that happen with “bad blood” between them? The companies don’t have to have a sunny relationship for business to be business.