Final Fantasy 16 Producer Wishes There Was “Only One Console” To Develop For

gameranx.com:

There are many debates in the video game space that are likely never to be settled. But one of the biggest is the question of “console exclusivity.” Simply put, many gamers don’t like that numerous big-name franchises are either rooted on one console or are unlikely to get ported to other systems until much later. A great example of this is Final Fantasy 16. The game by Square Enix was released on PlayStation 5 recently and will stay there for many months until it is ported to PC. It won’t go to Xbox or Nintendo. But one of the game’s producers wishes things were simpler.

The producer, Naoki Yoshida, spoke about the topic of consoles during an interview. In it, he noted that it would be “better for players and developers” if there were simply one console for everyone to develop for:

“I probably should not say this, but I wish there was only one.”

But is he right to feel this way? Well, it’s a complicated issue. However, if we were to boil it down to its most base argument, he’s not wrong that everyone would benefit from a singular console coming out, everyone having that, and then the developers only working on that one system.

For example, one of the biggest problems of recent game development is that games are being launched full of bugs and without proper optimization. It’s gotten so bad that gamers have berated developers for the “rushed releases” and dread another one coming out.

However, if there was only one console to develop for, many of these issues would be dealt with. Optimizing for one console is easier and less time-consuming than it is to customize things for several. Multiple developers over the years have noted that one of the hardest things they’ve done is to make a game great not on one system but