Square Enix is going ‘aggressively’ multiplatform after string of PS5 exclusives

polygon.com:

Square Enix has revealed a new business plan — titled “Square Enix Reboots, and Awakens” — that will see the publisher “aggressively pursue” a multiplatform strategy for its biggest games across Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation, and Windows PC.

While Square Enix has long been active across a wide range of platforms, it has a tradition of signing exclusivity deals for its biggest releases, typically with Sony. This year’s Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and last year’s Final Fantasy 16 are currently exclusive to PlayStation 5, while games like Forspokenand the original Final Fantasy 7 Remake have been released across PlayStation and PC. Final Fantasy 14 has only just seen an Xbox release this past March, over a decade after it debuted on PC and PlayStation.

The wording of Square Enix’s new plan, released as part of the company’s latest financial report, suggests that this strategy will soon be a thing of the past. Square Enix said its goal was to “build an environment where more customers can enjoy our titles,” especially regarding “major franchises and AAA titles including catalog titles.” The mention of “catalog titles” suggests that previously exclusive games, like the Final Fantasy 7 series and Final Fantasy 16, may soon be coming to other platforms.

The move comes after reports suggested that both FF16 and FF7 Rebirth underperformed financially. Indeed, in its own report, Square Enix acknowledges “low profitability” in what it calls the “HD games” segment — meaning medium- to big-budget games for console systems and PC — which is an alarming thing to say about the financial year in which these two perceived juggernauts in the company’s most famous franchise were released.

Of course, Square Enix is not the only company wondering if platform exclusivity can work at all at scale anymore. Xbox has begun a controversial shift toward publishing its games on rival console platforms, while Sony is in the process of discovering the huge audience (as well as the potential pitfalls)