Is Final Fantasy 16 going to be PC, Xbox and Nintendo Switch? And will there be a PS4 port? Though the series has traditionally been available on a variety of consoles and platforms, now FF16 is very much tied to Sony, and the matter is a little confusing when it comes to it being on anything other than the PS5. We'll explain all the consoles that Final Fantasy 16 will be on below, including details on PC, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and more.
Is Final Fantasy going to be on PC, Xbox, Switch and PS4?
Final Fantasy 16 will only be on PS5 at release on June 22 2023, with no immediate ports or versions available on other consoles and platforms, in part because Final Fantasy 16 has a minimum six-month exclusive contract with Sony. However, that does not mean that it couldn't come to other platforms at some point. The exact details vary from console to console though, so let's go through the available details:
- PC: Producer Naoki Yoshida said he would like to release a PC port in the future (translated from Japanese, thanks Wario64), however, he urged people not to think that this would be an immediate thing after the six-month exclusivity contract with Sony. A PC port would likely take longer to create than simply six months, so players shouldn't expect it coming to computers any time soon.
- Xbox: No, players shouldn't expect Final Fantasy 16 to be on any Xbox Series X/S or Xbox One, and the reason is a weird one: in the ongoing conflict between Sony and Microsoft, it has been revealed in released documentation from the CMA (3.67) that Sony has signed deals with third-party developers to stop them from working with Microsoft specifically. Square Enix has permission to work with others (presumably this would be after the six-month exclusivity period), but Microsoft and the Xbox specifically is off-limits to them. The exact details of this exclusion are not clear yet, but it means that third party games made for Sony likely won't be on Xbox at any time in the near future, and may not be on it at all.
- Nintendo Switch: At time of writing there's no information either way about whether we can expect a Nintendo Switch port of Final Fantasy 16, though if there was one, it would clearly have to be at least six months after the PS5 version. It's also worth mentioning that the clear high technical demands of FF16 may make a functional Switch port difficult, though it may be possible by having it function as a Cloud Version of the game, similar to Guardians of the Galaxy and Hitman 3 before it.
- PS4: Despite Sony's claim to the game, a PS4 version doesn't seem likely at all, largely owing to technical limitations. In an interview with IGN, Yoshida said that the limited power of the PS4 would've meant that the game would still be in development now. The high demands of Final Fantasy's new combat system means that a current-gen console seems pretty mandatory, or at least that a lot of work would be needed to get it to run on the PlayStation 4.
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