Parth
Gaming
1 min read

The Final Fantasy 7 remake, Bloodborne, and other Xbox exclusives are being blocked, according to Microsoft

In the spring of 2021, PlayStation’s exclusivity for the Final Fantasy 7 Remake came to an end. The updated Intergrade version of the game was released on PC more than a year later, but Xbox users were still without any options. Given a large number of Xbox fans, that looked like a surprising choice, but it turns out that Square Enix may not have had any control over the decision to release Final Fantasy on Xbox.

Yesterday, Microsoft made public its formal response to the FTC lawsuit against the Activision merger, claiming that Sony is only attempting to retain its dominance in the console industry by opposing Activision’s union with Microsoft. Microsoft claims that Sony is preventing the release of certain third-party games on Xbox systems as more evidence.

Microsoft provided Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 16, Bloodborne, and the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake as examples of titles where third-party creators have signed an Xbox “exclusion” agreement in a letter submitted to the UK’s CMA.

 

 

Microsoft claims that Sony has agreements with third-party publishers that “In addition to having exclusive content, Sony has also entered into arrangements with third-party publishers which require the ‘exclusion’ of Xbox from the set of platforms these publishers can distribute their games on. Some prominent examples of these agreements include Final Fantasy 7 Remake (Square Enix), Bloodborne (From Software), the upcoming Final Fantasy 16 (Square Enix), and the recently announced Silent Hill 2 remastered (Bloober Team).”

Nintendo has generally kept mute throughout this entire situation. Still, Microsoft said that both Sony and Nintendo have a tonne of unique first-party assets that they refuse to share with Xbox. Sony is “driving all the debate on why this merger shouldn’t go through,” according to Xbox CEO Phil Spencer.

Microsoft claims it has pledged to keep Call of Duty available across all platforms for 10 years and would even allow Sony to put the game on PlayStation Plus as a sign of good faith. These concessions haven’t prevented Sony from resisting the transaction so far.