Square Enix Announces Disappointing News for PS5 and Xbox Series X Early Adopters

Today, Square Enix shared some bad news for early adopters of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, the next-gen consoles releasing later this year via PlayStation and Xbox, respectively. According to the Japanese games maker — known for series like Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, NieR, and more — it won’t be releasing any next-gen exclusive games until “farther down the road.”

Unfortunately, Square Enix doesn’t divulge any further specifics than this, so it’s unclear just how much time is implied by “farther down the road,” but it does suggest it will be at least a couple years until we see it churning out next-gen exclusive games. More interesting though, this also confirms that neither PlayStation or Xbox were able to strike a deal with the publisher and developer to make games, exclusively, for their next-gen consoles.

“The next-generation consoles will have backward compatibility, so we plan for the time being to make our new titles available for both current and next-generation consoles,” reads the official company statement. “It will therefore be somewhat farther down the road that we release titles exclusively for the next-generation consoles.”

As you may know, this is somewhat common practice. While next-gen launch window games do notoriously well, many publishers are slow to leave behind the previous generation of consoles and their huge player bases.

At the moment of publishing, Square Enix’s next game is Final Fantasy VII Remake, which will hit in April, and be followed by Marvel’s Avengers in September. Meanwhile, it also has Babylon’s Fall releasing this year, and will have Outriders at the launch of the next-gen consoles. It also has Dying Light 2, a new game from Deck Nine Games, and Circuit Superstars in the works. The latter game is currently slated for 2020, while the former two have no concrete release windows.

Beyond the publisher’s already announced games, it presumably has a new Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and Kingdom Hearts in the pipeline. Meanwhile, series like Tomb Raider and Deus Ex are currently unaccounted for.

Anyway, as always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think or hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know over there. Will the lack of true next-gen exclusives prevent you from copping the Xbox Series X and/or the PS5 at launch?