Xbox One Version of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Might Have Just Been Teased by Square Enix

Xbox One Version of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Might Have Just Been Teased by Square Enix

Giuseppe Nelva February 2, 2015 10:45 AM EST

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is only on PC, PS3 and PS4 at the moment, but there are many who would like to be able to play the game on Xbox One as well.

While nothing has been officially announced, Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida might have just teased an upcoming Xbox One port of the game during the latest Letter from the Producer Live broadcast aired from the Tokaigi Japan Game Party 2015 at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba, near Tokyo.

At the very beginning of the livestream Yoshida-san picked up a controller, and held it up rather explicitly in front of the camera. What’s most peculiar is that the controller was an Xbox One controller.

Yoshida-san didn’t really make any mention of the identity of the controller, just saying that as soon as he picked up the pad, the credit roll of the game started running on the PC screen in front of him.

Interestingly, the controller wasn’t even used during the stream. Yoshida-san explained that he thought he wouldn’t be able to reharse beforehand due to a scheduled maintenance, so the team prepared backup videos instead of live gameplay.

On top of that, the camera zoomed right on the controller as Yoshida waved it around. As a matter of fact, it never zoomed as close during the whole livestream as it did on the Xbox One controller.

While the Xbox One controller is compatible with the PC version of the game, never before it was used during Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn livestreams. We have always seen either a DualShock 4 or generic PC controllers.

Personally I can’t think of many other reasons to display an Xbox One controller like that, if not to tease something.

Last summer Yoshida-san himself told me at Gamescom that Square Enix was ready to work on an Xbox One version of the game as soon as Microsoft allowed cross-platform gameplay, even mentioning the possibility of having servers with Windows and Xbox One gamers only.

Very conveniently, at the beginning of January Microsoft announced cross-platform gameplay between Xbox One and Windows 10, basically opening the door to Yoshida-san’s request. It’s also worth mentioning that Microsoft has been quite close with the Final Fantasy XIV team in Japan, sponsoring multiple events dedicated to the game with its Windows 8 operating system.

Last but not least, recently Xbox Division Head Phil Spencer mentioned that he expects more cross-play titles between Windows 10 and Xbox before the end of 2015 on top of Fable Legends.

It all fits together quite nicely, doesn’t it? The possibility definitely exists that Square Enix and Microsoft resumed talks about an Xbox One version of the game as soon as the house of Windows opened to cross-play between platforms, and given the recent developments, those talks could have finally found a positive outcome.

Yoshida-san definitely isn’t new to teasing things before their official announcement. He used Batman and 007 t-shirts to tease the Dark Knight and Machinist jobs coming in the Heavensward expansion during previous events, and his waving around that Xbox One controller could easily be his way to give us a glimpse on things to come.

Unfortunately, we have no way to be sure for now, but the possibility is quite solid. When Yoshida-san teases something, the announcement isn’t too far off, so we might hear something in the next few months, possibly even before the release of Heavensward this spring.