Final Fantasy VII Remake and the Silent Hill 2 remake will only be available on Xbox with the consent of PlayStation.
In its response to the CMA’s issues statement in relation to Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the software giant has stated that Final Fantasy VII Remake and the Silent Hill 2 remake cannot be released on Xbox. The reason mentioned by Microsoft is that Sony has signed an “Xbox exclusion” agreement with some third-party publishers for several games, including both the Silent Hill remake and FF VII Remake.
In its response, Microsoft explained to the CMA that exclusivity strategies are not uncommon in the games industry, and that other market participants have access to their own content. It argued that both Sony’s and Nintendo’s exclusive first-party games rank among the best-selling in Europe and worldwide. Current Sony exclusive content includes prominent first-party titles such as The Last of Us, Ghosts of Tsushima, God of War, and Spider-man.
The Xbox parent company added that, in addition to having outright exclusive content, Sony has also entered into arrangements with third-party publishers that requires 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 VII Remake (Square Enix), Bloodborne (From Software), the upcoming Final Fantasy XVI (Square Enix) and the recently announced Silent Hill 2 remastered (Bloober team).
The mention of Bloodborne in Microsoft’s response comes as a little odd, as the game doesn’t fall in the category of third-party arrangements. It was fully funded by PlayStation and was developed by From Software in collaboration with Sony’s Japan Studio. It was more akin to the exclusivity situation with Death Stranding, where the IP also belongs to Sony. Nevertheless, the other titles mentioned by Microsoft do indeed fall under the category of third-party deals, which, apparently, include an “Xbox exclusion” clause.
