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Square Enix and Sony have had partnerships that date back several years now. Many, if not most, of the games developed by Square Enix ended up being exclusive to PlayStation platforms. Most of those exclusives may eventually find their way to PC but they would never make their way to either Xbox or Nintendo consoles.
That seems like it's about to change. According to the latest earnings release (PDF), Square Enix has reported a drop in profits of almost 70% year over year. Some of this drop can be attributed to declines in their MMO and mobile markets. A big part of this decline is also due to operating losses from the high cost of development.
Specifically, Square Enix says that they will now "aggressively pursue a multiplatform strategy that includes Nintendo platforms, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC."
If you have been paying attention to Square Enix's recent output, you know that most of their games have been locked to a single platform for at least a period of one year. That platform is typically PlayStation. Final Fantasy 16, which came out in 2023 for the PlayStation 5 has yet to appear on other platforms. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth came out this year and is still only available on PlayStation 5. Despite the huge market share that PlayStation 5 holds, it's pretty clear that these exclusivity deals just aren't working out well for them. That's not even mentioning the fact that the Kingdom Hearts games are still exclusive to the Epic Games Store on PC three years later.
That's not to say that any of the games mentioned above will be the ones to get releases on other platforms. I have to imagine Sony and Square Enix still have some sort of legally binding agreement for the Final Fantasy 7 remake series. Really, even with this desire to push for more multi-platform releases, it's likely that PlayStation will still be Square Enix's main platform.
There are a huge number of unknowns with Square Enix's statement. There is no word on if Square Enix plans to release all future titles on multiple platforms or just an increased number of games that would have been otherwise exclusive to a single platform. It also remains to be seen how the Nintendo Switch 2 will factor into this plan, or if Square Enix will start to put any titles on Game Pass.
In addition to this desire to make more games go multi-platform to increase profits, Square Enix says that they are also going to try for quality over quantity going forward. As such, a number of unspecified titles have been cancelled.
