Phil Spencer Explains Why Final Fantasy XIV isn't on Xbox One

So, we’ve known for awhile that Final Fantasy XIV hasn’t been on the Xbox One, and it has been considered by Producer Naoki Yoshida. Unfortunately, the extremely popular Square Enix MMO may not ever hit the Xbox One, given Phil Spencer’s explanation in a conversation with IGN.

Simply put:

“It’s business.”

Though he couldn’t exactly elaborate on specifics, he personally isn’t fond of exclusive deals for third-party games.

“But what about Rise of the Tomb Raider?” fans may ask. Well, the reason behind the exclusively lies on Microsoft acting as the game’s publisher and being actively involved with the development. Moreover, Xbox One owners shouldn’t look forward to many more third-party exclusives in the future, as Microsoft wants to focus on first-party support for its system.

To quote Spencer:

“I want to have strong third-party relations, but paying for many third-party exclusives isn’t our long-term strategy.”

So by that logic, once previous gen consoles are phased out, and since the Wii U is also mainly supporting first-party games, will console third-party games be exclusive to the PlayStation 4? By default, the games would be exclusive in that case, at least to consoles. After all, the PC is lurking about. On the other hand, the PlayStation 4 is focusing more on its third-party lineup, as first-party exclusives are lacking by comparison. But that doesn’t mean Xbox One will be shunning third-party games entirely. The console’s games will still have some special deals, such as mod support for Fallout 4 launching first on Xbox One.

Some not-so-happy fans that hope for FFXIV on the Xbox One speculate that the deal, in actuality, relates to Final Fantasy XIV cross-platform server feature, and since Yoshi P is very unlikely to create servers specifically for the Xbox One, Final Fantasy XIV will probably remain off the platform.

At least FFXIV seems to be getting VR support, so that's amazingly awesome.