Hiromichi Tanaka, produttore di FFXIV, ha confermato in un intervista al GamesCom che stanno discutendo per raggiunger un accordo riguardante la versione per 360 del gioco. Il punto focale della discussione è, manco a dirlo, la gestione dell’online da parte di Microsoft e le sue politiche riguardanti il Live. Questo motivo, dice Tanaka, è l’unica cosa che ha impedito il lancio globale per le 3 console contemporaneamente.
Ad ogni modo, ha ribadito che FFXIV sarà un esclusiva Sony solo temporanea, e in futuro vedremo uscire il gioco anche per 360.

“FFXI for 360; at that point PS2 didn’t have a hard disc [and] that was really difficult for us, but Xbox 360 had that from the beginning, so that really helped us. We managed to smoothly move onto 360 from the Windows version, so that was very good to us,” said the developer.

“However, for FFXIV, because 360 has its own policy with Xbox Live that is different from [the] internet, that’s something we’re in discussions with Microsoft [about], to come to an agreement. That’s one of the reasons it’s not going to be launched at that point.”

The “point” being the simultaneous release of the PS3 and Windows versions next year.

Tanaka told us in the same conversation that the words “launch timing” were “cut out” of SCEA boss Jack Tretton’s FFXIV exclusivity announcement FFXIV at E3, and that it “doesn’t mean that we’re not going to have a 360 [version] in the future”.