As part of its ongoing arguments as to why it should be allowed to acquire Activision Blizzard in a major deal valued at $69 billion, Microsoft has pointed out some of the exclusivity arrangements that its chief competitors have recently made, including PlayStation, which has “excluded” some highly anticipated games, such as Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XVI and Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 remake, from the Xbox platform, according to Microsoft’s response to the UK’s CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) and its investigation over the anticipated acquisition, as highlighted by publications that include Xbox News for Koreans.
“Exclusivity strategies are not uncommon in the games industry and other market
participants have access to their own content,” reads a subsection of the document titled “no anticompetitive effect,” which goes on to list a handful of games that Microsoft suggests are either timed exclusives or won’t be released for the Xbox at all.
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 Spiderman. In addition to having outright exclusive content, Sony has also entered into arrangements with third-party publishers which require 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). Nintendo’s exclusive content includes well-established globally famous and iconic franchises such as Super Mario, Zelda, Xenoblade, Pokémon, and Animal Crossing.
Square Enix shared the launch date for FFXVI earlier this month, revealing that the 16th installment of the long-running RPG franchise would be headed to Sony’s PlayStation 5 consoles on June 22, 2023.
“FINAL FANTASY XVI introduces gamers to an all-new standalone story in the Final Fantasy universe, an epic dark fantasy world that takes place in the realm of Valisthea—a land blessed in the light of the Mothercrystals, and where peace falters as the spread of the Blight threatens to destroy their dominions,” reads a description for the game. “The fate of the land is decided by the Eikons, powerful and deadly creatures, and their Dominants, men and women who have been blessed with the ability to call upon and wield them.”
A Collector’s Edition of FFXVI that includes a premium statue of Phoenix vs. Ifrit, a SteelBook Case, and more will be available when the game launches.
Silent Hill 2, on the other hand, is a full remake of Team Silent’s 2001 classic from Bloober Team (Blair Witch, The Medium) that has been confirmed for both PlayStation 5 and Steam, featuring a new soundtrack by original composer Akira Yamaoka.
An NVIDIA GeForce 2080 RTX or AMD Radeon 6800 XT graphics card is listed under the recommended system requirements for the game, which doesn’t yet have a release date.