During an interview with Eurogamer, Yoshinori Kitase gave a response to whether or not the Final Fantasy franchise would see future plans on the PC.
Kitase responded in his interview saying, “Let’s not forget, when we developed the Final Fantasy 13 series, all three titles, at the early stages of development we were working on PC.”
“Then we had to port it to the consoles. As far as the technology is concerned, it would have been possible for us to make a PC version, but we decided against it for two reasons: we looked at the market situation and we didn’t think it would be a good idea, and also it would have involved lots of complex issues like security. So we decided not to do it this time around.”
However, it has been 10 years since development began for Final Fantasy XIII, and Square Enix has recognized the paradigm shift that the industry has undergone in recent years.
“But we see potential in [a PC port] and there are lots of regions and countries where PC is very strong. So in terms of our hope of being able to deliver our games to every single country in the world and to as many gamers as possible, yes, we would definitely be interested in pursuing that route in the future.”
Sales prices for Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII on Steam further provide evidence of a profitable market.
“Final Fantasy 7 and 8 are now available on PC and they’ve been proving quite popular. It’s an early stage for us. We haven’t got an awful lot of experience in this field. So when we have more know-how and experience in this market we would be very interested.”
The development process for nearly every video game begins at a PC, and, since Final Fantasy XV is being developed from DirectX 11 (a flexible and powerful programming interface), a direct port to home computers would be a fairly simple process. The complications, as Kitase explained, come from security and piracy problems. However, if sales continue to rise for Steam purchases, a PC port would be a very logical (and profitable) consideration.
Final Fantasy XV is available for pre-order on Amazon:
