Final Fantasy 7 Remake exclusivity with PlayStation ended back in the spring of 2021. More than a year later, the upgraded Intergrade version arrived on PC, but still nothing was offered on Xbox. That seemed a strange decision, given the millions of Xbox gamers out there, but it turns out that the decision to bring Final Fantasy to Xbox might have been out of Square Enix’s hands. Microsoft revealed its official response to the FTC suit blocking the Activision merger yesterday, arguing that Sony is just trying to maintain its market lead in the console market by preventing Activision from joining forces with Microsoft. And as proof, Microsoft says that Sony is blocking the release of some third-party titles on Xbox consoles.In a letter sent to the UK’s CMA, Microsoft offered Final Fantasy 7 remake, Final Fantasy 16, Bloodborne, and the coming Silent Hill 2 Remake as examples of games where third-party developers have signed an Xbox "exclusion" agreement.
"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," writes Microsoft (via Korea Xbox News). "Some prominent examples of these agreements include Final Fantasy 7 Remake (Square Enix), Bloodborne (From Software), the upcoming Final Fantasy 16 (Square Enix), and the recently announced Silent Hill 2 remastered (Bloober Team)."
Microsoft also argued that both Sony and Nintendo have plenty of exclusive first-party properties that they refuse to share with Xbox, although Nintendo has remained largely silent in the whole matter. As noted by Xbox head Phil Spencer, it's Sony that is "leading all the dialogue on why this deal shouldn't go through."
In a show of good faith, Microsoft says it's offered to keep Call of Duty on all platforms for ten years and would even let Sony put the game on PlayStation Plus. So far, these offers haven't stopped Sony from opposing the deal.