In fact, Square Enix seems to be slowly inching its way toward phasing out the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 from its development process, as they are starting to concentrate solely on crafting titles for modern consoles in North America and Europe. While the publisher has announced that the highly-coveted Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness will be released in the West only for PlayStation 4 this winter, Square Enix is still making the title’s Japanese version available for the PlayStation 3.
Following Square Enix’s E3 2015 event, Shuichi Kobayashi, the producer for the upcoming Star Ocean sequel, shared with Destructoid’s Kyle MacGregor why the publishing company is abstaining from making a PS3 version of the game for Western audiences. Kobayashi says:
While Square Enix is certainly making the move to abandon the last generation of consoles – for the Tokyo-based company is also only making its upcoming Dragon Quest Heroes obtainable exclusively for the latest hardware in the West – the publisher is also hedging its bets. For instance, Rise of the Tomb Raider will still be released for the Xbox 360 this November in the United States. However, gaming fans shouldn’t presume that course of action to be commonplace much longer.
Do you think game developers should continue to put out games for the previous era of consoles? If so, why? Should they continue creating content for older systems because the most recent machines are still too pricey? Or is it because you think that designers haven’t tapped the full potential of devices like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3?
Square Enix’s desire to leave the last crop of systems behind and focus on the new wave of hardware should definitely inspire those of us without next-gen consoles to acquire them, for it appears as if the time is nigh for developers to move on to higher grounds.
Source: Destructoid
