Final Fantasy 16 producer wants Xbox launch, but can't say when it'll happen

Square Enix producer Naoki Yoshida has said he wants to launch Final Fantasy 16 on Xbox at some point.

But when will Xbox fans finally see the game arrive? On that, Yoshida was less forthcoming.

"Of course we did announce the PC version of the game, so looking towards the Xbox version, we do want to release it on Xbox," Yoshida told Sports Illustrated's Video Games site.

"But when it comes to the specifics such as when the game would be available and such, we are not in a position to be able to share anything. But of course, I want to say that it's not as if there's zero hope, and we very much do want to achieve that. So players should not give up in terms of their hopes."

Back in January, a report pegged Final Fantasy 16 - then a PlayStation timed-exclusive - as coming to Xbox at some point, though not any time soon, and certainly not before the game's timed-exclusivity period ran out this past summer.

We've since seen Final Fantasy 16 arrive on PC, of course, and there's been an incentive for Square Enix to release the game wider still as it has admitted both Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth "did not meet our expectations" in terms of sales.

Earlier this year, Square Enix said it was "aggressively pursuing" a multiplatform strategy, including "Nintendo platforms, PlayStation, Xbox, and PCs" to try and turn its financials around. It all sounds like an Xbox launch will happen sooner rather than later - and potentially also a version for Nintendo Switch 2, too.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell described the game as "a smart combat system straining under the weight of a characterful but ponderous pseudo-medieval soap opera, with some of the grandest bosses and dullest sidequests in FF history," in Eurogamer's Final Fantasy 16 review.