 If you remember earlier this year, we talked about Final Fantasy 15 coming to Switch and how the developers behind it really, really want to bring it over in some capacity. Now, we don't have an update on that situation, but somehow we have an update on Final Fantasy 14. That's right, Final Fantasy 14, the MMORPG version of Final Fantasy that is still alive and kicking to this day. Eurogamer managed to ask Naoki Yoshida, one of the main people behind the game, about it. And here's what he had to say in terms of bringing it to Switch. I'd like to open it up to as many platforms as possible. We want to include as many players as possible, not just Switch, even Xbox. If it's interested in this, we'd like to open it up. We'd like to have it on as much hardware as possible, even though the hardware might be different. They will be playing in the same world. It has to have cross server function. That's something that's at the core of Final Fantasy 14. So we'd want to keep that as a policy. We have no intention to divide the servers per platform. We're working with one big community. I'm interested in other platforms, of course. I hope those first parties change their policies or mindsets. I'm an MMORPG gamer. I'd love to play with many people globally. And we've been talking to those platforms about getting it on their hardware. Positive discussion is ongoing. It's not as if we're not doing anything. We are actually talking to them and the platform holders are showing their attitude in a more positive way. And it's very clear that he wants to bring Final Fantasy 14, which is on PC and PlayStation 4, to Xbox and Switch. But there's one key line in here I want to highlight that really, it sounds like this is basically why it hasn't happened yet. It says, we have no intention to divide the servers per platform. We're working with one big community. I'm interested in other platforms, of course. I hope those first parties change their policies or mindsets. So if you remember right, what platform holder out there has been blocking cross-platform play? That's right, folks. I'm talking none other than Sony. There it is, folks. The cross-platform play blockers, the only ones blocking it in the entire industry. Sony, on PlayStation 4, not allowing games to have cross-platform play is currently the main deterrent from Final Fantasy 14 coming to Switch and Xbox because the makers of the game don't want to divide up the fanbase between different platforms. It's insane to me that here we are in late 2017 and we're still talking about the fact that Sony will not budge on their policies. Now, of course, he doesn't name Sony by name here. So I'm kind of inferring that this means Sony. But considering that Xbox, Switch, and PC have open marketplaces with, they already have cross-play out there right now with, oh man, with Rocket League. It really, they're going to have cross-play next year with Minecraft because, you know, the update for Minecraft got delayed. So they're going to have cross-play with Minecraft. There's already cross-play with Rocket League. Any game that wants to do cross-play between Xbox, Nintendo, and PC isn't going to have a hard time doing it. But here we have a game that's already got an established community on PlayStation, on PC, that they want to bring it to Switch and Xbox. And it sounds like they're just held back because they can't have true cross-platform play, not because it's technically not possible, but because a company has a policy not allowing it to exist. And this is just, ugh, you guys know my stance on cross-platform play. I feel, and I'm just going to reiterate it here because I feel like this is a very important stance to have. Cross-platform play is one of the biggest, I don't even want to call it an innovation, it's one of the biggest positive steps towards consumers that could be made in the video game industry this generation. The fact that we've had to wait this long for true cross-platform play is baffling in that of itself, considering how long that we've been dealing with online as a main way of playing games. But cross-platform play is essential in my mind to the growth and the positivity around games and around gaming communities. Think about all the debate about, oh is Destiny 2 better on PlayStation 4, better on Xbox One, or better on PC, or this and that. What doesn't even matter if all the community could just play together in the first place, I understand that there is a deterrent here. I understand Sony's stance against cross-play. Their thought process is why offer cross-play when we can make people buy PlayStation 4s to play with their PlayStation 4 friends. And I understand that, and when you're the market leader, it's hard to be like, oh man Sony, bad Sony, bad on you for trying to make people buy your system. I just don't think that that needs to be a reason that people buy your system. I feel like you can make your system enticing beyond that and still sell just as many units. What I'm saying is that marketing reasons to sell your system shouldn't really be needed to sell your system. And if Sony feels it is needed, then maybe they're doing something wrong. And it's hard to say that because again, market leader, they're about to pass the 3DS and sales, they're doing fine. But it's just infuriating to me to know that we have a Final Fantasy XIV game, and I don't even know if I'd play Final Fantasy XIV. I love MMORPGs, but the problem is I love them, so it's hard for me to commit to another one. I'm still playing World of Warcraft, so it's hard for me to commit to another MMO that isn't... If it was a Nintendo MMO, maybe I'd give it a shot, but MMOs are time sinks, right? You're going to spend hundreds and hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of hours in the game. And it never ends. That's the point of MMOs, is that there is no end point to them. So, we have to sit back and wonder, when is Sony going to just allow cross-play to exist? It's wholly positive for consumers because I can play with my friends. From my Switch, I can potentially play with friends of mine that own PlayStation 4s and Xbox ones in this game, in the same world. And that's just amazing to me. I can already do it with Rocket League, with Xbox players and PC gamers. It's just quintessential to me that for all the bad crap that people want to talk about has been coming up the past 10 years, whether it's microtransactions and loot boxes and piecemeal DLC, not the good DLC. Like the Witcher 3, good DLC. Mario Kart 8, pretty much good DLC. But there's been instances, a lot of them, several examples of piecemeal DLC. Nintendo even technically has it with Fire Emblem, like gating off content day one and DLC. Nintendo does it too, is basically what I'm saying. Nintendo's not innocent. But in this, this is just one massive positive that we need to see happen before this generation is out. We need all platforms to allow cross-play. Now that Nintendo has finally released a region-free system, they were like the last holdout for like a decade. For some odd reason, they just kept holding out. Because all about the retailers, all about the retailers, like whatever. Every other system's region-free, excuse has not been valid for a long time. But now that everything's region-free, Nintendo is opening up their platform to allow cross-platform play. And you can argue, of course they're open to it because they're working from behind, who cares? They don't have to allow that. Nintendo is doing it because it is a wholly positive thing for their user base. It's a wholly positive thing for the Xbox user base, for the PC user base. And it's going to be a positive thing for the PlayStation 4 user base, if Sony would just allow it. And we've had instances in the past where a game accidentally had cross-play enabled for a few hours, and people were loving it, and they had to shut it down because Sony got mad about it. Because hey, you can't have this. We didn't get permission for it. We said there is no cross-play allowed. So, I hope that we don't end up missing out on a game on Switch here. In Final Fantasy 14, the MMO, regardless if I'm going to play it or not, because of Sony's policies, Sony's policies preventing this game from coming out. I can't blame, this is one instance here. I cannot blame, you know, Naoki Yoshida here. I cannot blame him. I cannot blame Square Enix because it's an MMO. The last thing you want to do in an MMO is fracture your player base. That's one way to guarantee that your MMO is going to sink. Now, you could argue World of Warcraft doesn't have multiple servers. But you can move freely between the servers if you want. You can create characters on all the servers. You can have everyone on one server if you want. And it's also a game that's massively more popular in Final Fantasy 14. So, it's dealing in a different realm of things. But if World of Warcraft came to Switch or came to Xbox or PlayStation 4, I would expect to be able to play with the same people that are playing on PC. This is what needs to happen at the end of this generation, regardless of whatever happens with micro-transaction loot boxes and all the lawsuits going on around that stuff. What I want to happen for the end of this generation is for cross-play to become a staple. Any multi-platform, multi-player game should have cross-play. And I'm not even just talking about the MMOs of the world and the Rocket Leagues and whatever else, the Minecrafts of the world. How about Call of Duty? Why can't Call of Duty have cross-play? Why can't online modes for things like Assassin's Creed and Grand Theft Auto V have cross-play? Every multi-player game that is on multiple platforms would benefit from cross-play. You're putting all the user base in one pool, which is huge, because it makes people less afraid to buy the game on certain systems because they're afraid there won't be enough people. As an example, imagine if Doom 2016 had cross-play right now. The Switch user base, which is actually pretty active with the online on it, combined with the PC, Xbox and PlayStation 4, that multiplayer mode wouldn't have died out on the other platforms if all of the people who want to play it were combined into a single-player pool. And I understand, especially with Switch, 30 FPS, other versions are 60. There's advantages that people that are playing at 60 FPS have advantages over the people with 30 FPS. It's factually true, and I understand that, but you know what, I don't think the people playing at 30 FPS are really going to give a hoot about it. I don't think it's honestly going to be this big deterring factor, just like it's not going to be a deterring factor that people on PC might be playing, you know, Minecraft at 500 FPS while you're playing it at 60 on a console. I don't think people are honestly going to care. It's not going to make that big of a difference for most people's experiences. This needs to happen. It needs to be a thing, and hopefully in the future we end up with Final Fantasy XIV and any other game that would like to do cross-play that currently is kind of stuck on Sony's system because Sony won't allow it. Sony, man, I have nothing against you. I know that it might feel like I have something against you because I generally don't buy your platforms, but you have a lot of games I'm highly interested in playing. I'm probably going to pick up on PlayStation 4 Pro in 2018. If not, hold out to the PlayStation 5 if it's backwards compatible, but I don't... Let's be honest, it's probably not going to be backwards compatible. So we'll see what happens. I'm probably going to pick up on your system as I own a PlayStation 3. There's a lot of games that yours I enjoy, but this is one stance you need to change. No matter how you want to argue why Xbox and Nintendo does it, it doesn't matter. This is about consumers and doing what's best for them. Anyways, folks, oh man. I don't know what's up with me today. I kind of got... Ever have this tickle in your throat that doesn't go away? Now imagine trying to record a video for that. Oh man. Anyways, folks, I don't know... See what I'm saying, guys? Oh man, I'm Nathaniel Rufflejantz from Nintendo Prime. If you like this video, you know what to do. And if you dislike the video, hit that dislike button. Subscribe! More content! And I'll catch you in the next one.