One of the highly anticipated games of the year, Final Fantasy 16, is exclusively releasing on PlayStation 5 (PS5). However, producer Naoki Yoshida recently revealed that an initial Final Fantasy 16 PS4 port was also planned but scrapped due to development constraints. According to Yoshida, the team had to make a difficult decision because releasing the game on the previous generation would require an additional one or two years of development to make it a game they would be proud of. Therefore, they ultimately decided to cancel the PS4 version and go for a PS5-only release.

A Changing Industry

The gaming industry is evolving, and the trend is shifting towards exclusives for current-gen systems. Although current-gen exclusives are still rare, games like Dead Space remake, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and Forspoken are joining the bandwagon. Some top publishers, however, still release games on both old and new systems. Even Sony’s big exclusives, God of War Ragnarök and Horizon Forbidden West, were released on the previous console. Sony is beginning to shift away from PS4; games like Horizon’s Burning Shores DLC, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and Marvel’s Wolverine are exclusive to the PS5.