You counting titles confirmed for Game Pass but not yet released?

Eiyuden is confirmed for Game Pass as well.

If Monster Hunter Rise is a JRPG then isn't Wo-Long as well? (Both are listed as ARPGs).

Outside of JRPGs we also have BlazBlue, Guilty Gear, Fuga and Danganronpa.

High on Life been going crazy, MS should lock down these devs to make fun wacky content for Gamepass.

If you kind of think about it as a indie dev, if you are going to put your game on console and you did not get a GP deal or any deal at all from MS, then the order or devices would be Nintendo and Sony and Xbox last because of marketshare.  While it might seem like MS should just be throwing around money to everybody, I am sure they are select at this point and seek the biggest bang for their bucks.  That will not always match up with every user expectations.

So the smart money it would seem is to not waste money on Square.  If you are working with a company and they refuse to support your product, then you take that money and put it into something else.  The funny part is that everyone keeps believing every company is up for sale.  Who knows if Square is up for sale and as the market leader even if ABK closes for MS, it still presents a case that purchasing Square for the market leader could harm the market.  

At best who cares, Square clearly has shone that their main target system is Sony and there probably nothing Phil can do about it.  So instead go make a bunch of deals with other companies and new markets.

Wouldn't cost much, sure. But wouldn't sell very well either. All these games has been played before by the majority who wants them or can be played somewhere else without having to pay for them. (+ Remaster quality is quite questionable from what I saw, which makes the originals probably a better versions). Won't be surprised if they don't sell very well on PS/Switch consoles.

I think you are bringing a good point here about FF ports not doing very well. Because looking back, this was the last time when Square Enix committed to release their games on Xbox in such a big manner. It was announced at some X0 event if I remember correctly as a huge deal. And I think FF XIV port was announced there as well. I guess Square was disappointed by the outcome and came to conclusion that there is not enough audience on Xbox to justify further investments. The lack of the mentioned FF XIV port is probably also the reason of it. As for Type-0 HD ad 15 situation. First of all, these games were in production before everybody knew how badly Microsoft will fuck up with Xbox One. Square like anyone else at the time probably expected strong competition between Xbox One and PS4 in the same way as 360 did vs PS3. So, obviously they fully committed to support Xbox One, because their games did quite well on 360. Second, I've said this before here, and will repeat myself once again, I'm not so sure that the big game like FF15 selling under 2m is a good result for Square. Their expectation was 10 or even 15m lifetime for both PS4 and Xbox One versions and if I'm not wrong, they failed to hit that target. As for other publishers, Microsoft started to rebuild partnerships with Sega, Bandai Namco, etc. only in the second half of the generation, so it's hard to compare them with Square. Basically, right now these publishers are at the same point where Square was at the beginning of last gen, and they will definitely evaluate their partnership with Xbox at some point. If you think that 20-30k players for FF games on TA is not good enough, then what about the same 30K for Persona 5. P3, P4 will definitely do even worse.

I mentioned a few posts earlier about paying for ports as an option, but in the same post I also said, that I don't think this will work. Because it won't grow an audience. Yes, it will help to reach software parity with other consoles short term, but the moment Microsoft stops paying for these ports, the publishers will stop supporting them again. But the problem is that GamePass cheques are not really much different. It gives publishers who are not willing to take risks with Xbox ports and idea that Microsoft has a tool to mitigate risks and their concerns. So, I think that right now, it's easier for publishers who are not sure about needing to do an Xbox port, to just skip the platform if they don't receive the GamePass check when it was before. Once again, Square Enix comes to mind. Microsoft offered them a check for FF7-12. It didn't do very well for them. Now, they abandoned the platform because they wait for another GamePass check. 

Another thing is about companies taking advantage of GamePass. To be honest, maybe I'm wrong and forgetting something, but with an exception of Yakuza, I can't really think about any Japanese game that really managed to grow a dedicated audience on Xbox. Yakuza for sure is substantial and it's clear that it doesn't even need GamePass anymore, for SEGA to justify bringing future titles to the platform. It will sell enough day one at full price. 

As for funding first-party JRPGs - totally agree, completely worthless at this moment and won't do anything but hurt the publisher and potential game which will get thrown straight into oblivion no matter how good it will be. The bigger part of the game's target audience won't be able to play it.

To conclude all this, I doubt there will be any progress regarding this in the near future, because as I've said, Microsoft needs to either make some bold,  revolutionary move or wait for Sony to make a huge mistake. Basically, the situation with Japanese games on Xbox can only improve with a noticeable part of these titles core audience moving over to Xbox, and it hasn't obviously happened this gen. I don't believe that even with all the GamePass deals, Microsoft can get THEIR loyal Xbox audience interested in these types of games, so without substantial audience growth, it will never gonna work.

You are literally backing up my point. Marketshare is the main reason behind these decisions, not some conspiracy or hate bias.

I think actually supporting a platform over time would grow an audience, eventually. You don't always start off with millions of sales, especially when half the franchise is missing from a platform and as far as I'm aware, 13 sold decent on Xbox 360 and 14 sold okay as well despite Xbox One being an awful platform, Lol.

I think Square Enix barely tries still, they give up far too quickly when things get a little difficult, I think you can look at Xbox Japanese support overall and say that it is way better than the Xbox One era and they've done really well to get some IPs, some of which haven't touched Xbox since the 360 era and some of which have never touched Xbox.

But this complaint always rolls back around to Square Enix mainly, Square is by far the most noticeable holdout aside from some really niche stuff, they do some cheap years old ports and they don't do great so they give up on the entire franchise for Xbox? I think it's actually too early to say if Yakuza has a substantial audience on Xbox yet (purely sales, we have no sales data) but it still seems like Sega tries a lot better than Square.

If even some niche IPs are coming to Xbox but Final Fantasy isn't? It makes me think that Square is probably asking for too much because Final Fantasy is way bigger than some of these other Japanese IPs that Xbox has recently got, I think progress is being made *almost* everywhere aside from Square Enix who have somehow got worse.

I do agree that Square doesn't dislike Xbox, I just think the reason is simply that Square Enix is an incredibly risk averse company, even more than most other companies, there are companies who make way less than Square who take way more risks and there are countless examples of Square being a risk averse company, for example...

Their handling of their Western studios, they spun off IO Interactive after one underperformance and then IO Interactive went on to be more successful than ever without Square Enix, Lol. They killed off Deus Ex the moment one entry underperformed, they shoved CD/Eidos onto the safety blanket of Marvel IPs (which backfired), they sold their Western divisions for cheap (probably for a quick money injection).

Then there's the examples of how quickly they give up on their Xbox audience, all the money hats they accept, for their biggest releases and quite frankly, a lot of their side projects look incredibly cheap with little effort put into them and it shows in their reviews too, stuff like Left Alive, Babylon's Fall, etc. Even the most recent Star Ocean and I'm sorry but Forspoken looks like Isekai Final Fantasy but a lot blander, Lol.

It's just Square, an incredibly risk averse company, the situation would be a lot worse without Game Pass, I don't think they dislike Xbox though but I wish they would just sell to Sony so we don't have to complain about them all the time and have to guess all the time will/won't Square support Xbox with this IP, Lol.

Hoping High on Life reaches PS in a year's time. No reason for it to stay hatted on PS. Less time it takes to come to PS, more it just shows the money hatting relationship between companies. Tunic 6 months, RotTR 1 year, FF7? Still no Xbox.

My POV for SE: I've given up on them for Xbox. All SE games will be bought at $19.99 ie Diofield, and Mid Ocean. Still haven't gotten 7 on ps5 as it never goes down in price. Will play 7 and 16 on ps5 when they are 20.

Rest of my money can go to Namco and Sega where they put their games on our platforms. I'll even shell out for the Special edition ones.

@ice where is that black friday games pic?

Most Xbox exclusives tend to be really short lately, like 3-6 months, I can't think of any recently that have been a year or longer.

Even Stalker 2 is like 3 months? And that will be one of the biggest.