I'm not really sure I even buy that FF7 Remake couldn't run on a Switch 1. It would take some elbow grease to port it, sure, but there are several PS4 games that run on the Switch, DOOM, DOOM Eternal, Nier Automata, DQXI, Wolfenstein, Witcher 3, Hellblade, Warframe, Fortnite, Overwatch, etc. etc.

That and Square-Enix made a cell phone FF7 remake called Ever Crisis that has battle graphics that look like they're either FF7 Remake assets or look damn close to it.



Would anyone have any big objection to a FF7 remake on Switch that looked like the above? I don't think anyone in Japan would, barely anyone there cares about graphics. 

FF7 Remake honestly doesn't look better than Hellblade and the Switch has a competent port of that:

The truth really is Square thinks it's 2001 still, and they signed some dumb agreement with Sony that they likely at this point want to get out of but can't. 

I'm very interested can you share some sources?

Right after the announcement for FF14 on Xbox, there was an interview with Phil Spencer and Yoshi-P, and the new Square CEO Takashi Kiryu, and he brought up this statement. 

Shortly thereafter, Octopath Traveler 2 was announced for Xbox. Most recently Visions of Mana not only was announced for Xbox but was even featured in Xbox's January Developer Direct. 

The "whenever possible" part of his statement I can only interpret as contractual obligations that are out of his control. But like in all contracts, they eventually come to an end. And I don't mean just in porting their games to Xbox, but even Switch misses out on quite a few SE games, and PC may have more SE releases day and date with console rather than eventually. 

Pretty much saying "Oh fuck we gotta stop being exclusive with our content and I'll bring everything I can that hasn't had my hands tied by some dumb contract signed by my predacessor". 

I was just saying this recently in the RE4 Articles but Japanese developers do not seem to have interest in porting down to Switch, it's not so much about is it possible but do the team want to do that. I think it's a cultural thing. Western devs have pushed Doom, Hogwarts, Witcher etc. I think the only big port we've seen on the Japanese side has been DQ11 and that was already announced for Switch before the game was actually revealed, so it wasn't a reactive port of trying to expand the audience. This ironic seeing as Japanese devs have the most to gain from a Switch port.

I simply think the team/creatives have no interest in spending 6months to a year on a port which will water down their original vision and internally such a port is probably treated as "not possible" regardless of the reality that it can be done with enough effort. We have to remember that as much as companies want money they're also essentially a team of individuals who actually have to sit down do the work.

Leadership has to change this dynamic & I don't think there's been "need" for it for the most part. Most Japanese franchises are bigger then they've ever been & many devs seem to be pretty happy with the profits they're making on PC+PS4+Xbox globally (See Persona 3 reloaded sales, Monster Hunter World, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy XV etc). Instead of ports they have the mentality of bespoke Switch experiences. Even VII Remakes first week numbers were great on PS4 alone, so it's only been the last few years where maybe there's been a question about the IP facing issues with its audience.

I think whats quite telling is that many titles still skip Xbox despite no exclusivity deal and it being a no brainer technically speaking (see dragon quest stories), even if the Xbox version only sells 100k-200k it'd pocket some profit and potentially grow an audience on the platform, what's happened with the Switch is only an extrapolation of that mentality.

There might be another consideration at play here. It seems porting games to Switch at high quality is a specialized job. And these specialized studio's perhaps have a limited bandwidth on how many games they can port.

Example is the studio Panic Button who did some of the 'impossible ports' for Switch like Doom, Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein, Subnautica and Apex Legends.

Hopefully the Switch 2 makes the gap smaller for third parties to feel more propelled to port big games onto the console. Because if the Switch ends up doing (not necessarily at the pace of the original Switch), then the excuses are not going to fly this time. Even if the Switch 2 sells around 50-75 million units, thats still a lot of users that you miss out.

I personally think Square Enix could've made something akin to Monster Hunter Rise for the Final Fantasy series on Switch. A quality game with a pretty good budget and marketing for a user base that have grown accustomed to a plethora of JRPGs from Xenoblade to Pokemon to Persona to SMT to Atelia to Octopath Traveler to Live a Live. But alas, they likely missed their shot and are relying on FFVII Rebirth and XVI to carry the franchise to heights similar to what Zelda and God of War reached with Breath of the Wild and God of War 2018, respectively.