Final Fantasy 14 is an expansive and rich MMORPG experience that offers cross platform support. The game is currently available for Windows, macOS, Playstation 4 and 5. In addition, Square Enix and Development Unit 3 announced at the 2023 Fan Fest in Las Vegas that Final Fantasy 14 will finally be available for Xbox Series X|S, debuting April 2024. Open Beta testing for Xbox X|S will kick off in patch 6.5x prior to the official launch. You can watch the official announcement from the Fan Fest opening Keynote here.
Relaunched in August of 2013, following the famed shutdown of the original game launched in 2010 and the subsequent overhaul and redesign under the leadership of Naoki Yoshida, Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn was released for Windows and Playstation 3. Shortly after in April 2014, the game debuted on PS4 with Square Enix offering people who owned the PS3 version of the game a free upgrade to PS4 version.
The game was well received on both PC and Playstation and developing the game for console and PC has remained a priority for Square Enix.
In June of 2015, to coincide with the launch of Heavensward, FFXIV was released for OS X. Unfortuantely for Mac players however, it wasn’t smooth sailing. The initial launch to Mac saw users facing a number of technical issues that ultimately led to Square Enix suspending sales of the Mac version of the game and offering refunds to people who requested them. The issues were addressed by Producer and Director of FFXIV, Naoki Yoshida, in a post to the official forums on July 3rd 2015. Whilst taking ownership of the decision to release the game in its current state, Yoshida gave two main reasons for the issues players were experiencing on Mac. The first being insufficient communication of system requirements and the second being early release of the Mac version before final maintanence had been completed. He also offered insights in to their development policy for mac which gave further techinical explanations, in greater detail, for the poor performance of the game on OS X.
After just under four years, in June 2017, Square Enix ended service for the Playstation 3 version of FFXIV, offering players who did not already own the game for PS4 a free upgrade. Speculation had been rife within the FFXIV community that certain design limitations were placed upon the dev team in order to keep the game compatible with PS3, due to the lower system capabilities of the PS3 as compared to PC and PS4 versions, with just 512MB of RAM as opposed to the 8GB offered by PS4.
With the release of PS5 on the 19th of November 2020, it was only a matter of time before the game was released for the console. Square Enix announced the Open Beta for Playstation 5 on 6th February 2021, with the Open Beta beginning in April 2021. The game was then released officially for Playstation 5 on May 25th 2021.
Meanwhile over the years, many people wondered when the game would be available for Xbox. All the way back in 2013, in an interview with IGN in the days immediately following the launch of ARR, Yoshi-P cited Xbox’s closed network as a reason that they decided to not bring the game to Xbox. Meaning that players on Xbox would be denied the cross platform experience Square Enix was aiming to deliver. There were many glimmers of hope over the years for Xbox players as the landscape of platform exclusivity shifted, and mentions from both Xbox and Square Enix side of ongoing discussions. This has all ulitmately lead to the announcement many have been waiting years for at the Final Fantasy Fan Festival in Las Vegas that the game will finally be making its debut on the Xbox, with the game planned for release to the Xbox Series X|S prior to the launch of Dawntrail.