Final Fantasy on the go is something Square Enix is really keen on achieving, but those attempts seem geared towards putting a very mobile spin on the franchise. However, Final Fantasy producer Naoki Yoshida believes 5G and cloud gaming are really what will end up advancing mobile gaming and pushing consoles aside.
Square Enix’s mobile strategy currently includes two FF7 spinoffs in Ever Crisis and The First Soldier, as well as the upcoming Nier Reincarnation which has completely taken over Japan, largely thanks to Nier Replicant’s success coinciding with it. When paired with the company’s efforts to make its most popular Final Fantasy titles available on mobile devices, it’s clear Square always had something special envisioned for that market segment, regardless of those ports not always providing the best experience.
In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Yoshida claimed the advent of hyper-fast connections could “herald the long-term demise of the dedicated games console”, without people having the need to sit in front of their consoles and accompanying displays. According to Yoshida, eventually, 5G technology should evolve and expand its availability to the point where game studios can “transfer images to any device” which is after all exactly the business model the faltering Google Stadia had envisioned.
Per Yoshida’s account cloud gaming gets partly gets rid of the process to “sit in front of the television… turn on the power and wait for the hardware to start up, so it was a time-consuming entertainment”, although he’s the first to admit the effects of the pandemic put that problem on the back burner for the past year or so, in turn propelling an unparalleled level of growth for the gaming industry. Despite all this, the producer still firmly believes it’s a matter of time until streaming games becomes the norm.
Japan has forever been one of the world’s best-performing markets for video games on the go, a matter that’s only being highlighted even further by the Nintendo Switch’s near-unprecedented sales numbers as the Switch Pro looms ahead. When paired with the possibility of putting the latest and greatest triple-A games in everyone’s hands and pockets without many added costs, aside from each player’s mobile data expenses, it’s clear why every company wants to establish its own version of Xcloud.
Cloud gaming may still be in its infancy, yet for the short-term, it doesn’t seem like consumers are willing to pass on consoles and other gaming hardware, as console manufacturers cannot even provide sufficient stock to meet current demand. At the very least, cloud gaming will be a very welcome add-on that could allow everyone to never put down their Mass Effect Legendary save files, provided 5G reception is good enough.
