While many in the gaming community are excited about the upcoming remake of Silent Hill 2 by Bloober Team, recent events related to Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard seem to be pushing the title away from Xbox owners. Microsoft claims that Sony has vetoed the wider release of certain titles from its third-party catalog, including Bloodborne, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Final Fantasy 16, and Silent Hill 2 Remake.
Konami, which is publishing the horror remake, has yet to speak out on the issue, but if Microsoft's accusations are true, the future of many other games would also be in jeopardy for Xbox. Sony has tried to prevent Microsoft's purchase of Activison for fear that this would make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox, but Microsoft accuses Sony of doing the same with other games.
PlayStation-Exclusive Games
Microsoft has accused Sony of trying to reduce its presence in the market by signing agreements with third-party studios to exclude Xbox from certain games, paying special attention to Sony's relationship with FromSoftware, Square Enix, and Konami. Titles like Silent Hill 2 and Final Fantasy 16 were announced as temporary console exclusives for PlayStation, for example. The Silent Hill 2 Remake announcement trailer from October 2022 has a big asterisk when it says "PlayStation Console Exclusive," indicating it won't be available on other formats until 12 months after release.
When Sony first announced Final Fantasy 7 Remake at E3 2015, the trailer said, "Play it on PlayStation 4 first" - implying the game would eventually be released on PC, if not also Xbox One. After all, both platforms are home to a considerable portion of the Final Fantasy library. In addition, the recent Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion was released on all modern platforms, including Xbox One and Xbox Series X. But while Final Fantasy 7 Remake was eventually released on PC and PS5, Xbox owners have never gotten access.
The Battle for Call of Duty Exclusivity
The aforementioned comments are part of Microsoft's response to the FTC investigation of its Activision-Blizzard purchase. The FTC feels there is a possibility of Microsoft imposing exclusivity policies on Activision's games, making it difficult for the rest of the market to compete. In particular, Call of Duty is one series that has generated the most conversation.
Microsoft refuted the reasons why the FTC intends to prevent the purchase, and listed different reasons why it believes the transaction will not be harmful to competition. The American company has implied that PlayStation's stance on the possibility of Call of Duty being exclusive to Xbox was hypocritical, and that removing the game from Sony's storefront would be nonsense.
In addition, Microsoft pointed out that PlayStation's complaints about the future of Call of Duty make no sense because Sony already dominates the market on exclusives through famous examples Uncharted and God of War. Microsoft points out that in 2020, four of the best-selling games worldwide were PlayStation exclusives: The Last of Us Part 2, Ghost of Tsushima, Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Meanwhile, in 2021, Microsoft had no Xbox-exclusive titles in the top 20.
Silent Hill's Future
These discussions call into question the future of several games. If Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a PS5/PC exclusive, the same thing could happen to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. There is also the question of what will happen to the other Silent Hill games given Konami is also putting out Silent Hill Townfall, Silent Hill: Ascension, and Silent Hill f, with it currently being unclear what deals (if any) those titles may be subject to.
While console exclusives with third-party companies are not uncommon, what's interesting is the ambiguity of the situation. Most companies love to talk about their exclusive line-ups, but in this case it's possible that the language of exclusives may be changing. Fans will have to wait to see what happens with these and other games to get a better idea of how future platform announcements will be interpreted.
In any case, those who may end up bearing the brunt of restrictions on Silent Hill 2 Remake are Xbox users, as it remains to be seen what the future of one of the most famous horror franchises will look like on Microsoft's hardware. Hopefully at least one of the current slate of titles will make it to Xbox so that everyone can enjoy the series in some form.
Silent Hill 2 is in development for PC and PS5.
