Famitsu had the chance to interview Final Fantasy XV producer Hajime Tabata at Tokyo Game Show 2017, adding more confusion around the stance on whether the game will come to Nintendo Switch.
After expressing that the team were “very interested” in the portable home console, it was soon ruled out. Then at Gamescom 2017, he playfully teased that something was in the works for Nintendo Switch, only to backtrack and say that they were simply exploring the hardware’s capabilities – dismissing his earlier comments as a “joke response.”
Now we’re back to square one, with Tabata claiming that they “have no plans” to release the game on Nintendo Switch, and are testing the hardware to see what games they can make for it.
“Ah, it has really become complicated,” Tabata admitted to Famitsu. “I’ll tell you what is really going on.
“As of this moment, we have no plans to bring Final Fantasy XV to Nintendo Switch. Nevertheless, the Switch is a piece of hardware that we all love. We’re currently testing the limits of the Switch to see what kind of games we could make for it.
“We’re currently in the process of looking into whether we should optimize our in-house game engine for the Switch, or whether we should use Epic’s Unreal Engine [4]. Thus… it seems that people overseas have somehow misunderstood what I’ve said as a confirmation that we’re bringing [Final Fantasy XV] to [Switch].
“Although I couldn’t deny there’s a chance Final Fantasy XV will be ported over to Switch in the future, as of this point in time we really do not have any plans to bring it to Switch.
“New users can look forward to Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition for smartphones and Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition on PC, and existing users can look forward to new DLC in Final Fantasy XV.”
