Final Fantasy XV PC Could Take a Year to Make: Square Enix

With heavily anticipated Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) Final Fantasy XV hitting the shelves - both digital and physical on November 29, the game's director Hajime Tabata explained that if it were in the works, it would take longer than expected.

"On that hypothesis, not talking about something real, just an idea, if we worked on a PC version what I have very clear is that we would work to provide a better version of what we have now on consoles," he said in conversation with Spanish website Vida Extra (translated by WCCFtech).

(Also see: Square Enix Could Bring Final Fantasy XV to PC)

"We could say that something like this would take us more than a year. We should work to adapt the engine, which is very laborious, and from there to develop its course."

The current trend is to see games release on consoles and PC at the same time. Final Fantasy XV - earlier known as Final Fantasy Versus XIII and exclusive to the PS3 at the time, has had a prolonged development cycle of almost a decade, with a switch of directors too what with Tabata replacing Tetsuya Nomura who is working on Final Fantasy VII Remake and Kingdom Hearts III.

In March Tabata claimed the company was looking into the possibility of a PC version.

"Unfortunately we weren't able to do simultaneous development on a PC and console version for XV," he said in an interview with Engadget. "We had to focus on the console version and our goal was to maximize, optimise everything for the HD consoles. Once that's done, then we will definitely take a good, hard look at PC and what we need to do, and consider all our options. But right now we aren't decided, we're still considering a lot of things."

(Also see: Final Fantasy XV Release Date Delayed. Here's Why.)

In April, he stated that the PC version would be "far superior".

"I'm quite positive about the idea of developing a PC version, but I would like to make a very different project if possible," Tabata told French video gaming site JeuxVideo, which was translated by Nova Crystallis. "The reason I'm interested is that a PC version would propel the game to another technical level."

"I have in mind a version of Final Fantasy XV that is more technically developed. This version could incorporate things that we were forced to abandon because of the limitations of home consoles. With the PC, this would be an opportunity to release a version far superior in terms of quality and tech."

Nonetheless, we won't be surprised to see a PC version in the near future. Reason being, given its extended development period, publisher Square Enix will look to every avenue to recover development costs. Announcing it now, with the PS4 and Xbox One versions less than a couple of months away could simply harm sales on both platforms.

Of late we've seen Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below available on PC merely months after its PS4 release and I Am Setsuna (earlier known as Project Setsuna) slated for PC around the same time as its release on the PS4 and PS Vita.

Would you play FFXV on PC or console? Let us know in the comments.