Producer Masashi Takahashi discussed the decision to make Octopath Traveler 2 a multiplatform release
“We made this decision internally after observing the sales of other games.”
When asked about the possible release of the first game for PlayStation, Takahashi explained that although it was initially planned to release it on that platform, the decision was made to abandon it due to a potential conflict between the two games.
But this raises the question: “Why didn’t the sequel appear on Xbox?”. There are plenty of possible answers: the porting costs were not justified, a limited number of developers, the game will appear later on Xbox Game Pass, or Sony has signed a new exclusivity agreement.
Octopath Traveler 2 sold just 78,000 copies across all platforms in its first week after launch. Octopath Traveler 1 sold nearly 350,000 copies in the same period. By the way, the Live A Live remake and the strategy game Triangle Strategy also did not show good results, and perhaps Square Enix will reconsider its release strategy for 2D-HD games.
Takahashi noted that Octopath Traveler 2 is a new story unrelated to the first game, and players can jump into the sequel even without being familiar with its predecessor.