Japan. Nintendo got it passed into law years ago that game’s can’t be rented, because of supposed piracy concerns. But you can go to any video rental place and borrow all the music CDs you could want, because we all know how much more difficult it is to make mp3s from a CD than copy a game.
So they’ll most likely decide to completely remove features from the Xbox releases rather than try to get them to work on S, which will lead to worse gaming options on the Xbox. Which Sony will absolutely love.
Thing is, it didn’t ultimately have to release on series S. Larian could very well have decided it was too much work to get it to work, and Microsoft didn’t want Xbox left out of such a big release. I think as the generation goes on, you’re going to see a lot more devs and studios deciding or not worth all the extra cost to try to get a have running on S for an Xbox release, or games will get nerfed from the early development stage, unless Microsoft lighten up on their parity requirements.
I’ve seen them in Edion, an electronics chain, in Japan, and they seem to have a partnership of some kind with them - the first time you could do a hands-on anywhere in Japan was at an Edion in Osaka, and that’s where I’ve seen the physically on sale recently (as in, only in the last month or two). The only person I know with one ordered it online.
Sony really shot itself in the foot with how it decided to prioritize the NA and EU market over Japan. PS5s were becoming readily available in those markets but were still so rare in Japan electronic stores were still doing lotteries for a chance to buy one - and then they raised the prices when you still couldn’t even get them yet here because of shortages. They’ve only recently become available over here, but not really - the electronics store near me only has the regular PS5 and not the diskless model. And I’m not in the middle of nowhere; this is in the middle of Osaka.
I bet a lot of folks here are like me - they just got sick of waiting and started PC gaming. Thanks to the pandemic, a lot of people who didn’t have PCs at home in 2019 ended up having to get them for WFH and online classes, so PC gaming became a lot more feasible than it had been.
Gotta admit, if they pull something like that off and FF7R runs that smoothly on it, chances are high I’m going to get one if the weight isn’t too hefty. If it’s less than what a Steam Deck weighs (a Steam Deck is slightly too heavy for my weak fingers to manage), I’m sold.