Final Fantasy PS5 Exclusive Release Irks U.S. Senator

All those Final Fantasy PS5, PS4 console exclusive releases haven’t gone unnoticed in the U.S. government, where Washington’s Democratic senator Maria Cantwell has bizarrely accused Sony of having a monopoly of “98 percent of the high-end game market” in Japan.

Why Senator Cantwell is thought to be referring to Final Fantasy PS5, PS4 exclusives

As spotted by users on ResetEra, Cantwell said during a senate hearing on the 2023 Trade Policy Agenda that “Sony controls a monopoly of 98 percent of the high-end game market, yet Japan’s government has allowed Sony to engage in blatant anti-competitive conduct through exclusive deals and payments to game publishers, establishing games that are among the most popular in Japan.”

Yeah, the upcoming Final Fantasy 16, a PS5 exclusive, is certainly one of them.

Cantwell made these remarks to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, urging her to investigate this issue. One problem: Sony does not have a 98 percent monopoly in Japan. In fact, Sony has no monopoly in Japan at all, where Nintendo and mobile reign supreme.

This 98 percent figure that Cantwell is referring to is based on a bizarre U.S. assessment of the Japanese games market, where it disregards all other players except Microsoft. What Cantwell means is that PS5 is trampling all over Xbox in Japan.

Interestingly, Microsoft has contributed more than half a million dollars to Cantwell’s political campaign thus far, and she hails from Redmond, WA, where Microsoft is headquartered.

Make of that what you will.