Mac version of Final Fantasy XIV pulled from sale, refunds offered

Square Enix has withdrawn the Mac version of Final Fantasy XIV after it launched on June 23rd with a number of serious problems, chief of which being pretty poor performance on even the beefiest of Macs.

It has admitted the minimum specs it previously released were inaccurate and not sufficient to run the game and that the wrong release date was given to retailers, meaning some buyers actually downloaded a problematic pre-release build.

The publisher has now said it will refund the purchase for anyone who asks.

I believe that the biggest problem with the Mac version release was the significant discrepancy between the performance of the product our development team produced and the expectations our customers had for it, which was due to the lack of information available on our product when sales commenced, as well as other issues,” producer and director Naoki Yoshida said.

Although our development and QA teams tested the client on Mac hardware, because of our last minute efforts to improve performance and the possibility that system requirements might change, we decided to prepare several versions of these requirements, with the one to be released depending on the final result. However, in the chaos leading up to the multi-platform launch of our expansion, we released incorrect requirements, which were not updated prior to the Mac version’s official release.

Yoshida says the game will be re-released, but only when its exact spec requirements are nailed down. Existing owners will be able to continue playing in the interim, however.

The mistakes made by the development and operation teams in the lead up to this release have caused considerable confusion and trouble,” he added. We offer our deepest and most heartfelt apologies.

We aim to recommence sales of the Mac version as soon as we are satisfied that the product information and system requirements are properly prepared. And to those players who are already playing the Mac version in the required system environment, we deeply apologise for the ongoing inconveniences.”