Two Years to Save $600 for a PS5 Before FFXIV Cuts PS4

"You have two years to save up for a PS5." Naoki Yoshida delivered the line with a grin during Final Fantasy Fan Fest, and the audience laughed. But for the chunk of FFXIV's playerbase still running the game on PlayStation 4, the math behind that joke isn't funny at all.

As part of Fan Fest, Yoshida confirmed that PS4 support for Final Fantasy XIV is approaching its end. "While Sony has allowed us to 'limit break' certain requirements, we're quickly approaching the physical limit," he said on stage. The PS4 version has been living on borrowed time for a while now, and Square Enix has been telegraphing this sunset for long enough that nobody should be shocked. But the timing makes it sting in a way it wouldn't have two years ago.

The cheapest PS5 you can buy right now is the $600 digital edition. That's $200 more than what the console cost at launch. If you want the PS5 Pro, you're looking at $900. Sony has blamed the price increases on the "global economic landscape," which is the corporate equivalent of a shrug emoji. Yoshida telling players to start saving now reads less like a joke and more like financial advice.

$600 Is a Lot of Gil

I keep coming back to that number. Six hundred dollars for the entry-level model, with no disc drive. For a player who's been happily running FFXIV on a PS4 since A Realm Reborn, that's not an upgrade path. It's a wall. And unlike a battle pass or a cosmetic bundle, this isn't optional spending if you want to keep playing a game you've potentially invested thousands of hours into. Your character, your Free Company, your raid group; all of it locked behind a hardware purchase that costs more than it ever has.

FFXIV isn't a free-to-play game, either. Players are already paying a monthly subscription on top of expansion purchases. Asking them to also absorb a $600 console upgrade because Sony keeps raising prices is a compounding cost that hits hardest at the lower end of the income spectrum. The people still on PS4 in 2026 aren't there because they love 30fps and jet-engine fan noise. They're there because they can't justify the spend.

To be clear, I don't blame Square Enix for this. At some point, you have to drop last-gen hardware. The PS4 launched in 2013. Continuing to develop for 13-year-old silicon constrains what the team can do with new expansions, and FFXIV's graphical update already pushed the old console about as far as it could go. Yoshida and his team have been more transparent about this transition than most studios would be, and giving players a two-year runway is more generous than the industry standard.

The problem is the destination, not the timeline. Two years ago, you could pick up a PS5 for $400. Now the floor is $600, and there's no indication Sony plans to reverse course. If anything, the has been consistently upward. So when Yoshida says "start saving," he's not being flippant. He's acknowledging a real barrier that his team has no control over.

PC Is Always an Option (Sort Of)

The obvious counter-argument is that FFXIV runs on PC, and you can build or buy a machine capable of running it for less than a PS5. That's true, but it ignores how console players actually behave. Plenty of FFXIV's PS4 audience chose PlayStation specifically because they didn't want to deal with PC hardware. Telling them to switch platforms isn't a solution; it's a different problem.

There's also the question of cross-progression. FFXIV does support it, so a PS4 player moving to PC wouldn't lose their character. But they would lose their muscle memory on a DualShock, their couch setup, and potentially years of UI customization. It's friction, and friction causes people to quit.

I hope Square Enix works with Sony on some kind of FFXIV bundle or discount program before the cutoff hits. A co-branded PS5 with a few months of subscription included would go a long way toward softening the blow. Whether Sony has any appetite for that when they're clearly comfortable charging $600 for a digital-only box is another matter entirely.

Yoshida didn't give an exact date for when PS4 support will end, only the two-year window. That puts the cutoff somewhere around spring 2028, likely timed to coincide with a major patch or expansion. Players who want to keep their Warrior of Light journey going should start planning now, because $600 doesn't save itself.