People are saying ff15 shipped 5 mil in one day where as ff16 sold 3 in 1 week.
That’s wrong ff16 didn’t sell 3mill in one week, it shipped and sold 3 mill
. Actually meh. Xbox only accounted for 10% of ff15.
Plus when you take into account budgets for games nowadays.
Expect a square enix classic: didn’t meet expectations on its investors calls.
I think it was 20%, either way 2 million less despite 6 extra days is disastrous for Final Fantasy. The brand is declining. And its all due to Sony.
We just saw how modern AAA cinematic single player blockbuster games like Forbidden West or Tlou2 cost 200+ mio $ just for development without even marketing and 3 million at launch should be good?
It’s not even 3 mill sold.
I don’t think FF16 would be “quite” as expensive as those but I believe Forspoken was at least 100m and this would have been well beyond that
it’s also Square so who knows, maybe it really was lol
3 million is a respectable number and seems FF16 is getting quite good critics scores.
I know some people want the game to fail due to how SE treated xbox but a well-reviewed mainline FF game isn’t going to suddenly not sell well just because.
however, that doesn’t mean SE has made the right business choice. Just by comparison, sega’s 2 Japanese-centric franchises, yakuza, and persona, with the help of game pass, become quite popular among xbox gamers, which will likely transfer to better revenues for Sega, and both franchises become increasingly more popular. The key difference here is, sega behaves like a normal business, when they try to get new audiences, they go out of their way to reach these audiences. where SE treat audiences outside of the existing pool as beggars, only giving them leftovers at SE’s leisure.
So while FF16 may still sell a respectable number, the franchise is not on a good trajectory to become bigger.
It hasn’t sold 3 mill, it’s shipped and digital sales.
sorry for being dumb mate, but what’s the difference?
Not really a difference. 3 million includes both digital sales and numbers of physical copies shipped to retailers. While the latter is not equal to the number of copies actually bought by gamers right now. However, since retailers won’t probably return unsold copies to SE, the actual number of sales will surpass 3 million soon or later.
makes sense. thank you
Just to jump on here, one thing we tend to forget when talking about games is that increased popularity doesn’t just ostensibly translate to more sales for future entries, it should apply to merch too. I don’t have the expertise to say that that’s as important but it’s undeniably something the publisher wants.
Quick example: Xbox-only or -primary gamer tries out and enjoys Persona 5 on Game Pass; is exposed to a genre with which they weren’t familiar. Looks up other well-regarded games in that field, glosses over the stuff they can’t access (Final Fantasy).
Down the line, this gamer who is deeply into the genre now wants something to display or wear. The lack of or negative associations mean they aren’t going to be buying a Final Fantasy figurine or keychain unless it’s really cool-looking item that transcends the need to have a connection to it. But they already know that they like Persona 5, so they’ll get a shirt or a pin or a button of Mona saying “go to sleep” or whatever. Those are not only much better return on investment for Sega, they also serve as advertising.
Anecdotally, I originally played Yakuza 0 on PS4 and loved it, but I didn’t become a huge fan of the series until I got an Xbox and played practically the whole thing on GP. Now RGG games are some of the few I will pre-order (and I’ve done that with LAD, both Judgments, Ishin!, and now Gaiden). Deluxe edition stuff too!
Contrarily, I’ve played a looot of S-E games in my time, but this continuous jilting of Xbox-primary gamers is making me feel spiteful and unwilling to spend money on their stuff in general. With the rising cost and length of dev cycles, I cannot understand why you would be so careless as to even unintentionally foster resentment with your franchises.
This is my exact same path of becoming an RGG stan. I played 0 and 2 on PS4 and enjoyed it, but felt intimidated into trying the series because unsure if I would enjoy 3-5 remasters, Kiwami, and play 6 out of order.
It wasn’t until the franchise was on gamepass where I went through each game one by one and became a major fan of the series. I also had Judgment on PS4, but didn’t have energy at the time to finish it, but bought it again on xbox due to gamepass. Now, I buy every Yakuza./Judgment game at launch because I was exposed to the series due to gamepass, and this results in RGG gaining a loyal fan of the series.
Sales falling off in Japan.
Gonna guess it’s either due to switch absolutely dominating Japan. The Japanese pc audience is growing, should have released there as well. Also ff15 probably appealed more to the Japanese audience.
Yeah but notice how they were qyick to announce the 3m fast. Capcom and From only did sales numbers. Not shipped.
Ff15 was staight up abysmal. I think japan would love 16 more but the game is expensive and tied to a 500 dollar plus system.
I wonder how tired Phil and his team are with the current state of their relationship with Square Enix. If they ever feel like they should just stop trying to court them and put that effort towards other Japanese publishers. It’s hard to say from that couch interview with Giant Bomb after the showcase, but getting on a plane repeatedly just to make sure some random spinoff doesn’t skip the platform sounds really tiring.
As much as I enjoy the IPs from Square Enix and would like to see them on as many platforms as possible, at this point I wouldn’t really mind if Xbox focused that energy AND money towards other Japanese publishers and studios. But I suppose they’re doing both of these things. Maybe their perseverance with Square Enix will pay off in the future, although that seems unlikely.
Star ocean 2 hurt man
But credit to Konami for Suikoden 2
Star ocean 2 and Suikoden 2 are both in my top 5 ps1 games.
I honestly think it’s the direction. Someone posted a streamer from japan and thought it was 7 out of 10. Also heard Mario RPG is the most hyped release. As the old saying goes, time that are changing.
I mean compared to 15. 15 was considered and widely voted worst game for many outlets.
Understood, but it doesn’t change the numbers of the sales and what could be the cause.
