Bobby from GL: "Final Fantasy is an icon in gaming history, but there's a downwards trend we've seen in sales figures in some of the most recent entries. We take a closer look at what's really going on."
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth continues to chart among NPD best sellers, while Helldivers 2 stays above COD: MW3 in Year-to-Date sales revenue.
Replies(1)
Just checking-in to say I'm not part of "you all". Don't know who keeps buying that slop.
Yeah COD is more of a causal game, loads of people who aren't necessarily huge day one gamers buy it as their friends buy it and even if I haven't bought one in years, it is a game that's much more fun with groups of friends.
Good to see ff7 performing 🏆
HD2 smashing records! I hope it motivates other studios to bring on some decent similar games.
Also miss some good FPS
Two comments saying the sane thing. Mines down voted more lol
truth is we don't need more hd2 games
I really meant successful games.. but clearly no gaas. I didn’t buy it for that very reason. Apparently the gaas model isn’t bad in it so that helped with its success
Pretty sure all the people who agreed with you, knew what you meant. Including myself. 👍🏽
Okay. NOW can we stop with the whole 'Rebirth was a flop' chatter? Still selling remarkably well after two months.
It might have had a lower out of the gate sales than the first one, but kind of makes sense considering how front loaded I'm sure that one must have been, the anticipation was through the roof after many years and many teases of an actual remake.
This one will have long legs, I'm sure of it.
FF7R released to how many potential buyers compared to Rebirth? Sales figures be damned, it's still my game of the generation so far. I'd be surprised if it didn't end up being a good seller for Square, if it isn't then their expectations are probably far too high.
It's not a flop but Square isn't celebrating its sales one bit, and DD2 launched nearly a month later but outsold it immediately in the US. Who would've predicted that two months ago?
If you're Square, you're panicking, and that's why we got the news yesterday of them changing their approach to development.
Square traditionally has insane sales expectations. How will releasing this on XBOX that has moved so little consoles and historically moves so little Square titles help this game's sales?
There seems to be a deliberate dialogue that is trying to be spread that this game is a conmercial failure. Articles like these prove otherwise.
And by the way the third game will also be Sony console exclusive, this was confirmed already. I will be buying a PS6 for that.
There is so much misinformation, there was a double pack which in the first month contributed to around 40% of the total sales but that was rarely included or pointed out in charts like this.
The truth is it's sold on par when you consider that this game has released much earlier in the console cycle.
Isn't FF7 part 3 supposed to launch in 3 years or so? If it does, I can guarantee they'll release it on the PS5 to take advantage of that install base. They will not want to release on a fresh gen with a low install base.
They had been talking about their changes though for awhile. Well before rebirth released
Einhander1972
Absolutely but all the naysayers are forgetting this or flat-out leaving that info out because they have a motive.
Square announces cuts and cancellations and you all still defend them.
Why waste your energy when even Square won't?
Tacoboto 5h ago
Square announces cuts and cancellations and you all still defend them.
Why waste your energy when even Square won't?
You are misinformed, yes SquareEnix is making cuts but it's not because of Final Fantasy like everyone keeps trying to say, SquareEnix released a lot of games that failed, if you're determined to blame it on Sony it was Foamstars that really underperformed, but it's not just that, their remasters and remakes and other games have failed to sell well, Final Fantasy actually performed within estimations. I'm sure they hoped it would do better but it performed well within reasonable expectations.
And the thing that I always find stupid about these arguments is that Square Enix especially in Japan is much bigger and has far more exclusives on Switch.
People like you and the western media are always looking to point the finger at Sony and whatever game is tied to them and COMPLETELY ignore the bigger picture, and because gaming journalism is a literal joke, where no one does any research at all. It's all just a bunch of clown hacks who don't know what they are talking about and just say crap that will get clicks, then you repeat it.
... I've never once pointed the finger at Sony for Square's decisions. You don't even read what I write.
“ and DD2 launched nearly a month later but outsold it immediately in the US. Who would've predicted that two months ago?”
Uhh I don’t think anyone is surprised at all that a multiplatform release (PC, PS5, XS) of a highly anticipated sequel outsold an exclusively PS5 game. That’s hardly an even playing field. More like comparing apples to a fruit salad.
Xbox release wouldn't of helped. I think a PC release day one with it would be a better idea and they still got Sony exclusive money to help them cover things so I think it might not do brilliant but ok enough in the long term. FFXVI wasn't appreciated at the time but I see more people appreciating it now.
Square big problems is allocating a lot of their budgets on the right games like Foamstars, Forspoken and Babylons Fall should of never been developed. Square has always had management issues since the early PS years. Least Square Enix is better than the PS3/Xbox 360 generation in which they sucked.
Tacoboto10h ago
I've never once pointed the finger at Sony for Square's decisions. You don't even read what I write.
I copy pasted exactly what you wrote, and whether you specifically type "Sony" you are promoting the incorrect argument that is being presented by Microsoft and it's supporters to undermine and pressure Square Enix to break their relationship with Sony. That is what is happening whether you realize it or not.
Notice there is not a single word about how Final Fantasy 14 has seen basically zero growth and actually also had a slight decline after being put on game pass (behind a paywall and with extra Microsoft tax currencies).
I guarantee the costs to port a 10 year old MMO to another platform like xbox which is actually two platforms didn't come cheap and now involves extra expenses going forward.
It's always blaming Sony or whatever game is seen as tied to Sony with no actual bigger picture examination of what is actually going on and a direct effort to ignore any problems on the Microsoft or even Nintendo side of the equation.
Let's be real here... Square Enix has a poor financial report and every site under the sun has directly or indirectly tried to place that on Sony/Final Fantasy 16 and now Rebirth when it's obviously a bigger picture in reality.
Get it out of your head that I'm blaming Sony. Stop conflating and making things up and going on these weird long tangents based on what you *want* me to say. Weirdo.
You mean a game that released as a platform exclusive got outsold by a game released on multiple platforms? If you did the math and compared the sales proportionately to the install base, I think you'd find Rebirth out performed it.
I've been trying to tell people. Rebirth while a huge game was released in a very busy few months for jrpgs. I seen mad people say they'd get rebirth after granblue relink and others. It'll have legs.
Nobody said it was a flop prior to Square coming out and saying it under performed. Even then Square never said it flopped just didn’t perform up to expectations.
After calling sales of Tomb Raider a disappointment I’m not sure what they would consider a success.
Possibly GTA numbers?
I think what happened here is that VII part 1 did very well but within the pandemic and on PS4.
Rebirth is on PS5 and its not that strong compared to part 1.
I plan to get Rebirth but my backlog is to big for a 100 hour RPG so didn't buy it yet but I will. I think many others in the same situation.
think of it this way...why spend time in lesser quality games when you can be playing GOTY contender? ;)
I do like Rebirth but honestly so far my GOTY is Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.
Rebirth has too many small annoyances that start to add up, becoming more tedious than anything else which is a shame because the storytelling, music and sense of place are fantastic.
GOTY? It's my game of the generation so far, then again I'm a huge FF fan but the game blew me away and far exceeded even my high expectations.
NPD analyst Matt Piscatella has hinted at sales of Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII Rebirth having underperformed in the US.
Its a great game but the texture resolution on props/environmental assets is unacceptable I dont think its right for a AAA videogame company to put out a game for $69.99 with such low quality assets. The character models and Character textures look great but again the blurry textures on environmental assets is shocking for a game on PS5. I see hardcore FF7 fans on reddit defending the asset quality however nobody defended the apartment door textures on FF7 Remake but for some reason nobody cares about FF7 Rebirth's abundance of low quality assets.
Shouldn't have been more than one game. Such greed. They should've just made one complete game and that's it. Everything they said about not being able to do it was just a lie so they could milk as much as possible out of it. The same corporate greed split the hobbit into three parts for the no reason.
The professional,
I don't mind it being split into multiple games.
It gives them a chance to revise the combat and make a better game and implement new ideas iteratively.
The story is split into three chapters, but each game is pretty damn feature complete.
They should have released it as a full ff7 game and not episodic. They wanted to nickel and dime their customers.
To the people saying this should have been released as one game, it would not have been possible for it to come out in one game with the same amount of content. Substantial cuts would have been made both visually and in terms of story and content. Releasing this as multiple games allowed square to not be forced to make Substantial cuts. Keep in mind this was releasing to the ps4 originally and even on there, just the midgar section alone was pushing that console to its limit. Spreading it across multiple games benefited it in the long run.
the textures are barely that bad at all. sounds like you never played it and are just going by some random screenshots you see online.
unlike the first game where the texture issue was more glaring, i've not run into this at all in rebirth
Am currently playing it and yes it looks like trash on performance mode. So I play it on graphics mode on 30fps
I really like the game but my heart dies a little when the map opens up and a laundry list of open world padding appears with those damn towers. I know they're optional but my OCD doesn't care! It's the reason I stopped playing Assassins Creed games, it just doesn't feel fun in the slightest. When Rebirth is laser focused on its actual story the game is top class.
The textures are really not that bad. There's some low res textures in some of the environment but generally it's decent. I honestly think the encouraging environmental textures in Stellar Blade are much worse, yet you don't hear anyone talking about this.
Seriously. This is exactly what I’ve been harping on. The expectations of today’s gamers is a death spiral feedback loop.
People are going to complain about texture resolution for a game that is already massive at nearly 150 GB. Compared to previous gens, when we were just happy to have games that looked decent and struck a balance in performance and gameplay, today we will nitpick the smallest thing like it would actually make a difference. The law of diminishing returns is very real…. You can spend 3 more months and millions of dollars of development time to get graphics that look just a tiny bit better, or you can be reasonable and rational, look at things with a little of wisdom and perspective, and realize that it would be a terrible investment of resources. Having slightly better graphics on a title that already has a fixed market of buyers is not going to massively increase sales. It will just make all these companies go out of business even faster.
Things are a very tense crossroads this gen. Game publishers aren’t “allowed” to charge more for their games, and are chewed up for adding MTs or live service stuff, and yet are expected to keep adding more and more content, and better textures, because that 150 GB of game data isn’t enough for everyone yet. Something has to give, and it’ll be the gamers that will suffer the most in the end when the industry implodes or exits stage.
We are sowing what we will eventually reap.
It's funny how often the term "analyst" gets tossed around nowadays. But again, that's the only way they can remain relevant.
He's been following the industry for decades, he's not just a random person on Twitter.
Exactly. He's an Executive Director at Circana/NPD. Not sure why analyst became a buzzword over the years. It's literally part of his job description to report on them. 🤣
Yeah. It's not about relevance, it's literally *his career*. Not tossed around, it's what he does and has been doing for a living.
This is PS fan/liberal logic. Instead of actually having any facts to counter an opinion or perspective you don't like you just call the guy irrelevant or criticize him or his job.
Its the same with with kojima fans in the article where someone finally criticized his awful, self indulgent and overly expositional writing.
Liberal logic? Might want to fix your irrelevant political reference; that's straight out of Trump's playbook for literally everything he tries to say and do.
They should of released it on Xbox and PC as PS5 owners don't seem to buy JRPG'S. Also they could of made a deal with MS to have it on gamepass Day 1 with MS giving them a few billion to make up for sales.
Hopefully the new CEO of SE will cancel all exclusive agreements with Sony and make Part 3 and all future SE games multi-platform.
Not wishful thinking at all as both FF 16 and Rebirth are both not selling well on PS5 and shows that PS owners are not that interested in JRPG'S. SE will have to recoup the cost of the games by releasing both game and all future games on as many platforms as possible.
Exclusives are a cancer in gaming so i don't understand why gamer would want a franchise like the FF franchise to die off because of PS fans not buying them.
"Exclusives are a cancer in gaming so i don't understand why gamer would want a franchise like the FF franchise to die off because of PS fans not buying them."
They are for Xbox because so little people are buying Xbox, now they have to put their games everywhere. Meanwhile, Sony and Nintendo will keep doing exclusives because it differentiate their consoles from the competition, it boosts hardware sales. Sony and Nintendo will never release anything on Xbox, so you guys get nothing while the rest of us get our exclusives plus Microsoft's.
Is this a real post? FF7 Crisis Core sold 5% on Xbox and over 80% on PS and you think that PS owners don't buy JRPGs? 😂😂 the sales didn't perform as well as Remake because that was released in Covid when people were home all the time, and it released to twice as many platforms users. And PC? Sure that would sell well, but then it'd take an extra year or two to come out. And I overlooked the part where you said "a few billion to make up for sales". A few billion is 50 million sales, you think the XB port is selling that? 🤣
That is such a stupid argument. As if every game made then sold so well. This should never have been more than one game and also what they did with the combat etc. turned a lot of people off. Then they made this one a PS5 exclusive.
Isn't stupid at all. People were home and playing more video games. That's plain fact. And if it was one game it would have been rushed and ruined. And the combat is outstanding. The only why some were turned off was because it wasn't turn based.
people grew tired of this episodic greedy releases
better wait for the complete edition, no need to wait years between episodes
by the time they release another part, you already forgot where the story left
people want complete games not crumbs, glad it under-performs
that's a lesson
100 hour game is crumbs? Remake had a ton of content as well.
And what is episodic? People had to wait years after cliffhanger endings to see what happens to see the next "episode" like with Mass effect, halo 2, god of war 2, etc... did people complain they forgot what happened when the sequels came out?
Saying Square got greedy with Rebirth, it not having microtransactions and a massive amount of content is essentially brain dead.
Wow thats ridiculous. You're talking about a remake of one already completed game that was split into three parts due to greed and gameplay padding. Literally completely different from everything else you listed. Makes no sense.
l liked the episodic. I get more game over a time rather than one hit XD
I just don't like how...creepy sephiroth is with Cloud. Like the erotica fanfic writers and artists are going nuts.
The same thing could be said about any game that was made with sequels in mind though. If they released the whole remake project in one game it would've been much less ambitious. Some people like yourself might've been happier with a conservative Remake approach, but others probably would've complained about the unrealized potential of remaking the classic.
The original aged very well and is still perfectly playable. I just don't see anything particularly interesting that they could've accomplished with 3-5 years of production time for the entire Remake. At that point they probably would've scaled it back even further and it would've ended up being a slightly expanded version of the original with a new coat of paint and voiceover. Maybe that would've been a more profitable path, but I for one wouldn't have been interested in that and I'm glad that they went all out and gave the game the attention it deserves.
Really? You wouldn't have been interested? Everyone who bought ff7 remake still would've bought it.
Seems like the extra gameplay padding and open world stuff isn't what people wanted since the sales are so low. How did they mess up a remake of one of the most popular games ever when remakes and remasters are more successful than they've ever been now?
@TheProfessional: Personally I wouldn't have been interested in anything close to a 1:1 Remake. More often than not, I consider those to be a waste of resources. I prefer direct ports/remasters that keep everything about the original intact (which already exist for VII), or full reimagined Remakes that act as a supplement to the original without making it obsolete. The VII Remake project is by far the best example of how to do this well in my book.
VII Remake rumors have been swirling around for over a decade before it was officially announced and I never shared the general excitement about the idea, because I considered it pretty much impossible to do it justice.
There is a reason why modern FF games aren't as varied as they were during the golden age, which for me is the PS1 generation. It's easier to create rich and varied worlds when you're working at the much higher level of abstraction of the older games, but in modern AAA games towns aren't a handful of pre-rendered 2D backgrounds anymore and NPCs don't communicate exclusively via textboxes.
The point is that higher expectations in terms of production values have made the creation of wolrds like FF7's much less feasible in modern AAA gaming, which is reflected in the criticism of the fanbase when it comes to modern entries of the franchise.
Even as someone who likes most of the modern FFs there is clearly a different aura about the VII Remake. It's the first time that the franchise truly feels like it has recaptured the greatness of the golden age for me. In that sense it feels more authentic to me than a 1:1 Remake ever could, because it doesn't try to replicate what the original is today, but what it was in 1997. An insanely ambitious, jawdropping game that almost feels like it shouldn't be possible.
Eh it ain't that at all. 12 years of development costs isn't greed. They just wanted the project to the be the best it can be. If they rushed it and put it into one release it would have been a disaster. Now sales or not, the game is outstanding and will likely win game of the year. So they definitely succeeded in making it great. And I mean just play it again like I did before the next part comes out. It was given away on the monthly PS games so there's so excuse really.
The game isn't episodic, idk why people to this day keep saying that. It's no different than 13, 13-2, 13-3 or X, X-2. It's sequel based, and no one is tired of sequel based games or episodic for that matter cause episodic games aren't even all that common anymore.
Its a game that was already made being split into three parts. Totally different.
@ThePro
Except it's a complete reimagining of the original, and not just a 1 to 1 remake of the original which is only 1 game. I don't get in what way it's episodic. It's a game that has direct sequels and it was explained from the start that'll have at least 2 direct sequels, why would people bitch about that especially now that we've had two quality full length games?
No it's mainly People who played Remake and didn't like the changes didn't bother with Rebirth all together
It's always like this. FF8 sold very well on release because FF7 was awesome, meanwhile people didn't like FF8 as much as FF7, so guess what? FF8 caused FF9 to sell less at launch.
IX came out like 2 months before the PS2 dropped, that’s probably why it didn’t sell aswell
They should have released it for the PS2 as a launch game
Bobby writes, "Final Fantasy 16 — The Rising Tide is a great expansion but it's on the short side."
Why does every site ignore ff16 released with nothing else around it. While rebirth has released in the middle of a sh ton of other jrpgs surrounded by it to. Relink, unicorn, eiyuden in a week plus others.
Crowded release time definitely has a lot to do with it.Some people pick one game
before getting another one.
I used to buy almost everything day 1. My financial situation hasn’t declined but my time situation has so I buy games as I can play them and not as many games day 1 anymore especially during crowded release times like this late winter early spring has had.
I reckon there are 3 reasons behind the lower then expected sales of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth:
Cannibalization is one of the reasons
1 - Yakuza Infinite Wealth
2 - Persona 3 Remake
3 - Granblue Fantasy
4 - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
All within, pretty much, a month from each other
Second reason, and this is just a wild guess, probably completely wrong - There are lots of people who don't follow gaming news on sites like this, when they go to the store or Playstation digital store back in 2020 and saw "Final Fantasy VII Remake", they probably thought they were getting the complete game, not a fraction of the game, then got pissed when it wasen't, and didn't bother buying Rebirth.
The number of sales lost for this reason is probably low, but who knows.
Third reason, there is some who are probably just waiting for the "complete" game, after realizing Remake was only just one part of it.
Heck, maybe there are even people who did not like what they did with the story (end part of Remake).
FF16 has killed off the brand, when you have a director saying he hates the term jrpg and then releases a pale imitation of western rpgs, people arent going to support your franchise anymore. shame, because Rebirth is an absolute certified banger.
Honestly I feel like marketing has really diminished for major game releases. Outside of gaming websites, it seems rare to see any type of hype or excitement for an upcoming release.