Final Fantasy 16 UK Retail Launch Sales 74 Percent Lower Than FF15

Sales figures have revealed that Final Fantasy 16 is the UK's best-selling retail release this week, although its launch sales are reportedly 74 percent lower than that of Final Fantasy 15.

After two years since its reveal, this week marked the long-awaited launch of Final Fantasy 16. While critical reception for the game has been largely positive so far, it seems that it might not have made as much of a splash as Square Enix would have hoped when it comes to the game's sales, at least when it comes to physical retail releases in the UK.

[Battlestar23]

15 launched on PS4, XBOX One and later on PC and FF16 launched only on PS5 so of course sales are lower. The same will happen with Starfield it's sales numbers will be lower than the likes of Fallout 4 because it's only launching on XS and PC and being on Gamepass day 1 will hurt actual game sales too.

[Sonic1881]

Gamepass is going to hit overall sales big time and that's a guarantee but Microsoft already know that. They're trying to get more subscribers for long term. As for Final Fantasy 16 it's going to be a marathon until every PS4 owner upgrades to a PS5. FF16 is also going to PC eventually to help boost sales. Let's not forget this isn't digital sales

[4Sh0w]

Down 74% man that's alot because let's face it Xbox & PC sales for this game typically aren't huge.

The BIG caveat is this doesn't include digital, so as far as we know it's only a big drop in physical sales and we know digital has grown leaps & bounds over the last few years= Im pretty sure the digital sales are pretty good, hopefully because I really dont want to hear SE cry about it.

[Babadook7]

It’s only on one platform and that platform had fewer units than ps4.

[piroh]

Now are digital sales way more popular than it was when ff15 launched, less people buying retail now

[phoenixwing]

@sonic
I doubt se is going to cry about it when Sony wrote them a check

[blackbeld]

To many great games this month. I just bought SF6 so FF16 have to wait till next month. Cause I promised myself 1 game each month.

[Seraphim]

According to the last sentence in the preview, this is box sales only so hardly a surprise. A lot has changed between the release of XV and XVI in terms of digital vs physical. I could be mistaken but I believe the EU has adopted digital more than the US, and even then, digital is gaining traction everywhere... just a quick google search, 64% of all sales were digital in '22, down from 65% the year prior according to gameindustry.biz. I don't know what the numbers were when XV released, but if 64% of sales are digital, and XVI sold 74% less physical copies, you do the math...

I've always been a physical collector, but even I have found cause to just start buying more and more games digitally. Let's talk when total numbers are in. Until then, this seems more like a hit piece or, at the very least, a very stupid article written by someone looking to spin it. Because let's be real here, there are always more than variable to consider, and from the looks of it, they simply took one variable and ran with it because that variable must be bad.

[Obscure_Observer]

"15 launched on PS4, XBOX One and later on PC and FF16 launched only on PS5 so of course sales are lower."

FFXVI exclusive on PS5 sold just 1/4 of copies compared to FFXV, no matter how you try to spin, the numbers are far from great.

Making such huge title exclusive to Playstation might turn out into another disappointment for SE. Hopefully digital sales will perform better than retail. We shall see soon enough.

"The same will happen with Starfield it's sales numbers will be lower than the likes of Fallout 4 because it's only launching on XS and PC and being on Gamepass day 1 will hurt actual game sales too."

Starfield is an Xbox first party games, no matter how many copies it sells, it´s still Microsoft´s money.

If FFXVI don't meet sales expectations, Square Enix will be the only one who will suffer with the losses of tons of money invested in that game.

[purple101]

@ obscureobserver

"The same will happen with Starfield it's sales numbers will be lower than the likes of Fallout 4 because it's only launching on XS and PC and being on Gamepass day 1 will hurt actual game sales too."

How many do you think it will sell at $70?

[shinoff2183]

Se aren't going to be missing many sales from xbox , ie ff15 numbers. This article specifically mentions this is physical sales, you know damn well digital is bigger today then it was when ff15 first released. Leave it to obscure for the neg Sony comment

[Zhipp]

That's still a huge difference in sales. I feel like Xbox even in the UK would have accounted for only around 25% of FF15 sales surely.

[shinoff2183]

Xbox didn't even account for that percentage of sales of ff15.

Over 10 million sold 1 mill on xbox for ff15.

[-Foxtrot]

It's not even that really

After FF13 people gave them a second chance with FF15

They blew it

So while this is a good game and BETTER than 13/15 most people might just feel they don't want to get burnt again.

[shinoff2183]

The 2nd paragraph makes a good a good point that should've been in the headline. Atleast the physical sales. I prefer physical games myself but it seems more and more buy digital these day.

2nd starfield sales won't be that good do to gamepass. I'll be playing on gamepass.

[CDbiggen]

I'd have bought it day 1 on PC

[-Mika-]

I made a comment a month or two ago saying that Square limiting its IP to one platform is going to hurt the growth of the FF brand. Now look.

[Battlestar23]

Given that FF15 sold only like 9% on Xbox and 80% on PS4 with 11% on PC making FF16 multi woudn't result in much of an increase in sales also Game sales in the UK are different since a few years ago with 90% of game sales now in the UK being mostly digital. https://www.ign.com/article...

[lelo2play]

Where did you get those percentages for Playstation, Xbox and PC sales of FF15?

[-Mika-]

It doesn't matter. It still did not sell well. First, Playstation gamers prefer to buy boxed games. Second, It being 74% lower than 15 sales is bad. That is a very sharp difference. There is no spin on this to make this look good. When they release the digital sales numbers, we get our confirmation.

[Obscure_Observer]

@lelo2play

"Where did you get those percentages for Playstation, Xbox and PC sales of FF15?"

He made that up.

[tay8701]

@mika where did you get the idea most playstation gamers prefer boxed games, not true.
Playstation are the leaders for digital game sales and have been for a while.

[Eonjay]

@Mika
I purchased 15 physical years ago... but I got 16 digitally. I didn't know that I had to buy physical simply because I have a PlayStation. Your just making stuff up.

[shinoff2183]

Lelo the numbers are out there

Taylor of course Sony is the leaders in digital. It's common sense with the bigger install base.

[Redemption-64]

They are not limiting themselves, this is just physical and even did better than Diablo 4. Using your logic was Diablo 4 growth hurt because it performed worst than FF16 with physical? The answer is No

[-Mika-]

First off, A lot of gamers bought Diablo 4 on digital because they got to play it 4 days early. FF16 did not have any digital advantage over physical. You can't use that as an excuse here.

[neutralgamer1992]

Mika

Actually you can connect the dots because now a days AAA games get 70-75% of their sales in digital so if it’s not the best selling game on PSN we will have something to discuss

And they aren’t limiting anything. It’s the worst kept secret that Sony and square have a deal in place so as soon as ABK deal is done Sony will announce the acquisition

[Omegasyde]

@Neutral
I highly doubt Sony will purchase Squareenix, maybe another smaller studio or even an IP. I still think they overpaid for Bungie over estimating their GAAS evaluation.

[Redemption-64]

@Mika

FF16 did not have any digital advantage over physical.

Actually if you are old enough, you would actually know, about 70-80% of all games sold on Playstation are digital. But we can ignore that fact if it makes you feel better. We can also ignore the fact that, the whole industry has shifted towards more digital and millions of Playstation owners got a PS5 digital version.

So guess we can't point out excuses, such as, more people are buying digital over physical, compared to 8-10 years go or a good percentage of PS5 owners have a digital version. Yeah, just excuses.

[DEEHULK88]

FF is a bigger Franchise than Diablo, so that's not a good comparison. I mean it probably do better than a lot of other multiplats that have a smaller fantasy as well like Dead Island 2.

[Jin_Sakai]

“I made a comment a month or two ago saying that Square limiting its IP to one platform is going to hurt the growth of the FF brand. Now look.”

Digital sales aren’t included yet.

[Redemption-64]

The ignorance of you bots truly transcends time itself. Final Fantasy 15 released as a multi-platform game and that game sold about 80% on Playstation alone in the UK and only sold about 20% on Xbox. That game is estimated to have sold about 10M and that same estimated has Xbox sales at around 1.4M. What growth exactly is Square missing with such laughable numbers from Xbox? Significant amount of their base are on PS and Nintendo. They are not missing anything when you consider hiw bad the last game sold on Xbox. Apart from Forza and Halo, how many Xbox games even make it to their chats?

As Square stated, they approached numerous platforms holders, Sony gave them the better offer. Just like with Marvel and Genshin Impact

[randomvoice]

LMAO these are physical sales only and it sold more than Diablo 4 physical sales. Everyone knows most sales nowadays are digital.

Xbox fanboys talk a lot of shit about exclusives but when FF showed up on Xbox, it literally sold less than 10% off the overall sales. Seems like all the moaning and bitching about exclusives doesn't really results in sales on Xbox. Put your money where your mouth is and maybe you'll get more 3rd party games on it.

[MrNinosan]

It didn't, the article is just making you believe so.

FFXV released on a Tuesday during Black Week
Ofc a full week of sales during Black Week will be more than 1/2 days of sale in the summer.

If this game was also released on Xbox, it'd be a maximum of 5-10% extra in sales, buy to the cost of quality of the game.

[k2d]

I speak from first hand knowledge when I say that casuals are afraid of going into FF due to the numeral titling..

They're alianating a lot of players by also going full action game, rating M, and being PS5 only.

One can hope that they'll have long and healthy tail of sales.

I did not buy the XIII compilation due to XIII and I bought XV on sale due to my impressions from the demo. I'm currently on the fence with XVI. 7 Remake Day 1.

[CrimsonWing69]

So how about digital sales? Do most people
Realize digital sales trump physical?

It’s number 1 in the UK so that accounts for something. What about in the US and Japan market? Again collectively with digital and physical?

[luckytrouble]

It's basically the problem with modern numbers reporting. You don't get digital sales until the publisher reveals numbers directly, and that often only happens at end of fiscal year shareholder meetings as far as when the general public gets to see the numbers. Physical still plays a major role, but that role strongly differs across markets. So while this article sounds doom and gloom for FF16, we don't have any concrete idea of the actual numbers it's doing right now.

[badz149]

No no no you don't get it. Digital only matters when talking about Xbox version sales. With PS, they like to pretend that digital is negligible.

Don't trust me? Just go back to articles about sales of multiplat games when the PS is doing 2X or 3X the xbox numbers and see how quickly the "xbox sold more digitally" statement came up.

[yarbie1000]

Theres also only 2 days of data as well as what others have mentioned that this is comparing a multi platform. The game is one of the greatest I’ve played. Ignore the review bombing and fud about sales. It’s excellent

[StarkR3ality]

It's a good game, nothing special though, think it's getting overrated due to it being a PS exclusive, still a solid 8/10 though.

[P_Bomb]

Maybe finish it before falling on conspiracy theories?

[randomvoice]

LMAO yeah sure bud. Whatever makes you sleep at night. It is still the highest rated exclusive this year in-between Xbox and PlayStation. So far, it is easily in the top 3 FF games I've played. Watch the same hermits run out with their pitchforks if Starfield gets a 7 when someone calls it overrated.

[StarkR3ality]

When did 8/10 become a bad score? I'm enjoying my time with it, but I don't think it's as good as 7 Remake because it's not a final fantasy game.

Pathetic cunts 😂

[P_Bomb]

“When did 8/10 become a bad score? ”

I have no qualm with your score.

“Pathetic c***s”

🤪
https://media1.giphy.com/me...

[MrNinosan]

It's getting underrated, due to not being on Xbox

[GamingSinceForever]

Forspoken, a game by the same publisher, was also a PS5 exclusive and it was not overrated. FF16 is just a great game period.

[--Onilink--]

@randomvoice

Isn’t it basically tied with Hi-Fi Rush though? Not that I see how either of them having “the highest” score has to do with him saying its an 8 (which is not a bad score by any means)

[CrimsonWing69]

I wouldn’t say “nothing special,” I mean if that’s your take you clearly didn’t get to the Bahamut bit. That had my jaw hit the floor and stuck out to me as one of the coolest fights in any game, period.

[shadowT]

And it is not even the original Source gamesindustry.biz. I am wondering how this news got approved on n4g.

However:

"Final Fantasy 16’s UK physical launch was bigger than Diablo 4’s and Dead Island 2’s, so I really wouldn’t conclude anything from the boxed figures. It sits behind Resident Evil 4, Star Wars, Hogwarts and Zelda in terms of week 1 boxed sales."

[VersusDMC]

I wonder if they will mention that FFXV came out on a tues and FFXVI came out on Thursday so there is a shorter first week for FFXVI. Surely a journalist would mention that?

[shadowknight203]

Thats hilarious if your serious about that being a journalism standard. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be, IT SOOOO SHOULD BE but in recent memory, that certainly hasn't been the case. And I'm speaking as a whole of journalism.

[Tody_ZA]

This will only be relevant when factoring in digital sales and remembering that it's a PS5 exclusive. The new generation has to start sometime and it was always an inevitability that "physical" sales would decline once the 100million strong PS4 userbase was cut off. But I think most would agree with me that it's about damn time we get PS5 only exclusives and leave cross gen behind, for the benefit of the games. Sales will come as adoption picks up, as a result of games like this and Spider-Man 2 releasing. No one is going to upgrade to a new console if they can play the same games on their PS4.

[StarkR3ality]

Everyone I know in 2023 buys digital including me, physical media is nice, but it doesn't trump the ease of use for digital for many of us.

Just on the state in the UK with broadband especially, back then the UK had one of the worst broadband speeds in all of Europe due to its aging copper network, now it's mostly full Fibre everywhere, I get 1gbps now for £30 a month. Those speeds would have cost me hundreds back when FF15 launched.

[Deathdeliverer]

Online is in a totally different position than it was then. Technology changes fast and people’s taste change even faster. I personally bought the collectors edition of FF15. It was one of the last games if NOT the last physical game I bought. Or Persona 5. Whichever came last. On PlayStation it tells you how many friends preordered whatever title you have highlighted. It was 60+ on my list. Game and Baldurs Gate 3 (another of my highly anticipated titles) is sitting at 49 on my list currently. Once the game us released you can’t see this accurately no more because it changes to “others that play this game” but that would include disk. Point is that’s how things are moving. I’d be amazed if sales weren’t “lower” for physical games period.

[Jin_Sakai]

I’m sure it will be much higher once digital is included in sales.

[Elda]

I live in the USA & I bought a physical copy.

[GamingSinceForever]

I live in the USA & I bough a digital
copy.

I stopped buying physical back in 2017.

[GamingSinceForever]

@The_Real_Punisher

1) Money isn’t an issue so I don’t have to trade-in my games.

2) I take games off my hard drive when I am dome. Can always install again later.

3) Digital games don’t clutter my space.

[Eonjay]

I bought digital myself. I will to see if I can find a fire sale on the physical collectors for that steelbox in the future though.

[MrNinosan]

A lot of important points are missing out.

For starters, 29th of November, 2016 was a Tuesday, amd sales data was based on the whole week.
Which days are included in FFXVI sales data is not written, but my guess would be, only Thursday, maybe Friday.

Also, 29th of November is in the span when chrsitmas gifta are purchased.

I am 99% certain, this game will sell close to, if not more than FFXV in it's first 6 months.

[shadowT]

"UK physical launch was bigger than Diablo 4"

"Let's hope digital sales are a little more positive"

[VersusDMC]

FFXVI sold more week 1 than Diablo 4 on 5 platforms?

But the headline reflects the narrative thegamer wants to paint i guess...

[Hereandthere]

The cringe is real, calling a exclusive game a flop with 2 days of UK PHYSICAL only data is a super low bottom of the barrel reach.

[MadLad]

Not a good look, being many considered 15 bad in a lot of ways, and 16 was pretty much being named a strong return to form.
If that's the case this one is pretty much destined for the used bin going forward, outside of digital sales and an eventual PC release. Following Forespoken ... Eh. This thing really needed to hit it out of the park.

[phoenixwing]

Its only a few days of sales compared to 15 week of sales

[phoenixwing]

Meant to type *a week of sales* not the number 15.

[VersusDMC]

I don't know how outselling Diablo4 on 5 platforms week one is a bad look?

[MadLad]

Metrics for both games are missing here.
As far as I know it can be confirmed that it outsold Diablo 4 in the UK simply based on the metrics they're tracking FF's sales at.

They're not tracking the numbers for both titles. People are claiming it's obvious the sales for FF16 would be lower than 15 because it's not on multiple consoles, but that doesn't track with with overall sales of the game itself, being games sold on both PS5 and PS4 almost Always highly favor PS5 when it comes to sales; therefore FF 16's sales shouldn't be that dramatically lower being even more people should have access to PS5 at this point and, just like last time, PC sales will only be implemented after the fact.

We have the numbers being compared at the same time, under the same scrutiny. People can reword it however they want; sales seem to be nat matching up with the previous release.

I have no bias here. I outright tell people I think FF15 sucked. I wanted FF16 to be so much better and, as I've been told, it should be. But that doesn't mean quality equals numbers. It doesn't look like the quality is matching numbers when it comes to these two.

[InUrFoxHole]

I guess they were happy with the pre order numbers after all /S

[MADGameR]

This is probably because digital is being forced down our throats and gamers are buying into it.

[DarXyde]

So much fear... 🙄

1. These are UK sales.
2. As others have mentioned, this is in reference to physical sales.
3. Statistically, the last recorded physical sales for XV had PlayStation 4 account for 5.07M sales, compared with 0.5M on PC and 1.14M on Xbox One. If you transfer this logic, physical sales from PC and Xbox One would be very insignificant.

4. Final Fantasy XV launched BEFORE a global pandemic, which has very likely changed consumer trends where the digital shift has been met with warmer reception.

5. At the same time that this game released, keep in mind that people are still playing games like Diablo and Zelda. You can expect western countries to be focused on Diablo, I reckon.

I say all of this not to undermine the potential reality. I say all of this to get people thinking about it a bit more critically. There are a number of possible (and, frankly, probable) explanations. Everyone's got a narrative they want to perpetuate, but objectively, there are a number of unknowns.

[GamingSinceForever]

The person reporting this clearly stated that “obviously” digital sales outweigh physical sales as compared to 2016. So those numbers have yet been revealed. Not to mention it was the topped the charts for the week based on short few days.

Some of you on here love to reach. At least read what was said before sounding ignorant.

[Juancho51]

They're missing out. Phenomenal game, absolutely INTENSE combat and dialogue, excellent voice acting, just fucking fantastic.

[jukins]

Clickbait title 74% lower boxed sales in the uk only

[Armyofdarkness]

Well yes. Digital is where it’s at!

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

There could be several reasons for this, for one, it released only on PS5 instead of both PS4/PS5, next, this is just physical sales, digital could make up the lost remainder or more. The only thing I can think of that would hurt this game is how lackluster the past decade's worth of FF games were, but most people who played the demo have stated they will buy the game.

And no Xbox fans, releasing on Xbox and Game Pass wouldn't help, those +5% of sales is a drop in the bucket.

[gold_drake]

i also feel like it was a different time, where ppl bought more physical than digital.

but im not defending it by any means, i bought physical and im koving it so far

[talocaca]

I wouldn't panic....PS5 titles seem to have Nintendo like legs lately. The fact that GOW:Ragnarok is still #6 in the UK is very surprising.

Many people seem to favor downloads lately as well. I would give it at least 6 months before we can actually tell how well the game did.

[GoodGuy09]

Still insane how 15 sold so much. It was highly highly anticipated after all.

[RupeeHoarder]

Clickbait.

1) Shorter length of time
2) 15 launched during Black Friday week
3) more people buy digital than physical now

Let the Xbox fanboys revel in this fake news lol. Move along everyone else, nothing to be concerned about here.

[PhillyDonJawn]

Dang, it flop commercially. Game deserved better imo

[LastAvenger]

I had a chance to buy it this past weekend at retail but I got to thinking, but I have Standard PS5 and Digital Only. If I bought the digital copy I can play on either console. So that’s what kept from buying physical. If only they did what blu-rays did and include a digital copy.

[EternalTitan]

Come out and Defend your awful game shills.

[thesoftware730]

Hahaha, I think the game is phenomenal, but these excuses are hilarious.

It came out on a Tuesday..lmao!

Yo, I recall, some months ago, all the PS5 boxed games sales charts, bragging that PS owners buy physical games, now it's, oh, we do mostly digital lol.

Still, it came out on a Tuesday tho..haha!

[Battlestar23]

https://www.ign.com/article...

[thesoftware730]

@Battlestar

Irrelevant to what I said...I never disputed digital sales.

I said there was plenty of article hyping up PS boxed sales, now all of a sudden they don't really matter lol.

It came out on a Tuesday tho..so hilarious.now the day of the week matters to a games sale now, you know people can still buy it on Friday right lmao.

...fucking hilarious.

[z2g]

People don’t buy physical like they used to…. You can disagree and hate it all you want but that doesn’t make it less true.

[Pepsi_Man3000]

XV just had far more hype surrounding it. It did what 16 was advertised as first. The darker tone, blood, action combat, etc. It had people waiting since the vs 13 days. Plus those e3 trailers showed all this cool shit (none of which made it into the final game) which was kind of a first for the series I think. Also there was an anime, a movie, and i think some novels or something. Seemed like square just put much more into advertising xv than 16

[Ninver]

Keep in mind this was released on just one platform. They didn't have to spend money, resources nor ad money to promote it on other platforms. With that being said I believe they'll break even over time and make revenue in the long run.

[archibold]

Another factor no one is mentioning is a LOT of big games have come out recently. Between TOTK, SF6, and Diablo 4, I'm guessing most people don't have the cash for another $70 game this month.
FF16 just had poor choice on release date time imo. I'm sure sales will rise when people's wallets have recovered.

[FPS_D3TH]

Problems of a singular console launch lmfao. Who’s surprised by this exactly? If it was on Pc my wife would be playing rn.

[Lulz_Boat]

despite being on one console only, that's what the new DMC 16 deserve. Square should learn that JRPG has nothing to do with Hack & Slash shit