Final Fantasy 16 Is Flying Up Sales Charts After Stellar State of Play Show

From what's been shown so far its definitely a contender for game of the year and I'd love nothing more than a Final Fantasy game finally getting that award, but faces stiff competition from Hogwarts Legacy and Zelda TOTK

@Mikey856 it’s coming to pc in a year.

@Mikey856 the game probably never coming to Xbox because final fantasy 7 remake still isn’t on Xbox and that game been out for 3 years.

Yeah I think it’s safe to say never to expect it on Xbox.

@4kgk2 After watching the showcase yesterday I was left wondering whether the Series S would even be able to handle it? But I admit to knowing f all about technical stuff.

why do people still pre order games? I would have thought that practice would have slowly died out last couple of gens with the increase in digital sales. I can understand on a niche physical game but not huge blockbusters like this.

Have they offered anything as a preorder bonus yet, physical or digital? My wife thinks this will be 1/2 price by Black Friday and I don’t think they’ll even be done with it until holiday 2024 - expecting one of those awful “road maps” for this one - so I’m holding out on this 1 while we play Zelda & Pikmin, which won’t be 1/2 price EVER. (But I got them for $45 each, so I preordered.)

@bindiana I pre-order (physical) games because they usually arrive 1-2 days before release. Also there are a lot of games that I simply prefer to have physical instead of digital

@bindiana Lots of reasons to preorder: physical swag, digital bonuses, limited supply “collectors editions”, not waiting 10 hours after the digital game releases trying to download it from overwhelmed servers, expiring store credit. (I preordered the Link amiibo at Best Buy b/c I had $15 expiring and didn’t know what else to do with it 🤷🏻‍♂️)

Of course I could give just as many reasons NOT to preorder a game 2 months before it releases, but I am a fan of choice.

This will move console units as well.

I never preorder games anymore until maybe the day or two before so it can digitally pre-download and be ready on release day, but this might be an exception. Coupled with the knowledge that it has been finished since last year and they spent the last 8-10 months simply working on polish tells me it cannot be less than stellar (it would be a massive miss for FF at this point, and I do not think SE would risk that with their most important franchise at this point).

That being said, I will still probably wait until the start of June to preorder just in case anything bizarre occurs.

@mariomaster96 you could still order the game a week before and still get it 1 or 2 days early no need to pre order months in advance. I can understand it for collectors editions and such used to buy a lot of collectors editions in the past then soon found it was usually cheap stuff and didnt have enough space to store it all.

@bindiana Actually it does (kinda) matter if you pre-order it months before or not. Many shops will have you pay the lowest price they were offering the game for since you pre-ordered. Let's say you pre-order it 3 months before release for 60$, then they drop the price 2 months before release to 55$ and then raise it again to 60$ 1 months before release. You only have to pay 55$ then, if you only pre-order it 1 week before release you would have to pay 60$

I got Pokemon Sword and Astral Chain for 44€ each for example instead of 60€

I’ll be getting this, but I’ve completely changed my purchasing habits. Once it hits 50% off, I’ll purchase. I have plenty of backlog to hold me over.

@somnambulance whilst I agree that RE:4 is a great game I haven't included it as a GOTY contender purely based on its actually not a new game, it's a Remake of a game that's been on Ps2, wii and PS4 before it's remake so it's already had three opportunities at winning GOTY. And yeah Hogwarts Legacy was great but I think the name alone is carrying it.

PlayStation and Square Enix, a match made in heaven.

I normally don't game much in the summer so I can take advantage of the nice weather, but good lord, between FF and Zelda? I don't think I can force myself to wait!

@TheCollector316 Hopefully the game is a massive success and helps persuade sony to make that purchase.

@mariomaster96 well if your a savvy shopper you can usually find vouchers or deals on ebay for money off. I ordered Crisis core reunion the week it came out for £35 where preorders were closer to £50. But each to there own with the state a lot of games release in these days I would never pre order.

@Kidfried I’m sorry Microsoft just brought two publisher Sony gonna have to buy a publisher sooner or later and square enix already feel more or less like first party.

@Kidfried I rather Sony buy square enix than have some Chinese company like Tencent buy them. You should blame Microsoft from starting this consolidation war in the gaming industry.

@UltimateOtaku91 I don't think it will happen. Sony is already under considerable scrutiny from regulators.

Also if this is a huge success -which it will be - then Square's stock price will go through the roof making any purchase much more expensive and potentially prohibitive. Sony would have been better off acting after the negative reception for Forspoken if this is what they really wanted.

Of course, that assumes that Square even wants to be sold, whereas i think they prefer their independence and opportunities to make strategic partnerships - which i think benefits everyone because it means we continue to see them take risks on titles like octopath traveller, which they might not be able to do if owned by a first party publisher.

Tbh i think Square and Sony are happy collaborating on final fantasy and i can't see that changing, unless something causes a real breakdown in the relationship. Still hoping for news of that Final Fantasy 9 remake this year 😁

@Kidfried you seeing with Sony funding and assisting in the development process what square enix can a achieve with a game like final fantasy 16.

@Kidfried Haha, maybe they just didn't know it!

@Rob_230 Yeah I think you're right, I wouldn't want them to stop making games like Harvestella, Bravely Default and Dragon Quest Treasures either. My only concern is that other companies like Microsoft, Tencent and Embracer snap up square then we lose all that anyway.

Also for Final Fantasy 9 I can definitely see them remaking it but maybe once they have finished with all the parts of the FF7 Remake. Even then they might go onto 8 first. I'd settle for a octopath traveler type of remake for 1-6 in the meantime.

@Rob_230 dude you guys acting like Sony isn’t a 100 billion dollar company and if this Activision deal go through Sony can buy any big publisher they want and regulators can say nothing.

@UltimateOtaku91 I think Sony could buy square enix let them keep making the small games on the switch.

Been wanting to preorder it from Shopto for a while but weirdly they still don't seem to have it listed

That’s record breaking right?… for Most Preordered before Release sales?

@Kidfried most of square enix big games are already exclusive to PlayStation now. so Sony owning them won’t be to much of a difference. If Sony acquire square enix they could make all its money back from acquiring them just off of remaking popular Final Fantasy games like ff6,ff9,ff10.

Sf6 and F16 are going to make June awesome.

@UltimateOtaku91 Yeah i think 8 would benefit from a remake for sure and i'd love to play it. You might be surprised re FF9 though. It's one of the few games revealed in the Nvidia leak that hasnt been announced yet, and with a netflix TV show coming soon, i expect they will want to try and benefit from a tie in release

@Rob_230 Whaaat? There's a Final Fantasy 9 TV show coming? How did I miss this news, and yeah I forgot about the Nvidia leak so maybe you're right a final fantasy 9 remake would make total sense to release around that time. I've noticed there's a few TV/Movie releases that also have a tie in game not long after or just before, Halo infinite came out and there was a TV series around the corner, Same with TLOU remake with a TV show a few months later, same with the last sonic film as frontiers released the same year, I fully believe the same about the Mario movie as I think there will be a Mario game released in time for this christmas. Even with Hogwarts Legacy it can't be a coincidence that a new Harry Potter TV series is being made. Both TV and Gaming can be used to help each other boost sales and I think the same can be done with Final Fantasy.

@UltimateOtaku91 Yup 😁 No idea how it will turn out , but its been in development for a couple of years now. I cant wait for them to release a trailer!

https://www.destructoid.com/the-final-fantasy-ix-animated-series-is-finally-being-shown-at-a-tradeshow/

Hogwarts is an interesting one. Given the lack of news when the show was announced, im wondering whether the TV show was greenlit in response to the immense success of the game 🤔 i cant wait to see what they come up with!

Have you seen the Mario movie? It's so good. I've not checked the sales charts, but i assume Mario games must be filling the top 10 right now

@Rob_230 Maybe the show and rumoured remake will come out next year then, as I can't see square releasing three final fantyy games in 12 months. Also judging by that destructoid article it seems the animation is going to be aimed at kids which give some feeling that the remake may not be a massive budget style remake like 7, but something similar to Metroid Prime Remastered which updated visuals but keeps the same art design.

And yeah I saw the movie on Monday, it was great and I know people didn't like pratts voice for Mario but I though he did a good job. I think the movie would of fared worse if it was just Mario making his usual sounds and nothing else. I Really hope they have the next main 3D Mario game in development and it blows odyssey out of the water in terms of how big the game is.

@Allfather At least NES gets to live in your head rent free.

I pre-ordered it because I wanted the steelbook. I missed out on the resident evil 4 remake steelbook.

@Allfather Hey, someone's gotta do it. I can't help it that he's right.

@Allfather Never doubted it would sell tremendously. That's the entire crux. It's a formulaic, focus-tested game designed around the latest sales trends. It was engineered to sell. It was not engineered to be the best FF game possible or even an RPG at all. It was engineered to mesh with sales trends, use the known FF brand to maximize things like pre-order sales. It's the video game equivalent of Dom Perignon deciding the future of their product is beer packaged in the classic bottles because gosh darnit, that outsells the fancy stuff 30:1!

This was always the guaranteed outcome. That's both the cause and the problem.

@KaijuKaiser "We all need more polished FF games."

I agree! Wonder when they'll make one...

It was a good showcase. Confirmed for me that the game isn't really my sort of thing, but I imagine it did the opposite for many others. Either way, after watching that showcase, it's difficult to imagine someone being on the fence about it.

@somnambulance As much as I tribalistically want the new Zelda game to sweep the competition this year, I do hope Starfield impresses and gives Xbox owners something to celebrate. They need a win WAY more than Nintendo or Sony, who generally move from strength to strength in terms of their exclusive output.

@Mikey856 You think this would run on the switch?

@UltimateOtaku91 RE4 isn't simply a remake it is a new game with the scale of the changes made. You can't just discount all they've done that easily.

Preordered it a few weeks ago I hope it will be great in going in blind.

@KaijuKaiser I didn't say it won't be polished, I said wonder when they'll make a polished FF game..

@4kgk2 no it's not...they don't even know that all of u were thinking there's a PC version....might be ported after 2-3 years, but will take time "if" there's a port coming cause PS5....what PC has handled a PS5 game at full quality ? They all need patches or graphic downgrades...

And people got mad at me for daring to suggest that marketing played a huge part in selling games.

@Gunnerzaurus considering that the press has always been too much biased by how much money a company pays them, I would not be much reliant on reviews of the press. I much prefer an extensive Gameplay video from someone that really plays the game (and not those clowns of IGN for example)

@bindiana for me personally getting them cheaper and possibly earlier. And if its poor reviews you can always cancel. But for this there's no need to worry about it.

Yeah I thought the gameplay was ok. I might get it, if it comes to pc. Not sure if my pc could handle it tho. Will plan on upgrading in the future.

@CutchuSlow yes, you should start investing of that

@RonnieL Yeah I would like to see the ins and outs aswell. It's a shame really because I remember when they announced a few FFs going to Game Pass at one of their XO events, so they clearly were good at some point.

I just miss turn based combat.

It looked absolutely phenomenal so not surprised. First FF I'm getting day 1 since FF10.

If you plan to preorder it’s £52 instead of £69.99 at Thegamecollection with their code GOLDEGG5.

@pennylessz there are a lot of games with turn based combat. Like persona, Yakuza 7 and many more.