Square Enix Bafflingly Backtracks on Final Fantasy 16 Sales, Blames 'Slow' PS5 Adoption

😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣 It's beyond a joke with SE management and their sales expectations. It's like they expect their games to sell like GTAV and Mario Kart!
I knew the previous praise on FF16's sales were too good to be true

It’s a great game but linear with little replay value. I imagine people are completing it and selling it or trading it in for credit, thereby leading others to buy second hand copies

They changed their mind after big moneybag from Microsoft was given to them.

I've nothing further to add your honour...

That's more like it, that's the Square Enix I know

When was the last time they were happy with sales?

I didn't know this was April Fool's Day already. Oh, wait, it's Bloomberg. Never mind...

@Mattock1987 yup I sold it within a week (it didn’t take long to complete)

No real replay value for me

Since they announced they were happy with sales, they have appeared on stage with Phil at FF14 talking about strong partnerships with microsoft. Could this be a good excuse to use to justify an xbox port?

The above is tongue in cheek and i dont actually wear a tinfoil hat. But it is an interesting coincidence

You may add this for context:
https://twitter.com/gibbogame/status/1688408499104178176?t=zbFMC8WzO2ryzsGU5FO01g&s=19

Really think square will be bought within a year, but the jury's out on who will buy them.

@Neverwild MS didn't give them a cent for 14. The same quarterly that showed 16 was a bomb showed a significant slowdown in their MMO category. They need MS not the other way around.

One of the reasons for the poor sale of Final Fantasy XVI is the poor sales of FF XVI in Japan. This is obviously a lesson for Square Enix because future FF games must be released for all platforms, and not be exclusive to a certain console, eg PS5

@Americansamurai1 SE isn't worth much. They on a near constant decline. Most companies don't want to buy publishers on the downswing - they buy them when the line is going up and to the right.

3 million in one week = 6 million in 2 weeks = 156 million in one year. Clearly it's falling behind those reasonable upper level expectations 🫥

So hopefully this blog and the people who read it will listen to the more sensible people who post here. Publishers saying this or that to gamers and the bloggers is always marketing - a lie.
The only report that matters are the financials. I will take my formal apology - typed and a minimum of 250 words - on my desk EOB. Thank you. You can leave now.

@pip_muzz

Square Enix was far better before they merged into one company

What did they expect? Its different from other entries as the combat is more dmc that ff (i know it had the same guy who did dmc but come on, deadly embrace = devil bringer, odins move is just judgement cut), it was going a darker route ala GOT. Most FF fans want the old style back, they know that

@Kidfried lol nvm then, guess they're in their lil nonsensical era again then 😂

Maybe the fact that they intend to release more games on Xbox will help them… highly doubtful… but maybe 🤔

@Kidfried companies yes but not in the media space as much. SE still has an inflated sense of self. You can tell by their stupid sales projections. Fandom is still rabid - but new people don't care about this company at all - they are has-beens for a half decade at least.

Someone could buy them for the IPs at a discount yes. I wouldn't but I'm sure Tencent would be happy to.

what do they expect?
Game of Thrones was, contrary to popular belief, a bad tv show.
If they copied that in game form its gonna be worse....

@Powerplay94 Nope. The costs associated with FF16 were off the charts. Not only does this company not understand how to make games people want to play - they have no idea how to reign in costs. Some people have figured out this game cost as much to make as a comic book hollywood CGI blockbuster. They have to figure out how to make a game for a reasonable amount of money as well as one people want to play.

tough deal for the new ceo.

@Powerplay94 Xbox rarely sell many games full stop… I was being sarcastic 😎

@Cashews

I think that someone, eg Tencent will buy Square Enix, which is sinking more and more, and I hope that neither Microsoft nor Sony will buy Square Enix.

@Powerplay94

Even the sales of japanese games for PlayStation in Japan are very poor.

FF16 is a great game but it could be so much more. It's a step in the right direction imo, as it avoids the extreme lows of its predecessors. A solid 8/10.

They are not conflicting though? They are happy with adoption rate, they are unhappy there aren't more ps5's sold.
But, in short, they wanted it to sell more.

I am ok with this cause the next title might take a different approach. Maybe go back to it's roots. I like FFXVI but being basically a devil may cry game did not exactly help. But, it sure was better than FFXV, even though sales are skewed.

@colonelkilgore when you say "full stop" and then keep typing it isn't a "full stop".

and periods do just as well as typing out 'full stop'.

Corpos are never satisfied. Even if they have all the money in the world they would complain about stagnated profits.

@Powerplay94

If the game had been released for a Nintendo console, it would have sold far more for the Nintendo console than for the PlayStation in Japan.

@Cashews I disagree, if it can be bought cheap and they have A ton of ip, so someone is going to buy them.

@Jayslow they are doing the financials and the major investors say "are you ever going to make more money?" They feel the pressure say, "just wait for 16 it is going to shake you to your core." it fails then they say "wait for the next expansion of 14 it is going to sell so much." etc forever.

They have to keep the big guys satiated or they sell out en masse and the stock price tanks. the stock is tanking as I type this - so it is probably happening.

@Americansamurai1 you may be right. the stock has been stagnant for a very long time - it is tanking further right now - it will raise a few eyebrows of interest.

I hope it is anyone but tencent.

@Cashews the ‘full stop’ was within the context of the sentence and not simply a piece of punctuation.

If they wanted the highest sales then should have released it on PC & Xbox on launch. Even then I doubt it will match Square Enix unrealistic expectations, just like how they were unsatisfied with tomb raider sales.

Ahh, finally! That old FF16 sales numbers story. I repeat myself: PS5 was the wrong system, summer the weong season, generic European middle-age the wrong setting.

The 79% drop is compared to April - June 2022, right? That timeframe would have gotten a big boost because Endwalker was still a rather new expansion (it launched in December 2021).

I remember Push Square reporting on at some point there was a quarter or fiscal year that was very strong solely because of FFXIV.

Square Enix sound like a company in quite a bit of financial trouble. Sony should either buy them or Square Enix will allow the Final Fantasy games to be on other consoles, which looks to be the road they will go down. Always good to have as many people play the games as possible. I’m sure it’s been mentioned before but the £69.99 price tag really puts me off buying PlayStation games when they launch as well, I’m sure that must be a small factor at least.

@stua12t everyone always says "Sony should buy them." Why would Sony want to? Sony likes profit too - they don't want declining brands.

Square: "The sales are good."
Enix: "No, they are not."

@Cashews yeah hopefully not tencent or the Saudi family.

I imagine the first weeks sales were OK, but the game has disappeared from all the charts already and fell off a cliff.

The marketing budget was comically large

But everyone should know by now, Never go full Square Enix

I don’t understand why Nintendo and Xbox fans come here to talk crap.

@Bunchesopuppies Thanks for the spoiler

I wasn’t that enamoured but it did decent figures. The problem is that Switch games sell insane figures comparatively. Did you know that Luigi’s Mansion 3 has sold more than FF7 Remake and The Last of Us 2?

@Cashews Sony can turn them around financially because Sony has the best ip and studio management out of the big 3.

Wonder if this means they are finally going to stop crippling their sales with exclusivity deals.

@Tharsman Xbox players doesn’t buy they’re games so it wouldn’t matter if it release there or not.

@StrawberryTurtle Switch, and of cause with a different artstyle (MH Rise like).

@Cashews Well I’d argue Sony know how to make money. I’d imagine they’d buy Square Enix, restructure, use their own resources in house for development etc. or go multi platform, that’s the other solution which I hope they do, as more players getting access to the Square Enix catalogue is a good thing.

It's not really conflicting the previous statement. They previously said sales were strong GIVEN the ps5 install base. Now they are saying the install base is holding back sales.

Hopefully they realize their biggest franchise isn't benefiting them fully being exclusive to one platform.

People here are trying to rationalize this too much just to defend a piece of plastic…

Releasing on Xbox would have meant additional sales. If we went by historical performance, likely an additional million units, but that’s not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is not launching on PC day one. It does not matter if PS was the best selling version, they are still cutting down their potential market significantly by not being on both PC and XBox too. The number could had easily been 5 to 6 million instead of 3 without exclusivity.

lol

Was always gonna happen.

If you know a game is only going to appeal to a limited percentage of the console's playerbase, and you make it exclusive to a new, still-growing platform like the PS5, of course sales potential isn't gonna be met.

Part of me thinks they made it such a Playstation-y action epic because they wanted (and failed to) hook the crowd that drives sales for series like God of War and Horizon Forbidden West.

Should have made it a proper JRPG, managed the budget better, and released it across multiple platforms if they wanted higher initial sales.

I finished it and enjoyed it, but honestly, the game only has some really fancy cut scenes that made the game enjoyable.
Combat is boring, side quests are the most terrible in a game ever, soundtrack is super repetitive after 2 hours already, story is not bad, but luckily better than FFXV.

And they even already showed like 70% of the game with trailers, the marketing was waaaaay too much on this game.

What was actually said was that it met expectations but was on the lower end of their high expectations, which is a bit confusing and been mistranslated.

Square Enix share price closed at $63.57. The lowest it has been in the last 52 weeks is $51.23 so not even close to its lowest value in the last year.

People are using this to spread misinformation again, mostly the guys with some bizarre hatred for FFXVI. The reality is that 80% less profit is still profit, they didn’t make a loss. Both Sony and Nintendo have posted actual full yearly losses before. In fact Nintendo has posted a quarterly loss 11 times since 2009, guess what, the company didn’t implode.

The reason profit is down is because both MMO’s and Phone divisions were down over 10%. MMO because they only release a new expansion every second year(this was the year without).

I think we were all shocked when they said it was going great.

Normal Service Resumed.

Maybe it would have sold better if square hadn't been greedy and signed an exclusivity agreement with Sony? What did they expect when it has only been available to buy on ps5? If you want to maximise sales you maximise your potential market, not restrict it.

Anyone else get bored after a few hours ? I was enjoying it but then lost interest for some reason maybe the pacing.Might go back too it one day.

Even with the PS5 doing well, I am sure the vast bulk of those sales are for your "casuals" - so FIFA, Call of Duty, Madden, etc.

They probably aren't even Final Fantasy fans or probably never even played a Final Fantasy in their life.

The potential user base is already lower. Now let's mix in the fact there is plenty of "not a Final Fantasy game" sentiment out there to lower the interested user base even further.

Maybe this game will be more of a slow burn seller once it starts rolling out on PC (and perhaps even Xbox one day).

I know people want to poo-poo on the fact that the Xbox user base is lower than the PS5 user base, but there are still tens of millions of potential Xbox users out there (even though probably only about 10% are the "core" audience). I mean even if the console is only in the 25 million, it's possible that another 2.5 million copies could be sold on that side.

You all want to criticize and say "well if it's not on Game Pass, the game won't sell", but Xbox gamers aren't idiots. They know that major games like Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, etc. won't hit Game Pass for a long time (if ever).

It's mostly the indie/AA titles that are more prone to lesser sales because of Game Pass (assuming they aren't Day One releases to begin with).

For me, I will get Final Fantasy XVI eventually, but the demo didn't do enough to make me feel like it was an immediate purchase.

Sure, the cutscenes were very well done and the boss battles have this impressive sense of grandeur; but it's more like playing Bayonetta than Final Fantasy.

Even though I love Bayonetta games, they aren't exactly high on my list of "must plays".

@StrawberryTurtle Okay, then they should not follow this vision. Because it seems to be a costly vision.

It is because it's a really repetitive and boring game and gamers experienced it and that's it, there's no other reason. They are trying so hard to convince the business and us otherwise but the reality is that people don't enjoyed it that much, me and my friends included.

@DarkHitman82G Totally me, once I realized the mechanics and lore I decided to resell it (20 hrs). I don't think I will miss it tbh.

Square enix make exclusive deal with sony for Final Fantasy games because Nintendo keep making weak hardware that’s can’t run them and xbox players didn’t buy them. What you expect Square enix to do when Sony offers them good money deals. Sony help with final fantasy 16 development/Marketing.

@4kgk2 I have no idea what you just said.

Haha I KNEW it was fishy when they were singing its praises. I respect all who enjoyed the game but I canceled my preorder after I played the demo. What was he expecting when he made a Final Fantasy that wasn't a Final Fantasy at all? Now if the FF9 remake is actually faithful, all we need to do to restore order is buy the heck out of it. I'll buy 20 copies myself if it meant healing the series.

@KaijuKaiser agreed. I’m thinking this is them saying they hoped it would be that big 10m in one month game that they need. Personally I don’t see that ever happening with Final Fantasy unless something drastically changes. Not sure what that thing could possibly even be though.

Apparently this is misinformation and been corrected on twitter.

@swagbag7 It’s worth $70. I just finished this weekend with 65 hours dumped in and what a ride it was. I wish there were more games like this.

They need to stop making console-exclusive deals then. There really is no real good reason FFXVI shouldn't have released on Xbox. Same with FF7R and Rebirth. I am a die-hard FF fan and Playstation fan but even I see that this is just dumb, especially with such high expectations.

Something is definitely going on with Microsoft though and I wouldn't be surprised after that FF14 announcement if SE does multiplatform releases from now on.

https://twitter.com/Genki_JPN/status/1688503710220169217

I still maintain that ff15 and the change in genre format are to blame.

I love ff16, its a fantastic game. It delivers. I also don't love a homogenous library of titles either. I have action games. Even have dmc 5 on ps5. Love to have more, but not at the expense of series from genre's I love. I was hoping we'd get something closer to ff7 remake at the end of the day, that's not what we got. Instead we got this decently crafted combat system that tends to alienate friends and consumers who love ff, but don't care for the genre. So that's an uphill battle. Additionally ff16 isn't exactly sticking the landing. I say that as someone who gives it a 9.2 out of 10. The game feels incomplete, not in the way ff15 does, but in the way the original ff7 does. Like there was more story to tell. It's a bigger hole than ff7 left. Leviathan being the biggest issue. Talks of dlc are also not helping this games cause. More than a few people who were about to purchase this game said they'd wait till the dlc released. FF is not the Witcher or Mass Effect, higher expectations are had. I do not care how good the dlc was in either. It's expensive to produce and expensive to purchase. It just distracts from the release product. People are tired of it. Especially in a 70 dollar world. There are some rough edges that feel like they were rushed. Some menus with redundant info and little things like that. Camera is solid, but could use just a little more polish, the lack of control options that did get patched recently still feel like an after thought. So the game has some detractors.

With that being said. There are people seriously put off by ff15. Ya it sold well. There is such a thing as poisoning the well. Those people do not understand just how well ff16 crushes story, game play, and other factors. I get ff15 has its fans, but at the end of the day it did not deliver on the things that an ff game needed and tried some marketing bs that gave the ff series a black eye.

I'd also point out that ff16s marketing was extremely weak. There are people who have no idea that it is out in the US. Meanwhile I see double Deckers in the uk driven around with ff16 ads. Wasn't there an ff14 event in Vegas this past month, can't say I heard anyone mention that the game was pushed there at a booth at the very least.

The problem isn't the ps5. It has a strong 40m install base. With the high attach rate, I have a feeling ff16 sales will have legs and a slow burn. I hope they don't drop the price, because I guaranty that this holiday season that trend will continue with the increased ps5 availability. Some wife, girlfriend, mom, is gonna end up getting that ps5 for that person in their life who wants it, if not themselves.

This game will do well, square just needs not to square themselves out of a profit like they always do. Hopefully this silly eradict behavior does not impact FF17 development.

@DarkHitman82G nope finished the game just in a week. I find people for some reason falling off before reaching Phoenix Gate and Others before the Garuda fight.

Not sure if it's a modern players attention span has been so ruined by online games and gotcha that they get bored for no reason. Pacing is about the same as ff4 with an opening sequence that shows you what to expect after the game gets done teaching you with cid and company.

@ChrisDeku Incorrect. Profit is down 80% because SE chooses to take their development costs on the quarter the game is released. FF16 released last quarter - so they took 70% of the development costs on the same quarter. They likely chose this accounting because in the past their titles would continue to sell well past the first big impact release dates - and it would show all profit. Mobile and MMOs are a part of the equation - but a small part. That is fans of FF desperately searching for answers.

What you said about the stock is correct. However, with this news it is down 13% on the day - right around 56. It will be hitting those 52W lows soon enough. I was looking at the US ADR earlier which is hovering at 52W lows.

@NotSoCryptic just speaking to your comment on FF7's "more story to tell".

Strong disagree there. If you are talking about the ending - I thought that was the best part of that game - and one that should be implemented in more games. I hate how everything now has to be tied into a nice little bow. Finish the main quest, the point of the game and then let the reader, viewer, player use their imagination to discover what might happen next.

This was the era when Square was king. They had the writers and were insanely inventive with every game's gameplay mechanics. That is exactly what is missing today. Horrible, groan inducing writing and gameplay lifted from other games. It's a problem.

Perhaps Final Fantasy outside of VII and XIV is not as popular as it used to be.

The Pixel Remaster sales aren't particularly spectacular either.

Most killer app games for Sony have a PS4 counterpart or an inevitable PC release to give them legs. Final Fantasy XVI is a rare true exclusive for PS5. Even if platform sales are up, games for it still cost an arm and a leg.

Despite being a big name franchise in gaming and always being marketed well FF is still a niche title. 3m sales is pretty bloody good on a console the majority of players are buying just to play the next iterations of Call of Duty, FIFA and Madden on.

This isn’t a knock on those players; it’s just PlayStation is a mass market brand. Had the game come out on the Switch I imagine it would have easily don’t 5m by now because those players buy into more niche titles.

@4kgk2 Final Fantasy 13 sold a very respectable amount on the X360. Had SE made the intelligent choice to keep growing that audience - who knows what might have happened?

They are a very poorly run company who are always 10 steps behind the trend.

@RadioHedgeFund lol what? Final Fantasy is a niche title? That is so nuts it is hard to respond to. If FF didn't have that brand there is no way on this earth it would have sold 3M copies. This series and this series alone, is the literal entire reason any of you are on this website. FF7 was the literal system seller for the PS1. It is what drove that console's initial success. That is it.

The only reason you could ever call it niche, which is patently wrong, is because SE has been mis-handling this brand for over a decade.

This is what happens when you lock the game down to only PlayStation. There is no doubt it would of sold more had they released it for Xbox as well.

I told people these corporations lie and manipulate information to make games look better and people said I was crazy. This game was supposed to be a genuine smash hit and it isn’t.

@Cashews Where did you get this information about how they account for costs? That's sounds like something a person on twitter made up. Most costs are just staff costs, a game costs about $100k per person per year. 200 people = $20m a year dev cost for example.

You can't just pay people wages and then not account for it in the quarter it happened. You're claiming Square didn't account for the costs of the entire dev team for like 5 years and just added them all in this quarter. That would be extremely abnormal behaviour.

Lol this Bloomberg character was literally corrected right after by his own source. The game did within their expectations and it made up all the development costs with the 3m they announced so any sales afterwards is profit. If his source is to be believed anyway. It didn't fail to meet expectations like games like forspoken, but they can and did hope for higher who wouldnt

It's definitely a weird quote. It sounds like they had higher expectations but are not totally dissatisfied with its sales either considering the attach rate. People might want to pump the brakes on saying it's a flop or saying it's a smash hit. It sounds like it has landed somewhere in the middle.

Square just loves to keep people on their toes.

@ChrisDeku From Square Enix (quote from this past report):

"“Net sales [are] up year-on-year due to the launch of Final Fantasy 16 and other new titles,” the company says, “but operating income [is] down, partly due to amortization of development cost. New titles were unable to offset weak performances from existing titles.”

That is how they do it and have done for years. if you want to deep dive into their accounting system it's all there.

2023 has been a great year for video games. Zelda: TotK, and then Final Fantasy 16 have been like getting Christmas twice in just a couple months span.

I have absolutely loved FF16, and for me personally, it’s my favorite FF since FF6 back on the Super Nintendo.

Great news now give us what we want! A TURN BASED MAINLINE GAME

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the facts Forspoken is trash and FF16 is not for "all" FF fans (as they also said) LOL. It is because of the console that is selling the most.

@Cashews all that says is it's down due to the accounting for development costs(not specified to a particar game but in general and no time frames given). It's not saying it accounted for the entire dev cost of FFXVI in one quarter. If they did that and they still made a profit at all then that would be impressive.

@Cashews You should also note that amortisation only applies to intanglible assets. You wouldn't be able to amorotize people's salary, or most parts or video game development.

@DarkHitman82G I didn't play it but I watched my kid play it, they finished it last night after about 53 hours, doing maybe half of the side quests, and it does have a better 2nd half. I think even after they had played for 20 hours I was commenting on here that the game was trash, but at some point all of the backstory is covered and the game finally moved forward. Not the best game ever, but I'd give it a recommend now whereas after 20 hours I would have told people to play something else instead.🤷

Some day I'll learn as this has happened to me before w/ most games I like. Long games are slow to develop. The longer, the later it turns.

I can't wait to see this company go out of business. I know all the FF fans will disagree, but God this company's higher ups are so annoying.

OMG, FFXI is not GTA5, what'd we do now?

@ChrisDeku like I said - deep dive it all you want. The information is all there - I'm not going to open a research facility on SE's failures. I spend enough time on it already I wouldn't touch this company as an investor with a pole that reached Japan.

If anyone actually read the Bloomberg article it was written by Takashi. This dude always paints everything Playstation related negatively. The analyst that Takashi was quoting in the article clarified his statement on Twitter and the game met expectations.

After all these years, they still expect Call of Duty numbers. They need to join reality.

Shouldn't have taken the Sony money then and made it an exclusive. It's not going to MAJORLY increase sales, but I'm sure a PC and Xbox release would have given them a cool 1 to 2 more million.

"Hope was not the right word. Sorry. The results were in the range of their expectations, feel the penetration of PS5 performance was quite good. (as they said before when announcing the 3m number)." David Gibson's reply to that dipsh*T from bloomberg.

@Shepherd_Tallon yep its the same guy.

@Snake_V5 "There is no doubt it would of sold more had they released it for Xbox as well." how did crisis core reunion sold on xb?

i did not believe for a second that ff16 sold well and it appears that the truth is now beginning to surface. i even got into a debate with someone about this in another post who was clearly off base (you know who you are) haha...

this is why you don't trust statements from publishers as they can spin it any way they wish — up to a certain point. now that s-e financials are coming to light, they need to be a little more transparent with their shareholders.

do your own homework and look at the sales data of all the games in the franchise and you will soon realize that ff16 is on course to be one of the worst selling mainline entries of the past 25 years (even accounting for potential pc sales etc). also, keep in mind that ff16 likely had one of the largest marketing budgets which paints yet a grimmer picture.

you have to wonder what plans s-e has for the future of the franchise at this point. i think they are going to go ahead with big budget remakes of ff6, ff9 and ff10 since they are unable to release a new entry that does well critically and financially any longer which is very sad. the final fantasy 13 trilogy marked the beginning of the decline for the franchise of which it has yet to recover from. this can be attributed to many factors, including the loss of so much key talent over the years.

so all that being said, i do not expect a new mainline final fantasy game for a very long time. s-e is about to unleash a ton of remakes our way, for better and for worse!

@4kgk2

FF XVI would sell more on PC than PS5

@AdamNovice oh I didnt realise HE was the writer. That makes more sense now.

FFXVI: 3 Million sold on PS5 - a "Flop" according to some fanbois/MS shills

SF6: 1M sold(2M now after 2 months) on 3 platforms - OMG SucCeSs

@Strikke

FF XVI could have easily sold 10 million copies because FF is a big IP

@Strikke Crisis Core isn't FF16.

Years ago: FF13 is the worst FF eVar!

2023: OMG the game was actually good!!!!1!

(－_－) zzZ ppl are weird

Man square needs to promote better they have released like more than 10 console games in the last 12 months and we've heard about like 4

@Strikke Problem

Capcom said they expect LIFETIME sales of Streetfighter 6 to reach 10M ish. Just above the mis-aligned SF5. which only released on one console.

https://esi.si.com/fgc/capcoms-10-million-copies-sold-sf6-prediction

Capcom isn't full stupid like SE. They know their limitations and project sales at a reasonable amount. They will be correct about SF6. So their investors can trust the words out of their mouth.

Unlike SE who look like incompetent fools on the regular.

That's weird, I saw a report about a week ago that showed the game doing well. But I guess not well enough for some 😑

@JackiePriest yeah that is marketing telling people what to say and blogs/gamers believing it.

There is a huge gulf between truth and what gamers will believe.

wait 3 months for the next report. Holy christmas that one is going to show just how big a disaster this thing was.

@Strikke i hear you. we need to take everything with a grain of salt, but most importantly, do our own homework where possible. ff16 is destined to be one of the worst selling mainline entries of the past 25 years, even taking into account the potential sales the pc port will bring. as an example, ffx sold significantly better, despite being a true ps2 exclusive with a smaller install base (at the time of release) as compared to the ps5 (ffx released just 1 year into the ps2 life cycle). so blaming the install base for ff16's woes as many people are doing is a scapegoat. the only thing that can save ff16 right now is for it to become an evergreen game with a long sales trajectory — that is not likely considering how divisive the game is amongst the ff community. at the very least, we need to accept that the final fantasy franchise is not the juggernaut it once was (ff14 being an exception in the mmo space of course), but that doesn't mean it cannot be successful going forward. s-e needs to continue explore the identity of the franchise until it finds something that "works".

@4kgk2 I don't either the guy in here just keep talking as if he's a PlayStation fan but it obvious he isn't

@Cashews

If Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 2 fails, Square Enix will be in big trouble

@Porco FFX sold 8m units on the PS2 over its entire lifetime. FFXVI will very likely do more than that this generation. So I got no idea what your “homework” actually consists of.

A good comparison for FFXVI would be RE7 which was a mechanical reboot that annoyed a lot of fans and initially sold worse than the preceding games and didn’t hit sales expectations in its first quarter. It sold 2.5M at launch(ps,Xbox, pc) and now is at 12.4m.

Definitively stating that it’s going to be one of the worst selling FF games in 25 years is crazy.

@Snake_V5

FF XVI was supposed to be released for both PC and PS5 at the same time

We're never getting a new Deus Ex are we?

@ApostateMage we are. It is going to be a turn based HD2D.5 pixelated game just like Hades exclusive to the Galaxy Z fold phones.

@Mattock1987 have you completed it? I’m close to and have really enjoyed it so far, wondering if I should start a new game+ on the higher difficulty or call it a day.

@ApostateMage deus ex IP is with embracer now I believe

@Casco I have, took me a month or so, wasn’t in any hurry. The difficulty is an issue, I’m rubbish at games and I only died twice when I wasn’t paying attention. Depends on how much value you think you’d get from a second playthrough, maybe leave it a bit so you forget the story?

I also take back what I said then. I knew they wouldn't be satisfied with the sales.

@Skeletor85 facts. I bought it yesterday. Used. Had not a good feeling about the game all the time but hypetrain finally got me to buy it. After a hour of playing I packed it again and Sold it today. It is clearly not my game at all. I can see thousands of retail traders atm... because why not selling it when there is no replay value. Thats the case here I think.

@KaijuKaiser I don't see how that makes me wrong though lol. Sounds more like you're agreeing with me.

@Strikke Street Fighter is a fighting game with less appeal to the masses because many don’t want to get bodied online. FF16 was made to chase the god of war and casual crowd

@Nalodart yeah I imagine it can be completed in a few days if you did little else, not much challenge. Glad I played it but not gonna bother replaying it as I have with other, better games

@ChrisDeku game sales take a significant hit after the first few months of sale as we all know. you are making the assumption that ff16 will have evergreen sales (like many nintendo or rockstar games). remains to be seen but i don't see it personally. i would be shocked if ps5 sales of ff16 exceeds 8m copies in its lifetime. i predict it to being closer to 6m.

ff7 (ps1 only) - 10m
ff8 (ps1 only) - 8.6m
ff9 (ps1 only) - 5.5m
ff10 (ps2 only) - 8.5m
ff12 (ps2 only) - 6.1m
ff13 (ps3/360/pc) - 9m
ff15 (ps4/x1/pc) - 10.5m
ff16 (ps5 only) - 3m+

of course, if we include the remastered ports of the games on that list, the sales numbers increase significantly... but to keep things as "fair" as possible, these are the numbers we have. keeping in mind that pc sales only amount to 1-2m per entry, i expect that to be the case for ff16 as well.

all things considered, i can see ff16 hitting about 7.5m in sales for its lifetime on ps5/pc which would make it one of the worst selling mainline entries despite it being a much larger gaming market now as compared to the past and jrpgs being much more "mainstream". that is certainly a failure in my eyes and apparently to s-e as well. keep in mind that all of those older games on the list had much smaller budgets as well so those sales are signfifcant as far as how profitable they were for s-e. ff16 on the other hand... with its much larger budget, especially in marketing, would likely need to hit 10m+ in total sales to be considered a success on any level.

@AsterZero I can see it around 6 or less. It has fallen off all of the meaningful charts and has gotten enough word of mouth as to put a stain on it. From all appearances - it seems to be their most expensive game made as well.

here is a fun article about 16 from Kamiya (DMC, Bayonetta) He tosses Kratos in as well.

https://www.eurogamer.net/bayonettas-hideki-kamiya-believes-japanese-developers-should-be-proud-of-jrpg-term

The guy is a liar and was contradicted by his own source.

@Porco You need to understand that modern video games, outside of Japan anyway, all have legs. They don’t just sell 50% of their copies in the launch week like it’s 1995 anymore. Selling 3-4x your launch week sales is not an “evergreen title”. Mario Kart sold under 500k in the USA on Launch, maybe 1-2m worldwide, that’s now about 25-50xit’s launch sales. GTA shipped 29m in its first 6 weeks. It’s sold another 150m since then at more than 10m a year. FFXVI doesn’t have to sell even a fraction of those amounts to break 10m.

Resident Evil 7 sold 2.5M at launch and dropped of the charts quickly and never charted significantly again. It’s still over 12m. FFXVI is trying to sell to a new market, that takes time.

God Of War (2018) Reboot - Launch sales 3.1M, lifetime 20m+

Horizon: ZD New IP - Launch Sales 2.6M sold in first 2 weeks, Lifetime 20m+

I’d expect FFXVI to easily sell 10m over the lifetime of the PS5.

Welcome Back The_Real_Square-Enix! We missed you!

@Ralizah "Should have [snip] managed the budget better"

I think we should just auto-footer that to every single game review ever, really.

@Sherlock- he had 3 sources from accounts and it was from the post-release investor call. Bloomberg sucks, and this guy might be a liar (probably is) but no one is pulling the story back or contradicting it in any meaningful way. Likely true. Even if it isn't true - it's true. the CEO will be talking about it soon enough - the stock's price tanked today. He'll say something this week - likely tomorrow.

@Cashews He lied before. He's clearly biased against Sony, his other sources may be biased as well.

@Sherlock- could be. But the stock going down 15% in a day doesn't lie. That is investors selling off. Tomorrow will be more telling than a one day selloff.

either or, the company is in big trouble. That isn't an opinion.

@YoureTooSlowBro Good to know that this article is BS. Thanks to everyone clearing it up!

@ChrisDeku for the sake of the franchise (of which i used to be a huge fan of), i hope it does exceed sales expectations. however, not every game is so lucky to have evergreen sales. usually it takes a very special or influential game to warrant such a long life of exceptational sales... remains to be seen if ff16 is one such title but considering the community is rather mixed on it and have moved on to other franchises after being burned by ff15 and various other entries, i would say it has an uphill battle ahead of it.

@Shad361 "less appeal to the masses " LOL rly? that game has been around since the 90s it has mass appeal.

@Sherlock- I read he made some false claims against Nintendo as well to which Nintendo called him out and like a sleazy journo deletes his posts.

Not sure who, but someone is telling a lie. Last I read, the sales were doing good.

Anyway, I think square enix should make a ff game that's made for the switch, and have it ported to other consoles and PC with enhanced quality and performance. That way, it'll be a game for all platforms. Like how monster hunter rise did it, but without the timed exclusivity. I'd prefer if it was out on all platforms on the same day.

About halfway through the JPY trading session the company has leveled off a bit. That's good - it means it isn't in freefall. Yesterdays huge spike in volume means some institutional owners sold off though. That's bad.

I'm not buying new releases at the current full price. And if I don't buy it day one, I can wait and probably buy it when it's 30 € or something.

60€ is my breaking point for new releases. Try to get me pay 70-80€, you'll end up with whatever low sale price is.

If squareenix want profit, make more nier automata and ff16, not bad games like forspoken and babylon fall 😕

Whelp. It was good while it lasted.

@Cashews do you trade?

We are just over a month into the quarter and in general they blab to control the share price on the regular, most of the day to day chat is nonsense. The yearly share holder information on the otherhand is actually well laid out. You could buy shares for about £20 a pop when covid hit, its double that now. So I don't know why you think they are on the slide, corrections happen all the time.

So tired of SE, it is never enough but they sell a ton and are still in business. It's the main reason I buy their games at discount (and the fact they gone milk the ***** out of the game with added story stuff later on).

Ahh here we go, now the talk from the delusional crowd saying that FF16 is a "flop" or that it "bombed" begins in earnest.

@Mattock1987 Exactly, the story was great the Graphics and CGI on point. The rest.... I could live without in a FF game. I wasn't expecting what we got and am kinda disappointed in it. It has NO replayability once you've done it you've done it. Thank God I started on hard I can't imagine what the other settings would be like.

Hmm another action based ff failed. Maybe going back to turn based will revive it. Catering to the small loud crowd that wants to cod final fantasy is dumb

@FatalBubbles never and that's their problem. They shouldn't own other studios they got rid of Crystal Dynamics and Eidos for not selling enough. I'm still baffled MS didn't buy them honestly. Back to my point the last Tomb Raider sold 9 million copies that's not bad sales figures these days God Of War Ragnarok has sold 11 million copies for a example. They seem to think every game should sell like Zelda and Mario Kart or have profit margins such as Fortnight for single player games. They need to get a grip on reality they are stuck in the past.

@Danloaded…I loved the style and story.. best ff game for me since 9…just wish it’s side quests were as good as the Witcher.

It's a very bare game. Cool graphics isn't enough

@Exerion76 PC is being worked on if I remember correctly. They wanted to get the PS version out and then if I remember reading correctly they will start working on the PC version

@Tharsman Xbox wouldn't have sold 2 million copies and you know it lol.

Maybe PC, but they'd be lucky if they got 1 million out of Xbox.

Look FF15 for example, it released the same day on Xbox on a much larger install base and still 80% of it's sales were on PS4.

@Shepherd_Tallon Yep, same guy that also said PS5 wouldn't sell well because of it being white.

Funny thing is just a few hours ago he made an article saying that Sony's quarterly numbers are disappointing, even though they're higher than ever 💀

@UmaBunda I said the combination.
Numbers we have (i assume estimates, if you have a more better source provide it) for FFXV are:
Total 10m,
PS4 5.07m (50.7%)
XBO 1.14m (10.14%)
PC 3.79m (37.9%, based on subtracting the consoles from the total)

Going exclusive on PS can potentially halve sales for a triple A title.

@Tharsman I'm talking about consoles. The game has been already confirmed to be coming to PC eventually.

The point is that it being on Xbox is largely irrelevant since they don't really buy that many copies of FF.

The statistics are also from a game that came out before Gamepass was even a thing, so if I had to guess the sales now are probably worse than it was before.

Probably one of the many reasons Square and some other Japanese devs don't even bother with Xbox ports, even for titles that don't have any type of exclusivity agreement.

It's up to MS to foot the bill and get those games onto Gamepass, otherwise they don't really succeed.

what did they expect ? this game is only in name when it comes to Final Fantasy; the combat was a joke ; most of the level sequences are eaten up by cutscenes that linger far too long for far too often then followed up by a area fight then followed up with a mid boss sequence then another +3 cutscenes followed by a cinematic boss fight which your doing 10% of ;

most linear FF game Ive ever played and the story falls apart after Act II ; slow character movement and an unwanted very shallow and limited combat system which you can only select 6 moves total when theres like 5 eidelons with 3 moves each ; game was made for the casuals and they completely ignored the fanbase
thats why this game failed

@AdamNovice he may be a clown, but he wasn't wrong about PSVR2 doing poorly

@Ray_Ray_Regasis What metric are you using to determine it has failed?

It sits at 87 on metacritic with 8.2 user score, plus an 88 on open critic. It had sold about 5M copies now I believe which is over 10% of the PS5 install base.

Square said it fell into their expectations but not at the top of them. To say it’s a failure would require some evidence which I suspect doesn’t exist.

Now if you just want to say you didn’t like it, that’s fine, but not a “failure”.

@Ray_Ray_Regasis So you have no evidence as to why it’s a failure.

You instead call me stupid because metacritic and open critic can be spammed with good reviews.

If the game drops that much it still sells 400K in week 2 which puts it at 3.5M sold after two weeks. It’s been another month since then. 400K a week would put it at 5.1M sold so far. If you want to argue it’s closer to 4.5M go for it?

Wokeism? What parts are you referring to?

You know it makes me wonder they were happy with the 3 million sold (which happened relatively fast)! And now saying it didn't reach high expectations! I wonder if they felt they'd be at allot higher number by now based on the fast start!!? Either way they're never happy with sale numbers! Maybe they need to bring their expectations down a bit lol! I think it's a very good game and is a success. I would guess when it's all said and down they'll reach well over 10 million copies sold!!

@Shad361 "with less appeal to the masses" lol are you kidding its not just online you know people like to play it locally with friends and family too.

@Dark_Knight Wrong pretty sure the first trailer had an asterisk on it that it will release on PC after 6 months.