
Unless a game is breaking records, it's quite rare that we get direct sales data from publishers — and Square Enix in particular is somewhat notorious for this. As such, interested parties usually have little choice but to try and determine commercial success through other means.
One way to do this is to look at player tracking data — and that's exactly what entertainment analysis firm Ampere has been doing for recent PS5 exclusive Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Square Enix has yet to provide any concrete information on how well Rebirth has sold, but PS5 daily active user data suggests that it's surpassed at least 2 million copies since its launch on the 29th February.
So, how does that compare to other big budget Final Fantasy games released over recent years? Well, for starters, Final Fantasy 7 Remake — the original PS4 version, and Rebirth's predecessor — managed 3.5 million sales in just three days.
Meanwhile, Final Fantasy 16 — which had Square Enix sending mixed messages with regards to its success versus the publisher's expectations — sold 3 million at launch. Like Rebirth, it was also a PS5 exclusive.
Again, going by the player data, it seems as though Rebirth hasn't been able to match previous Final Fantasy titles. But, it's important to remember that direct sequels often struggle to keep pace — especially when prior instalments have proven to be popular. After all, not everyone who bought Remake will have enjoyed it, and so a decline in sequel sales would naturally make sense.
Still, at least 2 million sales is nothing to sniff at — but it does make you wonder whether Rebirth will have met Square Enix's infamously high expectations.
What do you make of this? Did you ever expect Rebirth to sell like crazy? Watch where you're swinging that buster sword in the comments section below.
[source ampereanalysis.com]
Comments 122
I would have expected 2 million pre orders for a game this big. That’s shocking frankly
Colin Moriarty mentioned something about this on one of his shows, how it's a really bad way to try and get player numbers.
Because it assumes players are synching their trophy data (which is how the numbers are pulled). And a lot of people do not sync and the auto sync is so so
I have the game but haven’t had a chance to play
If SquareEnix ever make a Final Fantasy VII Remake - Complete Edition with all three games combined into one (Perhaps for the PS6) then I think it would sell very well.
There was a time when Final Fantasy was known to be absurdly large games. I mean just look at the PS1 era games 3-4 disc for one game when most other studios released games on one disc or tops 2.
Sure there was a lot of FMV sequences to fill up some of that space, but even so.. the games really was large..
I think they really could merge the three games into one and it wouldn't take too much of an effort I think. Unless the third game is going to completely change the battle system or something
Looks plausible, given all other data points. If true, this is a fiasco, and another round of layoffs is imminent…
Wonder how it will affect FF7R3 development - I hope they will opt for a more compact game, rather than cut costs by reusing assets, AI generating content, and the like.
"But, it's important to remember that direct sequels often struggle to keep pace — especially when prior instalments have proven to be popular. After all, not everyone who bought Remake will have enjoyed it, and so a decline in sequel sales would naturally make sense."
is the article suggesting that a critically well received sequel to an immensely popular franchise usually fares worse than the previous installment? i don't think that is true by most metrics. usually when a sequel sells worse than the previous entry, it is due to 3 possibilities.
1 - the game was not well received critically (not the case with rebirth)
2 - smaller install base and therefore less interest for the game on the platform (applies to rebirth)
3 - general lack of interest or external forces that are limiting demand (AAA gaming fatigue, lack of time and money by various demographics).
i don't think there is any way to sugarcoat this. sony should be very concerned by the performance of rebirth on the ps5. this data is a clear indication that AAA gaming is in a rut and fatigue has set in, among other factors such as higher cost of living and people generally not spening as much on gaming. how ff7 rebirth didn't reach sales that are at least on par with ffxvi is quite shocking to me considering the fandom behind ff7 in particular.
I am not an analyst but Final Fantasy 7 is one of the most popular games ever made so the sales seem low? I wonder how better it would sell of it had PC or Xbox or PS4 port.
Still I highly recommend the game. The only fact I hate is the mini games.
Makes sense. Remake was always going to sell more for being the first part in a multipart series.
Rebirth also launched in a pretty crowded JRPG window, at least much more crowded than Remake did. And even tho this becoming less of a factor, it’s still the 8th year of the PS4 vs the 4th year of the PS5.
I know many won’t like my comment here. But… this is why exclusives are dying and not good in today’s market. All i hear is well PS has the most consoles sold thats why it get’s certain exclusives or attention, or people buy more games on PS. What does it matter if PS5 sold 200 million consoles if only 2 million buy a AAA JRPG? How does that help Square? Now if this game was on Xbox and PC with little money invested into its development, they could sell at least another million if not 2 million more over time. I am not saying MS is right or wrong but i am saying that exclusives at this scale and money aren’t going to last much longer, no matter how many consoles Sony sells. The writing is on the wall and games must be made to be played anywhere and every where in order to sell as many as possible.
@Mikey856 Keep in mind Remake's ending pissed off a lot of people which put them off buying the other parts this was bound to happen
@HonestHick Yeah because we all know Xbox gamers love and buy JRPGs every FF game and KH III sold millions and millions on their platform
I believe FF series is losing its identity with the whole transition into real time action adventure style.
Pity. This looks terrific. If it was a real exclusive I'd have bought the console just to play it.
@HonestHick Timed exclusivity deal, and shorter for this than it was for Remake. Rebirth will probably be on PC within a year. The only question for me is if Epic is going to delay the Steam version with its own moneyhatting.
Also, the sad truth is that it's probably more lucrative on S-E's end to accept Sony's money than it would be to port the game to Xbox. JRPGs didn't do well on Xbox BEFORE Microsoft trained its base to pay their monthly dues and wait for the 'free' versions of games they want.
@Keyblade-Dan actually FF does decent on Xbox and PC. Not like 2 million sales is much to brag about on PS. So they might as well bring those games over. I have both consoles and really loved FF16. I bought it on PS5 but would double dip and buy FF16 again on Xbox. Point is exclusives are going to die in publishers eye’s if more and more people aren’t buying the games.
@Ralizah again most of what i am seeing is gamers not seeing that AAA games locked to one console is not healthy. The industry including Sony management is saying it but fan’s want to deflect and worry about Xbox players buying habits. I agree Square doing deals with Sony is smart in a way. But these games need to reach other platforms and quicker to make back some money. 2 million sales for a game this scale is rather low any way someone try’s to spin it.
Good points all around. We don’t know how much money and support Sony gave Square—maybe it compensates for fewer sales of the actual game.
Exclusives are like these broadcast deals in baseball and racing. Leagues accepting lower viewership for guaranteed money.
I also think people are a bit dated calling FF7 the most popular game ever made… it is, for a generation of us older gamers.
I get most Zoomers and those after have next to zero cultural zeitgeist for FF7. That would be Fortnite or Minecraft for them. Worth adding that when FF7 was the biggest thing in gaming there were a lot fewer gamers in general.
I think 2 million is perfectly fine for a sequel game. If its deemed insufficient by Square, they need to knock off the ridiculous budgets for these games. Recent GoTY titles have had much smaller budgets.
This seems like a decent enough start for a sequel, even if a tad disappointing. Another aspect to keep in mind is that FF is still a JRPG franchise and, inherently, those are more niche comparatively to other genres. I have faith Rebirth will have legs, especially with sales during summer, Black Friday, holidays, etc. Not to mention, a potential PC port and PS5 Pro update would also help.
Well the JRPG genre is niche anyway so always struggle to hit huge numbers that the big western AAA games do and that goes for the other big releases this year like Dragons Dogma 2, Granblue and Persona 3 Reloaded. So its kinda unfair to expect those big kinda numbers, also this doesn't takeaway the fact that the game is a game of the year contender and has a 92 metacritic, the quality is there and the sales for it being on one platform and from a niche genre are pretty decent, I mean look at Vanillaware celebrating 500k for Unicorn Overlord which is also one of the best JRPG's out there and on multiple platforms and people congratulating them yet any other game and that's considered poor.
This shouldn't be surprising. As others mentioned AAA fatigue, higher costs, less discretionary income and smaller platform install base than Remake. Also the poor name can't be helping "FF7 - remake part 2" is clear. FF7 Rebirth sounds like a spinoff not a sequel. Like how people thought WiiU was a controller for the Wii.
But most importantly as I keep saying, it's part 2 of a trilogy with part 3 over a year away, and a decade after it was announced, and announced as something different than it is. Great or not, they dragged this remake series out way to far by making it a 10-11 year trilogy. Interest just wanes after a while. Even as a big fan of 7, my interest kind of faded, I bought Remake, but don't really intend to play remake or buy rebirth until part 3 is out. Sales will rebound with a complete trilogy in a few years.
@Keyblade-Dan "And Playstation gamers don't play online multiplayer games." Except the data doesn't bear out. The old stereotypes are from the 7th gen for both platforms. Demographics changed. Xbox is now basically the home of Atlus games, there's a market there.
Most recent example we have for FF on XB is XV. It did about 1M on XB, 5M on PS. Sure, that's lower sales, by one metric. It's also +20% sales by another metric. If you're square, +20% sales is good. If you're setting at 2M on Rebirth and you're Square, you're probably wondering why you're not everywhere.
FWIW at "10M units shipped" when they stopped reporting it, that means XV did 4M sales on PC. But that game became something of a darling of PC gaming, at one of the most played on Steam, partially because of how poor the engine is optimized and how hard it pushes hardware to brute force it. PC gamers love breathing that sort of thing as PC gamers have a subset of "gamers" that are more "hardware enthusiasts" who love testing their overclocked build's performance more than the game itself. And certain games become standardized benchmarks for that, XV is one of them.
With the way people online talk about I was expecting it to sell more than XVI did at launch. Granted I didnt buy it untill a week ago.
I wonder how many copies have been sold but not played yet. I know people who have bought the game and not even installed it yet so its possible.
@Keyblade-Dan I think JRPG's are less popular on Xbox but some sales are better than no sales. But, I think the major factor with xbox is the mindset of if it's not on gamepass then they won't buy it, and I think most Japanese devs know this hence why the majority that do seem to go on xbox seem to release on gamepass.
But the bigger the budget the less likely it will be on gamepass as it won't be sustainable and Final Fantasy 7 ReBirth seems to have a big budget, even Sega didn't want to put the latest Like a Dragon game on gamepass likely due to its budget as well.
If anything these Japanese Sony exclusives would fair better releasing on the Switch than they would releasing on Xbox.
@UltimateOtaku91 Fair point. I did buy GBF Relink at launch and opted to wait till last week to buy Rebirth. So many other might have too.
And I agree, other big titles like Dead Space Remake would love to have 2 Million on one platform. SF6 comes to mind and none of these great games are considered to be doing poorly. I
still need to try Unicron Overlord demo 🤔
@Ralizah That assumes the Sony money will continue to be there. The whole "pay for exclusives and don't make games" Don Matrick playbook thing was Jim's strategy, and that was a failure of a money hole. Nothing says the next prez forks over a gold plated cruise ship in return for "keeping the game off Xbox, that's already half our install base and is giving us their exclusives without even asking." Especially after Square's last 3 timed exclusives didn't really set the metrics on fire on Playstation, and don't appear to be necessary to hurt Xbox. Square's sugar daddy may be closing that checkbook.
I checked the source article and it states that Rebirth had a peak Daily Active User Count of 2.21m. That number suggest total sales are more likely over 3M and saying over 2m is just being very conservative.
Also, on PS-Timetracker which is a sample of around 10k people Rebirth had double the daily peak of Dragon’s Dogma2, which sold 2.5M.
Thirdly, in Europe Rebirth opened 4% above XVI when accounting for the full territory including Digital sales.
All in all I’d be inclined to assume that Rebirth sold over 3M units so far.
2 million seems low. I am enjoying Rebirth far more than Remake.
That said, the WOW factor of Remake is not here anymore. People were longing to see FF7 again before, and now that thrill has passed.
Rebirth is way, way better than 16 so that's disappointing.
@ChrisDeku There's also a FF7 Remake and ReBirth double pack that was in the top 40 charts for both UK and Japan and would assume America as well, so those who bought that are most likely playing Remake first so that's many sales that wouldn't show up in this tracker. So yeah I agree with you that the game most likely has around 3+ million sales.
I think it will have long tail success. It's an objectively incredible game, and one of the biggest franchises ever. It'll be fine.
@3Above I definitely recommend giving the Unicorn Overlord demo a try. I didn't get the game on release as I didn't think it was for me but I tried the demo and now I'm hooked.
@HonestHick Games have thrived as exclusives on one platform for generations without issue. Exclusivity used to be the norm, actually. It was only in the seventh gen that the 'everything goes everywhere' ethos started.
Exclusives were a unique area of competition between platforms. They're usually not the biggest sellers every gen (unless you're Nintendo lol), but they help to diversify different platforms and often make a strong argument for opting for one manufacturer's console over another.
Sony's problem is that they insist on making everything a $200+ million dollar photo-realistic blockbuster now because they successfully groomed their base into only wanting those, which is cutting into their profit margins for even objectively ultra-successful releases like Spider-Man 2.
Anyway, there's a reason JRPGs rarely get gigantic budgets relative to more conventionally mainstream genre. Two million at launch is still huge for any JRPG not called Pokemon. It's a niche genre, so there's not as much space in the market to expand as there is with something like a third-person cinematic action-adventure title.
@NEStalgia Hard to say. It's not like these games are selling historically badly or anything, and Sony seems to like keeping Final Fantasy exclusive to their consoles.
Sony paying to hobble the competition has been a time-tested winning strategy for them since the PS1. Even if it's not strictly necessary, they're also not letting their guard down around Microsoft. There's a reason they didn't jack up the price of the PS5 in the U.S. like they did everywhere else, after all.
If i'm understanding this well and it's 2 million active users, the game sold way more than that and that's a gigantic number of simultaneous players.
I doubt sales numbers aren't at least on the 6m mark.
@UltimateOtaku91 I was thinking the same but everyone who plays it loves it. I've held off on it purely due to time (spent 128hrs almost platinuming Octopath 2 and put 44 hrs into Foamstars) then I started Rebirth. But I think Unicron will be my turnbased game for the summer months.
@belmont I’m so glad that I am not the only one who dislikes the mini games!
@NEStalgia Agreed. I don’t think Sony is going to keep writing checks for 2 million in sales when the game is going to sell on PS whether it’s on Xbox and PC or not.
@Ralizah yeah i get all that and you are correct. I liked exclusives when i was younger. I would just buy a Nintendo and Sega and call it a day. But a lot has changed since those days. Now we have 2 consoles that are just PC’s with a different ui. Super high cost of development like you said and more and more capable hardware in the form of laptops and handheld PC’s that can play AAA games. Years back we didn’t have all that strong of hardware options as we do now. I am not blaming Sony for spending money to get games on its devices, but i am questioning if it’s needed and healthy anymore. One more thing i think that is hurting Sony is they took one of their best teams in Insomniac and turned them into a Marvel games studio. They do a great job with Spider-Man and i have zero doubts they will have any trouble making an amazing Wolverine game. However the money that Marvel takes per copy sold is another issue for profits for Sony. The games themselves are expensive to make and we have to pay Marvel. Now if insomniac went back to making its own IP’s that would be a cut not needed to hand over. Would a Infamous sell as well as Spider-Man? Likely not but it would still do great numbers and have a chance to make more in profit. Last point on FF. I hope the rumor is true that it’s coming to Xbox as many of my friends there want to get it. The PC port is going to be awesome with wide screen and 100fps. So that is what allows a game like that to have more success than being locked down to one walled garden.
@Ralizah Budgets used to be smaller. Expectations on sales used to be lower. One platform was fine. That's why exclusivity was fine, plus technical difference in consoles meant porting from one to another was hard to impossible anyway. The...challenge...of PS3 development was when publishers leaned on Sony and MS to go x86 to facilitate PC porting easily to begin with, so it was an industry wide push to move that way.
Nintendo, of course, being the exception to the rule where the budget five bucks on a mobile game with a staff of 10 people, the rest outsourced, then sell 9 million copies at $60 for 10 years on on 1 platform. But you can do that when you're the new Walt Disney.
Didn't Spiderman 2 have up to a 50% revshare with Disney? I'm sure that cut into the profits too. Spend 300M, give half the take to the house of mouse, and you break even even if it sells amazing. That's why EA's getting out of the licensing business cold turkey. Sure, Disney brands help you sell, and they also help you spend your ROI.
Problem with FF is Square decided it's not a JRPG, it's a western cinematic action series, and should sell like it too with a budget to match. If they were making Chrono things might be different. 2M isn't bad. But all their FF games keep spending fortunes to make but only pulling in "pretty ok for a JRPG" numbers they won't be thrilled.
Besides, "JRPG is offensive"
Sony's gone back and forth. FF was magically close during PS1/PS2 because of the optical disks, and because Hiroshi "Totally Not a Yakuza, Honest!" Yamauchi stamped his shoeprint on their foreheads. Sony didn't care about keeping FF close during Tretton, House, and Hirai's tenures. Then Jim went all in on pretending it's 2003 again and bought ALL the rights no matter if he spent every dollar they had (and he did!)
Remember, people keep forgetting this, Sony bigwigs never saw Xbox as a competitor and always intended to publish on Xbox when it first launched. It was Kutaragi's tirade and inner Yamauchi-anniki that blocked that to fight the console war. It's been the status quo, but things are changing in the industry, and right now you have a CFO who's open to other platforms and basically anything that boosts sales, not unlike MS's multiplat moneymen, who's searching for a new PS prez...and probably one who's like minded on maxing sales and cutting losses.
It's all speculation, but I just don't see how shoveling money into Square games after, what, 3 poor-to-middling sellers (Rebirth, XVI, Forspoken), while Xbox as a platform is behind, and as a publisher is a partner now, is going to meet the financial goals he wants. It's not a horrible strategy, but it may not be wise use of funds in the changing climate, either.
Edit: Heck an old Xbox Studios game is poised to outsell Rebirth on Playstation. And PS didn't even have to moneyhat it. It's coming from the competitor they've been paying buckets of cash to Square to block. Someone, namely Totoki has got to be reclining in his pricy chair thinking "why exactly did we spend millions on this?"
@HonestHick I think XVI will go to XB. I never got the sense that it was as limited as 7, and I think Square wanted bigger sales. MS clearly did some negotiating with square and turned the relationship around ($20 says it has something to do with promising a PC-only-build future is coming, that's where square wants to be), but I think they're watching how XIV performs before they make any commitments on that. That's a good brand-interest test even if it's a little outside the box as a subscription game. XVI is also very Westerner-friendly, to put it lightly.
I don't believe for a moment the "100fps" on PC thing though unless you have a monster rig for top dollar. That engine is so poorly optimized where even performance mode with low internal res can't hold 60 and dips pretty low. Inside it's the same engine as XV which still runs horribly even on monster PCs.
I think that game would find a very solid XB market even if only by virtue of being "not actually FF at all."
What a waste of money for Sony, SE isn't worth it.
The game is incredible but at every turn, you can feel just how expensive it was to make. I feel it’s only going to be more problematic for Square because they are very much stuck with this project until the final game ships. The cost of banking on nostalgia.
@NEStalgia I'm so tired of u and your negativity jrpgs don't sale on Xbox
@NEStalgia agreed i think it comes to Xbox after they finish the PC build. Here is the link i read and it say’s basically what you just said it’s all about high end hardware and even with that they are working to get it correctly optimized. Have a read, he really isn’t giving full context as to what you will get. Haha
https://wccftech.com/final-fantasy-xvi-pc-runs-at-100fps-on-high-end-hardware-says-yoshida/
@ChrisDeku I'd be very surprised if it's not over 3m by now.
A crazy amount of great single player games have launched in the first few months of the year too, and while some of them will have legs, they'll all be eating each others sales for now.
Dragon's Dogma, FF and Rise of the Ronin, it'll be Christmas before we get a fair picture of how well they have sold.
Maybe it would have sold better if SE didnt release Crisis Core and FF16 in between? Also, theres less ps5s than ps4s so that has to be a factor. Personally, I didnt buy it because the demo was boring and not worth the asking price.
@thechetearly I think you're right.
We usually hear this story going around, then in a year or two we'll be discovering that the game has sold 6-8 million copies including bundles or something.
@belmont I didn't play the game yet and I really hate minigames, can they be skipped ? Or are they needed to progress in the game ?
@AJ1 You can skip almost all of them, don't worry.
I'm loving the game, but tbf I do agree, the mini games are a bit much.
@8bit4Life @Belmont So far at least, the mini games havent gotten on my nerves. It's funny that this is what so many complained XVI was lacking.
@NEStalgia People hear "Final Fantasy" and they think classic JRPG. Even after XVI, XV, and whatever the hell XIII was trying to be. You can't escape that association, no matter how much they tried to scrub the Japanese-ness off the brand with the last mainstream entry.
Anyway, to be clear, if a pivot away from exclusivity didn't have the potential to be harmful to the brand, Starfield would have been on PS5 day one, and Microsoft wouldn't just now be sending over some smaller exclusives.
You have to weigh profit margins against the possibility of long-term damage to the brand. Although, in Microsoft's case, the push toward multiplatform publishing seems to be accelerating now. Especially since they've all but given up on gaining market share in the home console space.
Sony is heavily reliant on that sector, however, so it's in their interest to give people a heavy incentive to continue buying their hardware and remaining the de facto home console brand. Wringing a few extra million units sold from PC and Xbox ports won't solve the fundamental budgetary issues they have.
@HonestHick
"One more thing i think that is hurting Sony is they took one of their best teams in Insomniac and turned them into a Marvel games studio."
No objections on that front, dude. Like them closing Japan Studio and pivoting away from publishing a greater variety of AA experiences, it's a result of the blockbuster-itis they contracted when they began westernizing the brand.
It's really sad how I've had to write off both Insomniac (not a Marvel fan) and Naughty Dog this gen, in addition to them closing some of their smaller studios as well. Ugh.
@AJ1 I don't want to spoil anything, but the stupid ones are tied to side missions and not the main story.
@3Above I personally hate mini games period. They were the worst aspects of FF7 Remake and they are the worst part of Rebirth. Some are so bad I wonder if they beta tested it at all. I would love if they patched an accessibility option that lets you skip them while giving the rewards (that are not useful, with minimal exceptions), like other games do.
So In Japan for physical copies alone it's sold more than 300K..
1.7 million from the rest of the world, doesn't sound right
To be honest, for some unknown reason I cant remember, I missed the original game, so bought remake hoping it would be similar, just expanded. But I was put off by what I thought were needless complications (which I am told were not there in the original, and that it would have been useful to have played the original).
Between that and the poor press around graphics in performance mode, I just put it to the bottom of my 'to buy' list - I will get it, but probably when they have patched and put it on sale.
@Ralizah Old people like us hear FF and think JRPG. Do young people think that? Or know what JRPG means? FFXVI is neither J nor RPG. It sold Bettter than this. Arguably because of that.
The problem is that this is 2m. Xvi was 3m. Forspoken is pseudo ff at 3 dozen in sales lol. XV was 5m on PlayStation. Despite the pedigree is just not a big sales generator. This will climb. So will xvi over years. But you can safely assume it's mostly the same customers for all of them. So for Sony, how much money are they shelling out to square to merely keep a game from a competitor that's only appealing to around 5m of their customers anyway, for a brand they don't own, that mostly appeals to aging gamers, and most of those customers are already platform loyal and would continue buying it on PS. So from a numbers angle they're spending money paying for someone else's profits and gaining nothing.
They'd make a more meaningful play spending that money putting Knack wearing a PSVR2 while holding a Vita as a Fortnite skin.
Yeah they gain association with FF. But clearly by the numbers, that doesn't mean much.
@HonestHick Lol yeah... That engine is a train wreck. It's like Bethesdas. You just can't make it good. It can't be done. But then rebirth is ue and it's also a train wreck. Square....
What floors me is ultra wide support in xvi. It's a freaking corridor slasher for the most part. What are you going to see in ultra wide, more wall texture? 🤣
@Ralizah yeah i agree. I am not a huge Marvel video game fan. I played Spider-man and while it was good I never thought of it as great. It recycled to many missions and play structure throughout the game and it got a little old. Tho i did finish it cause i wanted to see the ending. I rarely ever stop playing a single player game without beating it. Just so i can see the ending. I miss games like Sly Cooper and others from Sony’s past. But thats just not what they are making these days.
@NEStalgia funny you say that cause i was thinking the same thing. It’s not open world and they don’t stuff loads of enemies on screen at once. Mind you i am only 60% in at the moment. So i don’t understand what wide screen would really do. 100fps would be nice as all get out. You didn’t even have to play the game to come to your conclusion HAHA
I was eager to play remake, prior to launch. I enjoyed the gameplay and generally most of it enough, but really didn't like the direction the story was going in; I would have preferred the original, with a modern combat twist. So, I'm not that fussed by rebirth, despite being a fan of the original. I was also disappointed with the presentation in the demo, and that's compounded my view. I feel like I'll pick it up eventually, but im in no rush, and I don't imagine I'm alone in thinking this.
I think Final Fantasy is mostly popular for the generation of gamers that grew up in the 90 ies. I'm not sure that kids today have really the patience for that kind of game. And I don't think the first category is the one spending the most of money in gaming. 2 millions is still good for a product based on nostalgia.
Holy crap...
Dude Square Enix is gonna end up selling to one of the platforms.
Why would I say that?
Well lets just think about it a bit, Forspoken...
Did so bad the game shoulda been called Forgotten.
They straight closed the studio like 6 weeks after the game came out. (And PS paid for a 2 year exclusivity on their console! You know that a 2 year deal couldnt have been cheap, and certainly was not worth it at all!)
Before Forspoken, they lost a sh*t load on the Avengers game, Like straight lost over $60 Million on that game alone.
Square went up and sold all of there North American studios after that BS. And for a fraction of what they were worth too, with the IP's they sold with it alone.
Now besides this Rebirth numbers being much lower than Square was expecting I am sure.... (to be fair, Square's dumb @ss always says the same thing about every game, they didnt sell up to expectations haha)
Square dropped another game right around the same time as Rebirth and it actually flopped hardddd....
What am I talking about??
MF Foam Stars! That game was given away to everyone, and they have already lost 95% of their playerbase in less than a month!
God Damn!!
Foam Stars straight popped Squares bubble!
I mean come one now guys...
Square has seriously dropped the ball big time on everyone of the games that they have invested a ton of money into.
And lets not get it twisted...
As much as everyone on here does not want to hear it...
Xbox and Square have started to get real chummy lately.
Square is down to be friends with anyone who will drop them a bag, aint that the truth.
But even though PS has been doing its best to make it seem like Final Fantasy is a First Party Franchise....
And they are the first choice that Square games go to for a bag to be exclusive.
We shouldnt be shocked if we see one of these days that Square is gonna sell the whole company and just take the bag... And sadly, with Xbox having only a 2% market share in Japan... They could very well be the ones that drop the money on Square.
The games would not suddenly be exclusive to Xbox that is for sure, I promise you that. N that is exactly what they will tell regulators. They will put games everywhere, they will give everyone decade long contracts for sure.
Xbox wouldnt put the games exclusive on Xbox... But you sure as hell bess believe that Square games would not only suddenly be on Xbox now, but they would also be on Game Pass Day 1.
Not saying it is 100% happening or anything... but we should be ready for it
Imagine part 3 getting canned because of part 2's sales....I think they'd have to just shut down lol.
Only 2 million copies? Where's the support, guys?
@DaniPooo
> Sure there was a lot of FMV sequences to fill up some of that space, but even so.. the games really was large..
Just a fun fact
It wasn't "some of that space", it was all about FMVs. The entire game of 7,8,9 was on every disc. You can technically play from any disc, and some people actually do it for fun speedruns. You start the game, you open the tray and swap discs. It messes up FMVs but that's it
I won't say the numbers are true but if the game was selling well, SE would be out there bragging about it. I think it's pretty clear it's lagging behind FF XVI, and even that game didn't do phenomenal numbers. Certainly neither helped PS5 hardware sales like Sony would have hoped when it signed up these games as console exclusives. A shame because both are good but it's clear the franchise does not have the appeal it used to.
@UltimateOtaku91
JRPGs sell very poorly for PlayStation in Japan and therefore JRPGs, for example Final Fantasy, are no longer allowed to be PlayStation exclusives.
@UltimateOtaku91
Japanese people will always prefer to buy Japanese games for the Nintendo platform rather than the PlayStation because Sony is known for censoring Japanese games.
@R_L_Stine
PlayStation is no longer strong in Japan because the Japanese people don't really prefer PlayStation. Square Enix is no longer allowed to make games exclusively for the PlayStation, and the same applies to other Japanese developers because their games sell very poorly for the PlayStation in Japan.
@UltimateOtaku91
PC will become a more popular platform than PlayStation in Japan. If Final Fantasy VII Rebirth had been released for PC, it would have sold more than 3 million copies, and this is how Square Enix made a mistake by making the game a PlayStation exclusive.
That says peak daily active users not sales. Do people look at steam concurrent and say that's how many copies it sold? That's just the peak DAU it got. The sales will obviously be higher than that but how much higher is impossible to know unless square gives a number but after the way the journalist's reacted after squares ff16 comments I don't blame them for not saying anything.
@saffeqwe are you sure about that?
I assumed the reason why some places became inaccessible later in some of these games was to free up storage.
Still even if that's the case, there's no denying that Final Fantasy games were massive in scope compared to most other games.
@CrashBandicoot1 Yet Japanese developers who want to create big AAA games have go with playstation because the Nintendo Switch isn't capable of running the games and Xbox is pretty much dead in Japan so Playstation is the only option for consoles. Playstation will be the home of high end Japanese games for years to come.
I’m sorta surprised since it got that scene everyone was obsessed with.
I think it's not bad, what, people really expected that FFVII Remake Part 2 will pull higher numbers than a brand new entry in the franchise such as FFXVI?
@Mikey856 kids only wanna play for fortnite, Roblox and mobile games these days
@HonestHick exactly this even Sony's top franchises only 1 in 5 PlayStation owners buy
@Ralizah pretty sure Sony users pay their monthly fees too
@UltimateOtaku91 I bet Xbox would love ff on gamepass they would pay top money for it but Sony pays for that not too happen. I highly expect that to stop in the future though
@KillerBoy Play it, you're in for a treat!
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@MrMagic the discourse surrounding that ShT last year man, 3M for FF16 in a few days "oEmGEee a FlOp" then a multiplat sells 1M and the narrative shifts "OMG success", happy for those games that managed to get to 1M btw on multiplats but saying 3M is a "flop" on a single platform screams mental gymnastics especially on that one dying console brand in green.
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@UltimateOtaku91
Japanese people would rather play Japanese games on a handheld PC than on a PlayStation if the game is not available for the Nintendo platform. PlayStation, like Xbox, will be a dead console in Japan because the Japanese people buy less and less home consoles
@UltimateOtaku91
It is better to play Japanese games on PC than on PlayStation because the PC versions are not censored compared to the PlayStation versions. As long as Sony censors Japanese games, it's not worth buying the PlayStation version at all.
@Strikke
If you look at Famitsu sales, you will see that Japanese games for PlayStation don't sell well.
@CrashBandicoot1 Depends on the game, Final Fantasy 7 ReBirth isn't censored at all.
@Toot1st
1 in 5 is over 20 million copies lifetime. What exactly do you think is a high sales number?
Call of Duty games sell 20-30m units across PS, Xbox and PC.
Hogwarts Legacy(best selling game of 2023) sold around 25m over PS, Switch, PC and Xbox.
Elden Ring sold around 20m units over PS, Xbox and PC.
Even on the Nintendo Switch where there aren’t as many third party games and first party games tend to sell at an extremely high rate there is only 4 switch games that have sold better than 1 in 5.
@HonestHick "What does it matter if PS5 sold 200 million consoles if only 2 million buy a AAA JRPG?"
The game isn't going to stop selling at 2m even if this number is accurate, which it's not. We don't know how many copies it's going to sell, but it's definitely going to be more than 2m. I'm waiting for the complete trilogy to come out and I'm sure there are many others who are doing the same.
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People should check out the Ampere Analysis report. The data of the report only talks about a daily launch peak. Which was over 2.21 million players (not sales), which means the game sold a lot more. The writer of this article made the conclusion it sold around 2 million, while the daily player peak was 2.21 million?
I think this is not correct. Because not every owner is playing on the same day and the game did not stop selling after a few days.
Maybe people are holding off since the first part came to psplus not too long after release.
Either way, this game is far superior to FF16 (which this site obsessively tried to push) and actually has a lively open world with things to do, while 16 just had barren landscapes and the most boring fetch quests I've ever witnessed. It's like they heard Witcher 3 had great side quests and took the pan quest as an actual example.
@ChrisDeku
I think Square Enix will release future Final Fantasy games simultaneously for PC and PlayStation
@UltimateOtaku91
As far as I know Final Fantasy has always been more popular in the west than in Japan
I knew this game underperformed based on how quiet SE was,when they bragged about FF16 selling 3 million.
@Toot1st yeah exclusive games don’t sell that well. It’s all about COD, FIFA and Madden. I expect to see more and more games hit the PC much earlier.
@naruball i am sure it will continue to sell especially when it drops in price. But to sell less than the first game is not a good sign. Plus FF7 is iconic and this remake was talked about for a long time. To only muster a few million in sales seems troubling for Square. I think Square and many others are going to focus on multi platform releases in the future. It’s the best way to catch the whole audience.
Why are we rounding down from the bare minimum expectation though. 2.21 players, not counting people who bought it but haven't played it just yet. I pre ordered it, but it wasn't until a week ago when I started playing it for instance.
@LarsVerb my thoughts exactly. Player data and sales don't fully correlate.
@LarsVerb it's a fair point, but i think people were expecting the sales to match ffxvi at the very least (3m copies). so whether or not ffvii rebirth sold 2m or 2.2m or even 2.5m isn't the concern — it should have been in the 3m ballpark on launch week since we are talking about what is arguably the most popular entry in the entire final fantasy franchise. if this is the best they can do in the current marketplace (and with various external factors at play), it is a concern for the gaming industry at large in my opinion. also, it is doubtful that any publisher that poured this amount of resources into a release of this magnitude would be satisfied with these early sales numbers from a simple business perspective.
@DaniPooo
>I assumed the reason why some places became inaccessible later in some of these games was to free up storage.
Just a strange game design choice in 8 and 9. I was never a fan of blocked stuff on the last discs. Even if it's a space issue. It only affects them
@Porco
But the point is that we don’t know the FF7 rebirth sales. This report only give us highest peak of ‘daily players’ at launch. Which was 2.21 million. It probably sold much more.
Ultimately, Ampere doesn't actually provide data so the 2m doesn't mean a lot.
Ampere is the source but they have no information, whatsoever, on how they reached their data and where they got their data points to derive it. Further, it is based on projections off unknown data points from the demo and not actual sales. In short, their projections are highly dubious.
@Anthony_Daniels So, essentially, it tells that AT LEAST 2 million copies have been sold, but the number is likely higher.
Watch out, Xbox fanboys are going to try to use this as evidence that the game is failing (it's not).
@LarsVerb noted. the number is probably higher than 2m but 3m would be a stretch based on this data which does have some merit. either way, i understand that there are assumptions being made, however, s-e (and most publishers) are usually more than happy to brag about sales when there is something supposedly worth "celebrating". i.e. s-e made an announcement about ffxvi a week after launch when it reached 3m in sales. it has been 6 weeks since ff7 rebirth launched without as much as a whisper. it is not looking good.
https://www.eurogamer.net/final-fantasy-7-rebirth-is-underperforming-says-industry-analyst
@HonestHick Spencer is getting ready now for that future that exclusives will not keep you a float especially with the costs. Exclusives should have died when PS3/360 came out people were calling for such a thing but they didn't listen to the small minority.
Yet now Phil seems to be I still say the best Xbox will be the last of console hardware from MS, they are setting themselves up to be anywhere and everywhere with Gamepass on everything. But that means you definitely won't own the game as discs are going slowly
@theSpectre
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth wasn't supposed to be a PlayStation exclusive, it was supposed to be released for PC on the same day as the PlayStation, instead of PC players waiting a year for the game to come to PC. Square Enix will be the biggest culprit if Final Fantasy VII Rebirth falls in sales because the game didn't come out for PC. All future Final Fantasy games must not only be released for PlayStation, they should also be released for PC on the same day if Square Enix really cares about the game selling in large numbers. I hope that Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 3 will be available for PC on the same day as for PlayStation.
@Nakatomi_Uk
Exclusives should become a thing of the past, that is, all games should be available for all platforms, not just one specific one. It bothers me when a game is exclusive to Xbox or PlayStation only and not available on other platforms.
@theSpectre
If Final Fantasy VII Rebirth had been released for PC, the game would surely have sold more than 3 million copies
@CrashBandicoot1 Helldivers 2 is one game that would seriously benefit
Yeah, I'm done giving Sony money for their PS products. $80/year for an online subscription and $70 games....Sony got greedy. I built a pc and still intend on getting this game, but I'm not giving another dime to their console market
@Nakatomi_Uk it’s hard to tell if disc’s will die off after this generation or not. For Nintendo i am willing to bet they have some form of physical media for a long time to come. Sony and MS i am not so sure. Yeah Exclusives are in limbo right now. I think both MS and Sony are rethinking where games go. 3rd party games sell a lot on PC, so there is a chance we see less and less of them signing deals to be on one platform only in the future. If MS goes the way of Xbox consoles being a PC with the Xbox Ui as a skin over windows OS. I think they will be in the hardware game for a long time to come. As for PS, as long as they are selling well and making good money back on the software we should see them continue on as well. Yes the industry is in a state of changes right now. But i don’t see it as Doom and Gloom for long. There is still loads of money to be made from all 3 console makers and they will make the right adjustments to maintain profitable. It just may mean someday we see less and less exclusive games locked to one box.
I used to be all for exclusives when I was younger even though it was a real pain the arse to miss out on loads and back then it was loads of games. Nowadays I see little point. 1st party I can still get the idea but 3rd party exclusives should just stop now. Do many people even care as much nowadays? Like in the late 90's and mid 2000's quite a few of us, me included would buy multiple consoles and as I've aged and gaming has stagnated so much I reckon most stick to the one and it would have to be something truly special for a consumer to purchase another machine to play 1 title.
@Porco latter two are the most relevant I feel. The game doesn’t respect my time, I got to the final boss, died multiple times after spending forty minutes on it and gave up. Wouldn’t be as big an issue if the game wasn’t so bloated, but I started skipping it cutscenes in the last several chapters which I did not do at all the first 23 hours. Yes, getting halfway through the game took 23 hours and that’s only stopping to do SOME side content. Like four or five side missions.
A so so game that started out amazing, dipped to great, then good and then “why do I care?”.
@8bitOG I’ve never supported piracy but I’m not so sure about my platform choice after this generation. Losing tolerance for the model, pricing and game quality. I don’t know if I genuinely feel like games deserve anything at all, big ones at least. Indie devs are the ones carrying this generation right now.
@Porco the critical reviews were insanely positive but they all cited lots of bloat and an overly long campaign. That was a big sticking point for many. If a game is fun but outstays its welcome, that fun becomes non existent.
@HonestHick
As for the Nintendo platform in general, it's great that you don't have to install the game if you're using a physical version of the game like on Xbox and PlayStation, but you can get right into the game itself. This is why it is always better to buy the physical version of games on Nintendo platforms. And as for Xbox and PlayStation, I think that the next PlayStation and the next Xbox will be completely digital, because PlayStation and Xbox players mostly buy digital games
@Nakatomi_Uk
Interestingly, Helldrivers 2 is far more popular on PC than on PS5
@CrashBandicoot1 i have all my switch games digital on Switch Oled. I like the convenience of having all the games on the go. But i agree there is some nice perks of owning physical with Nintendo. I can’t wait for the Switch 2. Should be really good. I also agree that Xbox and PS customers are showing Sony and MS that they prefer digital with the sales taking over more and more of the percentage each passing year. I am glad physical is still around for those that like it. I just haven’t bought a disc in 10 years.
@Savage_Joe the PS4 was released in 2013...it doesn't owe you anything. I was upset that I bought a PS5 when I didn't need to. It's one salvation is its backwards compatible. Otherwise, there's only been a handful of genuine PS5 games that doesn't still cater to an out dated system
@Savage_Joe ok, you must be young, because that's how consoles work...not to mention over 50 million PS5 units have been sold. That's hardly backs up your "most the audience doesn't have" argument. Just build a PC like I did, then you don't have to worry about any of this nonsense
@Savage_Joe ok, so you plead ignorant to how the console market functions? Don't flame me because you have the mentality of a teenager. I imagine a lot of people are waiting for it to go on sale or pc. Not to mention, i know quite a few people who played the OG who arent a fan of the changes they've made.
Also, the PS2 sold over 100M units, but I don't hear you crying about people not having access to FF7R...get a grip lmao
To be fair, recently finished remake on pc and I was looking forward to it ending. A lot of bloat, corridor levels and no desire to play the additional dlc included. If the second one is open world I'll give it shot but the first part was a bit boring near the end
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