Square Enix has lost nearly $2bn in market value since Final Fantasy 16’s release

Employees and analysts express concerns about its development structure and quality control

[gold_drake]

yeh i mean, we know its not because ff16. cause sony paid for the exclusivity.

its because of everything else

their nft bs

first soldier bombing

chocobo racing hombing

crystal cronicles not doing as well as they hoped

forespoken sorta bombing

kingdom hearts 4 is still in development and the mobile game too

its all of their side hustles just not doing well, outside of ff7 remake ha.

[maniacmayhem]

The actual title would suggest otherwise and they even said themselves that FF16 didn't perform as well as they hoped.

So their deals with Sony isn't paying off in the long run which is probably why recently both Phil on Square were on stage together

[Einhander1972]

They is factually not what they said, that is what the media circus said.

They were on stage to announce FFXIV coming to xbox which was something they had been working on for years.

And it's funny how all the blame is placed on Sony when most of there recent releases have been on Switch which also had exclusive games that no one seems to talk about.

[gold_drake]

you dont lose 2Billion market value because of one game, that sold 3.5 mil. even more than that now.

its a whole barrage of things. as this article also says.

[maniacmayhem]

*its a whole barrage of things. as this article also says.*

With FF16 being a part of it as the article also makes mention. So excusing FF16 because of Sony paying for exclusivity would be wrong.

@einhander

I think they did say it and the media just reported on it.

https://www.eurogamer.net/f...

I guess we can also start blaming the Switch, anything and everything else I suppose.

[Christopher]

FFXVI is already net profit. Please inform yourself before you discuss it, and don't take misleading titles as fact.

***With FF16 being a part of it as the article also makes mention. So excusing FF16 because of Sony paying for exclusivity would be wrong. ***

You're essentially trying to say it's FFXVI fault for not earning more money to cover for the huge losses elsewhere. What a ridiculous claim.

[MrNinosan]

You have reading issues, that's fine, but what is said is that FFXVI couldn't cover the loss of the other games.
FFXVI itself has covered for it's costs and more

[Eonjay]

@Chris

This happens when you try to pigeonhole a narrative into a general statement. Logic tells us that FF16 probably already paid for itself. But he is trying to push this narrative so hard but it is logically inconsistent.

[CrashMania]

Yeah, I'm sure the whopping sales potential of an xbox version, which JRPGs typically perform poorly on, and with gamepass cannibilisation really would have made up for the company as a whole dropping 2 billion. It should get a decent bump from the PC version though at least.

Also FF16 was not the driving factor behind this and you know it.

[Einhander1972]

maniacmayhem

No, that's wrong.

What he was talking about is projections.

So Square presumably said we expect this game to sell between 1m and 5m and they sold 3m.

What he said was "we didn't meet the high end projection" but they factually said multiple times that they game met sales expectations and was profitable.

The game sold 3m in it's first week, what other game has ever sold 3m in one week and come under this level of criticism... it's just a media smear campaign.

[shinoff2183]

It'll sell on pc sure but it ain't selling much on xbox that's been proven in the past numerous times. It's even worse now, hell ms don't even release real sales numbers anymore , there's a reason why

[Valkyrye]

bruh you're wrong, it's okay, not your first time nor your last

[InUrFoxHole]

No bro. I said a while back that they weren't pleased with the sales. I was told there was no proof.
@Gold drake
You can't act like FF not selling how they hoped didn't contribute though.

[Extermin8or3_]

Literally not what they said, infact they said the exact opposite. They said ff16 had sold well and met expectations given the install base of ps5. It had a higher attach rate than ff7 remake part 1.

[wiz7191]

@gold_drake it sold 3.5 million on a console the supposedly sold over 40 million ? And that’s worldwide that’s literally only 7.5% of the ppl who own PS5 bought FF16 .. Ppl just hate to admit that Sony deal isn’t paying off as much ..

[maniacmayhem]

You guys are desperate trying your best to paint a different picture despite many articles here and what I left actually say.

FF 16 did not meet sales expectations, and couldn't offset their losses, facts, this along with Square's many other failed games has not only caused them to sell their western devs but now rethink their platform releases.

But yeah FF 16 being on one platform didn't add to Square's already financial problem, everyone here knows more than the actual muliple stories being reported about Square and Square saying it themselves.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

Can we not pretend that Square-Enix has made multiple bad decisions over the years with just as many flops as they've had wins alongside their ridiculous sales expectations? Porting everything to everything will not help them out of this mess they created for themselves (Phil can't do squat for them), they just need more games to succeed and have less flops.

[MrBaskerville]

@Einhander
Might even have more switch exclusives than ps exclusives at this point. They also have Octopath Traveller which is on xbox and not ps, which people also seem to forget.

I'd imagine MS would have bought them by now if they weren't stuck in the Activision deal. Especially now that the price is dropping and now that they have all these sony deals. Same idea as with Bethesda.

[Rude-ro]

Ff16 was not going to do billions in sales and will not do billions once on other platforms.

[lelo2play]

They should have asked more money from Sony.

Hope they learned their lesson... NEXT TIME ASK FOR WAY MORE MONEY.

[shinoff2183]

I'd be curious to what Sony spent but it was probably a kings ransom. Pc will help ff16 but ff16 isn't the issue.

Personally I'm blaming the switch exclusives, no physical for releases etc

[Einhander1972]

Can you conceptualize the difference between 2 Billion dollars and the budget of a video game?

Hint: Sony games generally cost around 200m.

[fr0sty]

FF16's budget was insanely high... 711 million. That's over 10 million copies, assuming every penny goes back to Square (it doesn't, they get like 70% of that), just to break even. Sony probably funded half of that, so in reality Square probably isn't far from break even, but that is still an astronomically high development cost that is far too difficult to recoup at $70/copy. At this point, even if they do break even, they're relying on bargain bin sales to keep any actual profit flowing in.

I think they went way over-budget and need to re-evaluate their development practices in order to keep budgets under tighter control.

[shinoff2183]

That's kinda crazy cause square has said ff16 is already profitable. I'm not sure who to believe frosty or square(the horses mouth)

[isarai]

That's not what they spent developing FFXIV, that was their total game spending budget for the latest fiscal year including ALL games and their respective marketing.

[nommers]

That was a yearly expenditure. I know what you’re looking at too. You thought a comment from gamefaqs was a legit source.

[gold_drake]

id love to see actual evidence for this.

there is no way 16 was close to a billion dollars worth of budget. it may have been in development for a long time but .. you know.

[Einhander1972]

Where did you get that 714 million number from.... there is NO WAY FFXVI cost 3 times more than God of War and HFW and TLOU 2...

(scrolling down isarai answered this)

[fr0sty]

@isarai, that makes more sense... I knew 3/4 of a billion was a bit high for development of one game, that would be setting records. Blame the gaming media for inaccurate reporting of the numbers.

[Extermin8or3_]

They have literally said jts made them a profit.

[shinoff2183]

They have a couple switch games idda bought day one on ps. I typically don't buy switch games unless it's Nintendo. I don't really even care for the system.

[PunksOnN4G]

Chocobo racing failedcuz it was like the mobile version i thin kthey just started selling it as a full title now.... also Chocobo racing shold be on PS4 and XB why put it on switch where u have mario kart LOL

[neutralgamer1992]

Final fantasy isn’t the problem it’s one of the few IP’s making them money. Square are just very confusing TBH. They release some great games but every year they also release shallow failures

Those who are blaming FF16 exclusive deal doesn’t understand that it may not have met sales expectations But it sold well and made profit. Also square got paid a lot by Sony upfront too. Square wanted FF16 to cover the cost of other failures which is absolutely ridiculous

[Extermin8or3_]

It did meet sales expectations ffs the exact quote was "it didn't quite meet the highest projections but it did meet expectations and had a higher attach rate than ff7 remake part 1. They'll put it on ps plus around pc release for another wad of cash from Sony and kt'll pretty easily hit the 10 million overall sales by about Xmas. It's gotta be on 5 million maybe more.

[TheEroica]

Forespoken "sorta" bombing... 😂 Good one. On the most optimistic of days Forespoken was dead on arrival trash. Everyone knew it before release to...

[Profchaos]

Not to mention they sold off some of gamings biggest IP like tb raider to invest in nfts

[MrBaskerville]

Also Dragon Quest XII is missing in action. It's been ages since they revealed the title.

[Sonyslave3]

Damn Nintendo you know what to do.

[Alos88]

Continue to stay out of acquiring publishers? Yes, that is a good idea.

[Einhander1972]

What should they do exactly?

Most of Square Enix games were on Nintendo, who already has the largest portfolio from the publisher in the past few years.

So I guess what your saying is that it's Nintendo fault...

Of course your saying that not me, I know that on of the largest problems was that Square's mobile games in Japan underperformed more than anything in their premium games library. And that Final Fantasy 16 was actually likely one of their most profitable games recently, despite the smear campaign started by Bloomberg.

[shinoff2183]

Lol yea OK Sonyslave, square already dipped on Nintendo for their stubbornness to keep releasing inferior sh. It's how square and sony started working together to begin with

[CrimsonWing69]

My only hope is they see that changing Final Fantasy to appeal to non-Final Fantasy fans and the success of turn-based RPGs like Persona and Baldur's Gate 3 makes them try to make a game their long-running fans have been begging for.

Final Fantasy 16 was not it. I understand it has a bunch of fans and it's not a terrible game, but I literally went back and played FF 1-6 Pixel Remaster, FF9 HD Remaster, and Im currently on FF10 HD Remaster and it's maybe some of the most fun I've had with gaming in a few years. These classic games blow away anything that's come after them.

I mean just give it a shot Square, it can't perform any worse than 16.

And yes, this isn't squarely (pun-intended) on FF16, but we also had Forspoken, Valkyrie Elysium, DioField Chronicles, Star Ocean, and a bunch others underperform.

My biggest fear is them cancelling Front Mission Remake titles... god that would be a kick to the taint from them. But I know the first one sold like steaming diarrhea.

[jeromeface]

if you think design from 20 years ago is the answer you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem.

[CrimsonWing69]

Right, because current design is totally selling well for them...

[Christopher]

***Right, because current design is totally selling well... ***

It literally is... the new designed FF is their biggest profit gain and their losses are on other projects, many of which are based on the old ideas you want to go back to.

[shinoff2183]

I've already seen you complaining about people playing older games. I cant take your opinion serious. Sounds like your one of those graphics guys or something. Ff16 for instance can't hold up to some of those OLDER final fantasies titles.

[Chriswynnetbh]

@Christopher None of their side projects that are based on older games have the name recognition that FF does so comparing the two is disingenuous and I think you know that. Everyone always likes to whip out the old "turn based is dead" argument but look at Bauldur's Gate. FF is desperate for a true return to form and I'm 100% with Crimson that FFXVI was not it

[Nebaku]

Turn based and Action are genres. Their designs can't be old or new.

People love to pretend like Action RPG's didn't exist until recently. When stuff like Secret of Mana and Star Ocean 1 were on the SNES.

But by all means, continue labeling people with different taste as yourself as a problem.

[RoseSapphire]

-= looks at the two games OP mentioned =-

Yeah, Persona and Baldur's Gate 3 sure did so bad with that "design from 20 years ago..."

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

The classics are classics for a reason, I don't even enjoy a lot of modern SE games, I look forward to P3R and Baldur's Gate more than FF game.

[Abnor_Mal]

While Final Fantasy 16 is an OK action game. It’s a terrible RPG. The lack of true magic like using shell, protect, and other spells and items really made this game sun standard for me.

I’ve been playing for a month now and am close to the end, I just finished the Brotherhood section of the game. I’m so bored of the game thst I want to just walk away from it but I know I’m also close to the end.

The action and gameplay is bland and worse is the game switches your skills on its own even though you have the ability to do so at your choosing. I he geme can be played using only on hand which is often how I find myself playing while scrolling through instagram.

The story is throwaway and not interesting in the least.

[CrimsonWing69]

I really disliked 16. I think it started off extremely strong with the Benedikta arc, but after that the only thing I could give it credit for were the major boss battles. The environments were boring, the story was paced awfully and has so many plot holes or full on sequences you need to read the lore on to understand, enemy variety was terrible, combat... was, alright I guess.

I look at what Atlus is doing or what Yakuza 7 has done, and clearly turn-based isn't as archaic as they thing. It's literally a genre of game. I mean people play chess and that's turn-based... I mean, give it a shot. Clearly they're not hitting home runs here with this whole drastic shift to appealing to non-fans.

If anything I think FF7 Remake nailed it for modern FF design. But even then, if you hold something like FF9 to FF7 Remake and do a side by side comparison the FF7 Remake still lacks so much that FF9 offered. I also think of something like Lost Odyssey. I just wish they'd try to get back to what made FF so great and stop trying something new to appeal to people who aren't interested.

[shinoff2183]

It felt extremely dumbed down. I love the story though, wish the ending was different but I'm not the creator so it's their story.

[Christopher]

Literally complaining about their most profitable game other than MMOs.

[CrimsonWing69]

https://www.glitched.online...

Yet it failed to meet sales expectations.

Profitable isn’t the same as “sold better than”. The game did “sell better than” the rest of their games, but it didn’t sell more than FF7 Remake did and like with movies most sales dramatically slow after the initial launch window. How is it “profitable” if they’re saying it didn’t meet sales expectations. Did it just break even to recoup cost, can you show me the data that it made the publisher a profit? Or are just saying, “Well it sold 3 mill, which is more than most of their games sold, so it’s a profit.”

FF15 took 6 years to sell 10 mill across multiple platforms. I can tell you right now that FF16 isn’t going to hit that number.

So, I don’t think it’s “profitable” in the sense that you’re saying it’s the better selling game they’ve had since… I guess FF7 Remake.

[thesoftware730]

The article clearly says that they were hoping FF16 would recoup the loss of profit from other games, not from itself, which it failed to do. So it did not do what was expected.

SE is being mismanaged, we seem to call it out when other companies are mismanaged, so why are we defending SE, when they clearly are moving in a bad direction? Is it because FF16 and Forespoken, two PS exclusives underperformed?

SE is trying to right the ship, and they said they are going to focus on bigger games and stop with the smaller projects, and then they plan to add Xbox to the mix...they saw the path they were taking wasn't fruitful, so now they are trying to right the ship. You can bet that they will announce games coming to Xbox on the 21st at TGS.

[Christopher]

*** Yet it failed to meet sales expectations. ***

Again, nothing to do with the $2b loss here. Stop trying to make it about FFXVI. It's like you want to try and make it like FFXVI didn't make a profit.

***So, I don’t think it’s “profitable” in the sense that you’re saying***

Literally is profitable. It brought in more cash than it cost to make and overhead. That's what I'm saying. It's what SE has said. This is a fact.

[CrimsonWing69]

“Literally is profitable. It brought in more cash than it cost to make and overhead. That's what I'm saying. It's what SE has said. This is a fact.”

Show me the data please. If Square said it failed to meet sales projections then that’s fact that it wasn’t “profitable”.

Let me ask you this, what’s the percentage of total from the sales that goes directly into Square as gross profit? What’s the % that goes into retailers/distributors pockets? What’s the amount they spent on marketing and advertising?

Do you take any of that into account?

You show me the data that this game was profitable and I’ll acknowledge that you know what you’re talking about.

When Square literally tells investors FF16 failed to meet sales demands, that’s not an indicator of “profitability” to me.

Any game that sells enough to cover dev cost and overhead with the math you did could be sales in the hundred thousands, yet nobody is saying a game that sells less than a mill is “profitable”. 150,000 at $70 a pop equates to 10mill… so I guess all the games that sold 150,000 must’ve been profitable for their publishers, huh?

I don’t know if you remember a game called Kingdom of Amalur, but it needed to sell 3 mill to break even

https://www.eurogamer.net/k...

So, you wanna do the math on that one? Mind you this was a game form 2012.

[Christopher]

*** Show me the data please. If Square said it failed to meet sales projections then that’s fact that it wasn’t “profitable”. ***

*facepalm*

Two completely different things there.

***what’s the percentage of total from the sales that goes directly into Square as gross profit?***

Per Michael Pachter, $40 for a $60 game at a B&M store, not including any additional profits for special editions or digital only release and not including any funding from Sony. That's 3m in the first week, which is $120m.

Square paid off the entirety of the dev costs, which is ~$100m based on the complete amortization at the end of FY24.

This doesn't include sales after that, increased profits from digital, Sony's funding, etc.

Now, is ~$20m off of 3m what they wanted? Obviously not. They wanted more. Every business in the industry wants more. It's the whole point of the game. Does that mean the ~$20m profits aren't profits, though? No. And in fact, since then, they've obviously sold more, will have more digital content that will bring in even more money with higher profit margins.

So, to argue as if FFXVI is what is costing them such harsh losses is just uninformed arguments aimed at the wrong issue.

[CrimsonWing69]

“Per Michael Pachter, $40 for a $60 game at a B&M store, not including any additional profits for special editions or digital only release and not including any funding from Sony. That's 3m in the first week, which is $120m.

Square paid off the entirety of the dev costs, which is ~$100m based on the complete amortization at the end of FY24.”

Again you don’t take into account marketing which in cases like film cost as much or more than the production itself.

I posted an article where 3mill units for a $60 game, that didn’t have a massive budget like most AAA games, could only break even from selling that much in a time where games didn’t cost as much to make as they do now.

A profit of 20 mill on a 100 mill project doesn’t seem sustainable especially given the amount they dump into other projects.

And this adds up to loss. I’m sure when we see another article on Square loses an X amount of money post FF16 sales we can revisit this and go through the whole “told you so” ordeal.

[CrimsonWing69]

"Per Michael Pachter, $40 for a $60 game at a B&M store, not including any additional profits for special editions or digital only release and not including any funding from Sony. That's 3m in the first week, which is $120m.

Square paid off the entirety of the dev costs, which is ~$100m based on the complete amortization at the end of FY24."

Again, you're not taking into account marketing and other factors that go into all the costs of production. By your logic if a game made $1 over development cost that's considered "profitable" when it's not "profitable" that's profit. You and I do not know the full amount beyond the development cost that went into this game. In film, marketing and advertising can cost the same as the cost of production, if not more.

Making 20 mill off a 100 mill production where you have multiple projects that exceed 20 mill to develop and they DO NOT bring in a profit is how we get to this $2bn loss in market value.

Let's put it this way if you're dumping 100mill into a game and say half that in multiple projects and the profit you bring in is less than the cost of operations happening, it's not "profitable." That 20mill is like saying, "well it made a dollar over production, that's profit!".

Basically, there's a difference between "profit," as you are using where a $1 over dev cost is "profit," and "profitability," which is a measurement of how well a company is doing for the business owner and stockholders.

Here read this: https://www.freshbooks.com/...

I posted an article on here clearly showing a game back in 2012, where development cost wasn't as expensive as it is now, needing 3 million in sales at MSRP to break even. That's not even to make profit, that's just recouping what they spent, which isn't sustainable even if they did make a profit of 20mill. My point is 20 million isn't profitable for Square when they have multiple projects that exceed that cost and pulling in from a game that cost 5 times to develop.

I don't know if it's because you're going full fanboy or what, but nowhere in my initial post did I say this 2bn loss was the result of FF16. I literally said they tried to appeal to non-fans and it did not pan out at all for them and it did not bring in the "profit" they were expecting and wanting. It was not their most "profitable" game since FF14, FF7 Remake sold more and from my understanding that also failed to pull in what they were hoping. I also listed multiple titles that failed for them pre FF16.

Don't take offense to this, but neither you nor I know the numbers needed for FF16 to be considered financially successful. FF15 was said by the director that it needed to sell 10 million to be a "success". It did that in 6 years. This game will not hit that number and Square was banking on it to sell more than it did, which it did not.

I guess at this point we just wait for the next article that says, "Square Enix lost X amount of money post FF16 launch," before we can do the whole "I told you so" ordeal.

[DudeBroPrime]

So there’s certainly nuance to this claim that you’re overlooking. SE devalued itself and reduced its net profits by 65% and operating income by 78% so that they could reallocate that money to pay off Final Fantasy 16’s development costs. They did this because the game wasn’t meeting the sales expectations to be one profitable by industry standards. This makes all future copies of the game after like mid August or so to be profitable.

They literally used their own money to make the game look better on paper.

[DudeBroPrime]

There’s more nuance to that claim than I think you know. SE devalued themselves by reducing net profits by 65% and operating income by 78% in order to pay off Final Fantasy XVI’s development costs as the game was not meeting sales numbers to become profitable by industry standards.

By paying off the debt it allows the game to be viewed as profitable starting around mid August. Quite literally SE used its own money, devaluing itself, to make the game look better on paper.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say I open a lemonade stand and I need to sell 100 cups in three days to break even from the money I invested. In two days I’ve sold 50 cups and I still have 50 sitting on the table. If I were to pull an SE here I would basically take the he money I earned from the 50 sales I made and use that money to buy my last 50 cups. So now I’m left with no profit, no debt, and 50 cups of lemonade that it doesn’t really matter if I sell or not.

[Christopher]

*** Again you don’t take into account marketing which in cases like film cost as much or more than the production itself. ***

Sony did all the marketing...

You're stretching it here.

How about this. I'll give you $100m more cost for FFXVI. You've got it. Now, what about that other $1,9b? You want to make it about FFXVI so bad, you are just blinding yourself to all the real problems in the company.

[randomvoice]

FF16 sold decently well and honestly I prefer it over any other FF game I've played in the past. People need to stop thinking stock price fluctuations are directly related to game sales. It sold 3 million+ units during launch so it easily made its money back and then some. The main issue was that PS5 is still in its mid-cycle and a next gen launch meant a lot of PS4 owners were skipped. They'll eventually hop on a PS5 and play it but if SE was expecting the same sales as a PS4+PS5 launch game, then they were kidding themselves.

The other camp will make a big deal as usual but history has shown FF games never sell well on Xbox. FF15 had like 95% sales come on PlayStation. They usually just like to run their mouth as opposed to backing things with their wallets.

[CrimsonWing69]

We’ll see.

I mean by the logic of your math, if a game cost 10mill to development and let's say 10mill to market and the game sold at $70 then a game needs to only sell an estimated 300,000 copies to make its money back. Yet, somehow Square's losing a lot of money.

Forspoken supposedly made $7mill in 3 months from Steam numbers alone with approximately 100,000 units sold.

Let's say the same was sold on PS5 making the revenue to $14million. Now, technically that made a profit... so why is Square losing so much money then? Octopath Traveler 2 sold 3 million units... why is Square talking about loss?

Unless, we don't know what we're talking about just by multiplying units sold by the standard MSRP cost of a game and that doesn't equate to profitability and financial stability for the company.

[thesoftware730]

You just said a lot without saying anything. The game sold relative to the PS5 install base, and dropped off dramatically shortly after....that is code for it sold ok...not "and then some" like you would like to trick yourself to believe.

"The other camp will make a big deal as usual but history has shown FF games never sell well on Xbox."

No one is making anything a big deal except the defenders of facts, the company is down 2bill, and FF16, Forspoken and other SE games underperformed.

And BTW, SE sure doesn't agree with you about Xbox, pledging a lot more future support and starting off with their biggest money maker says the opposite of what you said...so not even the company you are defending agree with you...but ok, live in la la land

[shinoff2183]

Crimson I agree, except star ocean if I'm not mistaken sold pretty good. Star ocean was never a huge seller. It's a cult kinda game. I loved star ocean 6. Put 200 plus hours into it maybe 250. I enjoyed it more then ff16.

I wish square would let us pre order some of these smaller titles physically, idda bought front mission, ff collection and others. Just let us pre order and press what sold. It pays for itself.

[CrimsonWing69]

Oh did it?

I mean, here's the deal I love games like Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean 2nd Story, but I think the new devs just can't capture what made them well with these latest entries.

I should give the new Star Ocean a shot. I did beat DioField and Valkyrie Elysium... I didn't hate them, but they were clearly like C-Team level AA projects.

I'm not sure if you're a Front Mission fan, 3 and 4 were my jams, but if you are you should check out the Remake of FM1. I think it's pretty damn good if you're into that style of game.

[H9]

Preach

[Extermin8or3_]

Ff16 sold faster than almost any other ff game. I that a higher attwch rate than ff7 remake and reviewed incredibly well. They aren't going to deviate from the trajectory they are on which has been a long time coming.

[CrimsonWing69]

https://www.theloadout.com/...

https://comicbook.com/gamin...

No... it didn't...

"it's actually selling less quickly than the last two games in the series: Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy VII: Remake. That said, there are a few important caveats to keep in mind when trying to compare Final Fantasy 16 to previous games.

If you're just comparing pure numbers, FF16 is unquestionably behind FF15 and FF7: Remake. Remake only needed three days to hit three million copies sold, while 15 did five million on its first day."

Can you show me where you found out that the attach rate is higher than FF7 Remake or did you make that up?

[-Foxtrot]

I hope aswell they see that changing FF to become more accessible to amore mainstream audience will not automatically give them more sales and they’ll go back to turn based

It’s clearly not working so what’s the point

[Petebloodyonion]

I think the problem with FF16 is how the gameplay differs from past versions and how it might turn down some previous fans.

[VersusDMC]

It wasn't a problem with XI, XII, XIV and XV. I can grant that maybe the dmc type action is the problem for sales being lower but not changing the gameplay in general as they have done that several times already.

[MrNinosan]

FFXVI is the only game from SE that isn't a part of the problem, if you're talking about the $2 billion loss

[Petebloodyonion]

I'm not refering to the financial problem of SE as bad choices from others games are probably the culprid.
I'm just talking about why FF16 seems to have performed under expectations.
Also I'm not criticizing the quality of the game but just how the change for a more direct combat apprach might have turn down some fans of the more RPG side of FF.

[shinoff2183]

I'm sure there's a ff forum somewhere out there that there's plenty of those of us that aren't thrilled

[shinoff2183]

I've been playing ff since nes and it turned me off, trying to appeal to the younger audience has about killed it for me. I'll pick up ff remake titles 7 and 9 and if they ever do more of the older ones but I won't buy new ones day one anymore. I can't be the only one here that feels the same. I liked the action rpgness of star ocean 6 better then ff16

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I can't even be bothered to pick up the FF7 remake at this point, I just can't get excited for FF anymore or rush out and buy the game. Still getting the Star Ocean 2 remake when it comes out though.

[Christopher]

Title makes it seem like it's the fault of FFXVI, but it's not. They're wasting money on other projects.

[Obscure_Observer]

"Title makes it seem like it's the fault of FFXVI, but it's not."

So it´s up to SE to come out and clarify things. If Final Fantasy XVI is not part of the equation, than 2 Billion loses would be even higher.

[IRetrouk]

Or the people writing these pieces could, i dont know, maybe look at the info/numbers and investigate? Kinda what they are supposed to do, no? Square expected ff16 to offset more of their losses than it did, game made a profit, its part of the equation regardless, its just not part of the losses.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

They did try that shotgun approach of multiple AA games like Star Ocean 6, Valkyrie Elysium, Diofield Chronicles and Havestella, ect... I don't think any of those games did particularly well. Then there's the flop of games like Forspoken, Guardians and TWEWY NEO (at least two of those games were good though).

[CDbiggen]

It'll sell well on PC next year.

[MrNinosan]

It won't, but the article is not about FFXVI

[CDbiggen]

Yes ok bud, you've told us enough times now.

[MrNinosan]

@CDbiggen
Only once did I reply to you. Hope you'll be alright and recover quickly.

[randomvoice]

If there was ever a good time for Sony to buy them out, now is it...

[Shane Kim]

To be fair, no one knows what Sony is doing as of late.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I'd rather not cheer on or encourage consolidation of the gaming industry.

[anast]

Like I have said many times, there is not enough actual creative talent in the gaming industry, but everyone has got to get a slice, which makes sh#$ decisions and games unavoidable.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

No, it's too many greedy people and the cost of making AAA games, more indies and AA games would be fine, plus less CEOs ruining developers would be nice.

[Azurite]

Haven't been this low since last year.

[MrNinosan]

For people who can't read.
It's not because of FFXVI.
FFXVI is one of the few games that actually have sold enough to cover the costs. The article even mention that FFXVI can't save the loss of all the other games.

Forspoken, Chocobo Racing, First Soldier etc.

[Obscure_Observer]

It was Square Enix choices, now they will have to deal with it.

[TriniOutsider]

The title is legit misleading and is clickbait at best. SE had been bleeding before the game even dropped. I also like how people are blaming Sony for this situation.

[Levii_92]

This game is the biggest disappointment for me this year.. well so far at least.

[GamingSinceForever]

I can tell by a lot of these comments that they didn’t even bother reading the article. This has nothing at all to do with Sony. It’s internal politics and game development issues. It costs even more to develop additional versions of these games and it’s not like XBoxers would significantly increase sells so they would have been even further in the losses department.

[LordoftheCritics]

FF16 cannot carry the mess that Squeenix have created for themselves with their decade long poor decision making.

[jznrpg]

GaaS is their biggest issue. Give us some games we are asking for not blockchain etc they talk about. Vagrant Story remake and stuff like that.

[PunksOnN4G]

Why xbox kids acting like they buy and support Final fantasy... FF15 Sales by platform week 1 xboxs:306,347 Ps4: 3,437,276. Bro thats a 90+ split for ff15 and its even worse if we for by the final total LOL

[Nacho_Z]

This makes it sound like FF16 has tanked the company when in reality it's one of their few recent successes. I don't normally advocate for acquisitions but I think SE would be a sensible purchase for Sony, they have good franchises but need better direction. Way better.

Considering this news this would be the time to pick them up on the cheap.

[Runechaz]

yep.. no one want to play their hack n slash game.. bring back the good old formula. Turn base !!

[jznrpg]

Market cap can change and have little to do with the company sometimes. I do think it’s partly economy partly bad gaas games , other bombs and focus on blockchain.

[z2g]

maybe they should have thought about releasing more broadly..... FF16 wasn't exactly flying off the shelves as a ps5 only title

[Lionsguard]

If Sony is ever going to buy Square it'll be now when the valuation is lower.

[smashman98]

Square's issue isn't their good games, but rather how often they whiff. These constant talks of NFT's and Crypto games are one thing. on the other hand, they seem to have no actual release strategy and will often send 7 or 8 games out at around the same time. For instance last year, Valkyrie Elisum, Star Ocean DF, Harvestella, Tactics Ogre: Reborn, Romancing SaGa, Dragon Quest Treasures, and Crisis Core Reunion all came out in a 90-day period.

Square would be better served slowing down its release cadence and giving these titles a much better marketing cycle rather than putting out 7 titles that all end up cannibalizing one another.

[Exvalos]

I'm terrified Microsoft is going to buy them out

[TriniOutsider]

I doubt that is gonna happen.

[Exvalos]

Hope not but, they now have a deal and a working relationship, square recently sold a bunch of ip's to Embracer.

[repsahj]

Misleading title and thumbnail. XD

[RhinoGamer88]

Have any Square Enix Execs been given their walking papers for this fiasco? Or is it like with the Xbox Execs, no accountability.

[StarkR3ality]

Square make bad decisions all the time. They have had wins with FF16, but honestly, Final Fantasy doesn't pull the kinda numbers that warrants a platform exclusive. After that on stage get together with Phil, don't be surprised if they go back to Multiplatform as it's not just Xbox, you've got a massive fan base on PC that you're just missing out on because Jim's giving you a few bucks.

Clearly it's not working, I loved FF16, as many people as possible should be able to play that game.

[TheExecutioner]

Its not because of exclusivity .. the remake was exclusive and it sold more.

This game must have been released for PS4 too and this why its has less sales

[BanginTunes]

They're releasing too many games at once, most of which kinda suck. Even the games that aren't bad like Triangle Strategy and Octopath 2 have similar games releasing close to it like Diofield Chronicles and to a lesser extent Bravely Default 2.

FF16 while it's pretty fun doesn't feel like a next gen polished game to me despite what the marketing said. The framerate sucks, the graphics aren't that impressive outside of some of the setpieces, and it's full of weird design like the sprint system and the disjointed world. It feels like an early Xbox 360 game.

[RiseNShine]

Other than their big games, they launch games with barely any ad campaigns or promotion, Star Ocean, Romancing Saga, Harvestella, Valkyre Elisium, etc they basically send them to die in many cases.

[MEGANE]

Sony, ur move.

[DefenderOfDoom2]

Yeah it is really a big huge gamble when making a big triple A game . Cost more than a big production movie and takes longer to develop.

[contra157]

This is a franchise that square just needs to let go start using all these resources for something new