To the surprise of many, Tecmo last week rejected a friendly takeover offer from Square Enix in favor of a merger with Dynasty Warrior publisher -- and rival -- Koei.
Tecmo and Koei are now working on a detailed merger plan together, as Tecmo has said joining up with Koei gives it a better shot at "boosting corporate value," even though the proposed merger would create a company only a third Square Enix's size.
Gamasutra recently spoke to Koei president Kenji Matsubara, who says that the current market in Japan "is very tough for third parties like us to do our business," which suggests that it may indeed be better in the eyes of smaller developers to join forces, rather than to be consumed by the larger ones.
Game industry working conditions are improving, but occupational burnout still runs amok. Studios and workers have the power to slow it down.
Quite being abusive to the workers and hold management accountable.
The acclaimed open world action RPG is "underperforming" where its sales are concerned, according to industry analyst Daniel Ahmad.
“Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Has Reportedly Sold About Half of What FF7 Remake Did in the Same Timeframe”
Makes sense to me since the current PS5 base is about half of what the PS4 base was when FFVII Remake released.
There were about 113 million PS4’s in consumers hands worldwide in 2020 when FFVII Remake was released (towards the beginning of COVID lockdown no less).
PS5 sales currently sits at about half of that (50-something million. We are not in COVID lockdown so many people are not as bored as they were 4 years ago and not in a rush to buy every video game coming out at release. Some PS4 owners may not have upgraded to PS5 yet and therefore can’t buy the sequel yet. And, of course, some who played Remake just might not be interested in Rebirth.
It just seems pretty disingenuous for an analyst to ‘analyze’ a situation when there are so many mitigating and unequal factors involved.
Yes, this and also finishing part 1 of the Final Fantasy Remake trilogy weighs heavily on it too. There's always a huge percentage of gamers who never finish the games they purchase. It's not always due to lack of enjoyment, but also life priorities etc. But factor that into the knowledge that Rebirth is a straight continuation of the story, and enjoyment lies heavily on having finished the first, you can begin to understand why not as many players jumped in. But absolutely too, the lesser install base of the PS5 played a huge role!
I started the game when it came out, played about 2/3 of the way through and finished the rest in the last month before rebirth came out. There are just too many games and too much adulting to do.
It sold about half... with about half as many PS5s available as PS4 had when it launched in 2020. So... the tie ratio is about the same. As PS5s continue to sale it should eventually match Remake. It's a really good game.
I think there's going to be another wave of buyers that purchase the game once the third part of the trilogy is released, especially if they release it as a bundle.
"Industry analyst Daniel Ahmad said this 🙄"
That guy is director of research & insights at Niko Partners.
https://nikopartners.com/
But he shouldn´t be trusted according to some "trust me bro" N4G random. Smh
Obscure Observer, so by your logic, we should also trust Pachter? Come on, it's like you're not even trying any more.
@Obscure
"We cover China, Chinese Taipei, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam."
Yepp, very trusted and the biggest areas for videogame sales.
@raWfodog You'd think an analyst would catch these facts, but just goes to show what gaming analysts are made of. We've only in the last year moved to PS5 only games, in addition to the install base cross-gen has been around for years. There are a lot of PS4 players still over there. It's amazing when people compare things whilst isolating all the significant facts.
And Rebirth being a direct sequel is also valid: anecdotally, I've just started FF7 Remake a week ago and I'm loving it, on Chapter 8, but I'm obviously not going to buy Rebirth until I complete the story which will take time.
But it's hasn't sold as much the articles om Google stating bit so what if it hasn't the game is still great better than remake which tailed of in middle-of-the- game
Apologists always know what to say... 👍
Is it possible to squeeze in one more excuses for FF7 sales? Go for it!
@TheEroica Understand the meaning of the words you use or don't use them. An apologist argues in defense of something controversial or problematic. Pointing out relevant facts that an analysis or article did not take into account is constructive feedback and discussion. There are great movies, games and other forms of art that don't sell as expected, but later gain financial success.
Example? The Godfather Part 2 underperformed financially compared to its predecessor but is widely hailed as one of the greatest films and sequels of all time and is still influential to this day. And no, I'm not comparing Final Fantasy 7 to the Godfather, before you draw that strawman. There is one loose similarity however in that Rebirth is also overwhelmingly acclaimed and considered superior to the first.
Given the decision to split Final Fantasy VII into three separate games, of which Rebirth released exclusively for PS5 leaving the PS4 install base behind, and the final installment due in 2027, the sales performance is a bit more of a conversation than you're trying to make it out to be.
Didn't even mention price increases across the board for all games...this causes all people to be more picky and limit game purchases
Unfortunate but it's the reality of sequels. And I simply just don't hear much people talk about rebirth and even remake as these titles just seem too hard to get into with many newcomers and old fans that are upset with the many changes.
The games are really good and both acclaimed and Rebirth is even better than Remake with a 90+ metascore but if you don't want to 'hear' the praise... you probably wont.
It's kind of ridiculous how some people here are just making stuff up to explain the low sales. Just because you bought the game and you like it doesn't mean it sold better than it did. Same with FFXVI.
For me its cause now that i know it releases on pc.. id rather play it with mods on my pc than my ps5
well, according to some other reports, it had 2.1 mio. players in the first week.
so, who to believe now.
It's safe to say if it sold that Square would of made a sales milestone announcement like they did with past FF entries or other IPs in general. They did a FF16 sales update within 2 weeks after it launched for instance.
there is no way this game hasnt already sold more than remake.
there doesnt need to be an announcement for everything, especially not if they released several updates amd the ultimania.
people are too obsessed with sales
I think there’s a reason we haven’t seen a celebratory tweet from Square on the sales. It came out on Feb. 29th and it’s Apr. 13th right now… that ain’t a good sign. I think this one can reach 3 mill at some point but will be behind Remake, which when it comes to business, that ain’t good.
Josh Sawyer tweets: "I believe burnout has already replaced crunch as the primary hazard of the game industry. Managers are setting teams up to fail and devs are getting ground up as collateral damage. I have suffered from burnout myself. It's no joke. Thanks to @thewritegame and @Eeoor for the talk.
As with crunch, it's likely that managers may acknowledge creating the circumstances leading to burnout but will not take the necessary steps to change them. It's important that devs continue to talk to and support each other and to apply pressure until change is effected."
