Square Enix Reveals Final Fantasy XVI and FF7 Rebirth Sales Fell Short of Expectations

Square Enix recently released Final Fantasy XVI and FF7 Rebirth. However, the sales of these games did not meet their expectations.

[gold_drake]

look, go multiplat.

but i doubt its gonna be such a game changer in the future.

u cant release any of your never games on the switch cause of the lower power (and the additional work for handheld mode amd making your games actuallyrun on it), switch 2 will have the same issue for most of them.

xbox releases wont give u the numbers ur missing either.

and your pc releases are always so messy.

[Obscure_Observer]

"look, go multiplat."

They´d tried the exclusive route with Playstation and at least for the current generation it´s been failure after failure. Babylon´s Fall, Forspoken, Foamstars, FFXVI, FF7 Rebirth...

Now they´re following the multi platform route and leaving the exclusivity behind. They´ll be better off that way, just like all third party publisher.

Going fully exclusive with a single platform when the said platform is not fully funding your games, is just a fool´s errand. Especially nowadays.

[trez1082]

Short of expectations doesn't mean a failure. Both final fantasy are successful games that still fell short of Square's expectations and sold less than predecessors. As for " fool's errand " well, Koei tecmo and Skill announced Both Rise of the ronin and stalla blade have exceeded expectations. Those games are only PlayStation at the moment.

Going multi plat will be good for them but there's still a place for console exclusives to be successful.

[Braindeadninja]

Actually the quality of the games were to blame also Babylon foamstar n forspoken were universally criticized.

[Obscure_Observer]

@trez1082

"Short of expectations doesn't mean a failure. Both final fantasy are successful games that still fell short of Square's expectations and sold less than predecessors."

For shareholders, executives, partners and investors that were projecting ROI based on sales, those games are nothing but failures.

"As for " fool's errand " well, Koei tecmo and Skill announced Both Rise of the ronin and stalla blade have exceeded expectations."

Last time I checked, Koei Tecmo´s expectations and predictions for Rise of the Ronin fell short as they were expecting that game to sell more than 5 Million copies. (I mean, really?)

https://gamingbolt.com/rise...

Stellar Blade is a completely different case as Sony money hatted Shift Up to keep that game away from both Xbox One and Series consoles while making it a timed-exclusive game to Playstation delaying it´s release on PC. It´s a PAID exclusive which falls in line with what I´d said in my OP:

"Going fully exclusive with a single platform when the said platform is not *fully funding* your games, is just a fool´s errand. Especially nowadays."

My point stands. Have a nice week.

[gold_drake]

what u said is not wrong at all, about the exclusivity, However.

square finds themselves, as many other Japanese devs, that their games just dont sell on xbox.

and nintendo has created a hardware space, were these devs just dont wanna do extra work to make their demanding games run on that hardware.

and pc .. well, its also alot of work.

so, its not too cut and dry to say "oh they should all go multi".

[Profchaos]

Forspoken was funded by Sony but outside of this FF exclusivity seems to be just because of the franchises history/ Sony used to have a stake in square it's not a financial or contractual obligation so it's a real head scratcher why xvi and vii remake were exclusive.

[Prayingathiest]

Tbh I never completed either got bored half way through each game overhyped imo

[EternalTitan]

16 is a disaster and non final fantasy game.

[Levii_92]

I knew it all along. I really disliked and was soo bored of FF16 and Rebirth is a good game but it's an overstuffed turkey plagued with unnecessary sections with convoluted anime nonsense story.

[Giga_Gaia]

Going multiplatform won't even help. Switch (and Switch 2 as well) are underpowered, so you'd have trouble running the game on those.

Xbox is just so irrelevant that it won't give you any boost to your number.

PC is the only other option to boost your numbers. Well not exactly true. Releasing on PS4 would have done it, but you'd be gimping your games.

Leaving the PS4 behind should have been done a year after the release of the PS5 by every single developers. Yes, you would have pissed the people who haven't upgraded yet, but who cares, it needs to be done so that they're forced to upgrade. It would have boosted the PS5 sales numbers.

[gold_drake]

love how we got to the same conclusion, doesnt happen alot on this website ha

[CrashMania]

Unfortunately you'll just have xbox trolls spinning the narrative that it's Sony's fault they didn't meet SE's lofty expectations, as if Xbox would move the needle remotely, and FF16 current player count on steam isn't exactly lighting up the world, but it probably makes sense to at least go day and date with PC.

Could maybe look to Switch 2, but FF16 would've had to be severely gimped in every area to run on PS4 Base-Pro level hardware. 16 sold 3.5 million in it's first week, and it's safe to assume it's probably what, 4.5-5 million by now? Not bad for a single platform, but I think FF just isn't the sales titan it used to be either.

[Profchaos]

By all accounts switch 2 will be the weakest of this gen however not by a lot and there's positives here like dlss and arm efficiency that other gen 9 consoles don't have if optimised right I think we could see switch 2 achieve Xbox series s fidelity

[-Foxtrot]

They decided to go against turn based because they assumed turn based wouldn’t sell, yet everything they’ve done with different battle styles hasn’t done jack shit sales wise

I mean Christ, FFVII is their golden child, being on PS only shouldn’t have mattered, the sales should have been fantastic for them.

FVII Remake shouldn’t have been a trilogy, they could have done it with two games it they really wanted to. There’s things in Remake they added to Midgar they didn’t really need to add to prolong the game and I think if they got up to Junon in Remake then Rebirth could have finished it if they followed the original story and didn’t try to make it so over the top and complicated.

Rebirth suffers with feeling bloated because they stretched things out to get another game out of the story meaning they filled Rebirth will side filler content.

The main numbered games need to go back to turn based, it works for Persona, it works for Like a Dragon, as long as the game is great it will sell.

FFXVI is a decent game but in some places it didn’t feel as FF like as it could have, it just was a better overall game than XIII and XV. It could have been a spin off at times with the battle system, it just felt so repetitive. If anything, I would have preferred Rebirths combat in XVI if. It turn based.

[EternalTitan]

16 only has one thing going for it : fast action battle system.

Storywise its a mess because it tries to be a political piece and a kaijuu battle simulator at the same time. Those two dont mix.

[Chard]

VII remake/birth have pretty good battle systems. I wouldn't expect turn based to have any positive impact on sales here

[porkChop]

It's weird. Square Enix have been having success with turn-based RPGs outside of FF, and turn-based RPGs in general have been seeing a bit of a resurgence. It doesn't make sense that Square Enix still keeps pushing action when the series' sales have steadily declined the further they go in that direction.

Just make a turn-based FF spinoff and see how it goes. Resident Evil stopped fighting its playerbase and gave them exactly what they wanted, and that's been a huge success. Square Enix needs to just listen to the playerbase.

[SPEAKxTHExTRUTH]

Another example of PS fanboys running their mouth about what exclusives they have instead of supporting them…

[pwnmaster3000]

This game sold millions. So you’re saying you seen millions of PS fanboys saying they bought the game or are you saying the fanboys that said they owned it didn’t contribute to the millions it sold??…. Use your brain bro. Your old enough.

[SPEAKxTHExTRUTH]

Considering how many millions of PS5’s are out there it clearly didn’t sell enough. Square themselves are saying it didn’t sell enough so who are YOU to argue that fact? The game didn’t sell enough and it was ONLY on PlayStation. Maybe you should use YOUR brain instead of being a blind defender of a company who don’t even know you exist…

[Outside_ofthe_Box]

Remember to Speak the Truth and say this for other consoles...

[SPEAKxTHExTRUTH]

Take a look at my comment history then come back and fix your comment. And this article is about PS not Xbox so stop deflecting.

[pwnmaster3000]

Who said I’m defending a company, but your statement was so dumb.

Let me break it down for you since you can’t use your brain.
You said “ Another example of PS fanboys running their mouth about what exclusives they have instead of supporting them…”. You’re basically saying the PS fanboys who bragged about exclusives didn’t support this game.
This game sold millions. So your saying a you seen millions of Sony fanboys bragging about ff7 exclusive and out of those millions. They didn’t support this game.

See how stupid your statement sounds.
Didn’t say anything about Sony or FF7 not meeting expectations.
Use your brain. Apparently you can’t if you think I was defending Sony lmaoo

[SPEAKxTHExTRUTH]

“A wise man once told me never argue with fools because people from a distance can’t tell who’s who”

[pwnmaster3000]

“A wise man once told me never argue with fools because people from a distance can’t tell who’s who” lol I’m assuming your the fool since you can’t see how moronic your statement is.

[TheNamelessOne]

Square can't release a single game without considering it an underperformer. Either way, at least they're stopping their platform exclusivity nonsense. It's obviously doing them no favors.

[CrimsonWing69]

Yea no sh*t. I love how we said this after the 3 mill for 16 and after the supposed 2.5 mill for Rebirth and everyone is screaming how we don’t know what we’re talking about because 3 mill x $70 = it was a success.

I absolutely adored Rebirth but was extremely bummed by that 2.5 mill in sales. I just pray that it doesn’t affect the final part of the Remake trilogy and they go even harder on it than Rebirth.

16 on the other hand… well, most of you know my feelings on that one.

[franwex]

I read that square was aware of the low install base for FF16 on the PS5, however they expected the game to continue to sell throughout the generation like previous Final Fantasy games. I cannot find the link though, but it make sense.

I imagine they should’ve had the same expectation for ff7 rebirth. I imagine even those lower expectations have not been met along with the expected adoption rate to consoles sold. Both are great games by the way.

[Sgt_Slaughter]

Oh hey it's the thing that everyone and their mother told you happened months ago, but certain sections of people kept denying it and blasted anyone speaking about it.

[LikAChicken]

I'm just now coming back to this site after many years and didn't catch this happening but I believe it. The blind tribalism for the hardware was bad during the ps3 <> 360 days but these days its bordering on bizarre. The current generation for consoles suck compared to years past (the games on both ends). PS4 launch titles was crazy good and got better as the generation went on. 360 and PS3 even had better more diverse games coming out.

It's probably likely due to the cost of game development getting out of control and more interest in safer bets.

[nommers]

I love how so many that are well aware of SE saying something didn’t meet expectations always chime in and act like this isn’t routine, or this will be the final nail, despite that sentiment going on for a very long time and it never being anything close to that.

[Trilithon]

FF15 had a similar slow start until it went multi platform and they released some bug fixs and royal addition. Ive played all of them and theyre all great in their own way but with 16 i had to skip through the most talking and the gameplay wasnt as smooth as the unreal engine stuff but it looked gorgeous

[P_Bomb]

Drop the digital price. It’s been 7 months. $94CAD is a turn off to some. Have some sales to get some sales.

[ZeekQuattro]

Not surprised in the slightest. Between global sales charts and the lack of updates from Square it was obvious things didn't go as planned for either title.

[shadowT]

FF7R GOTY!

[8bitAssassin]

If FF VII was the complete game then the numbers would be different. People don't episodes.

Xbox is a lost cause. All that whining and then never buy the games.

Nintendo can't even run it.

P.C gets bad ports and they're not the focus.

SE needs to make better forecasts, because they've been extremely consistent for the last 3 years.

[Fonsecap]

Stop with the exclusives and briog them to all platforms.

[Tankbusta40]

This has to go multiplat

[Profchaos]

Square enix never satisfied always disappointed with sales I can see a trend

[joab777]

I don’t want to hear this nonsense. I don’t know what the expectations were for 16, but Rebirth did fine.