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[Fabieter]

The final fantasy audience is deeply fragmented because Square's development of the IP since the PS1 days has been very erratic.

Aesthetic and gameplay elements are rarely built on, and are instead comprehensively overhauled every game.

Compare how Sega has built up the Persona (from 3 on) and SMT franchises in recent years vs how Square did with their own crown jewels and you will see a massive difference imo. They're also doing the same with the Ichiban installments of Yakuza.

This just proves that most gamers just want to play the same shit over and over and don't actually want pubs to be innovative.

SQE forecast sales numbers are realistic to the budgets given to their developers. They were clearly expecting FF series to sell similarly to successful AAA Japanese games like Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Souls series but failed because of exclusive strategy they were adopting not inline with industry standards. Square Enix overestimated Playstation exclusive deal and underestimated multiplatform business strategy.

Where does it say they are explicitly disappointed with ff sales?

 

[Darsxx82]

You need to ask yourself how does Square's management able to keep their jobs - don't 90% of their games do not reach sales targets they set?

Based on my cursory search.

Phil came on stage with Yoshida and Kiryu (then brand new Square CEO) in July 2023.

Since then at least the following games have skipped Xbox:

- Star Ocean: Second Story R
- SaGa: Emerald Beyond
- Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven
- Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster
All these games can run on Xbox consoles just fine (including last gen), but not making Xbox versions of at least Star Ocean and Pixel Remaster is just weird and undercuts your big announcement.

Maybe when it was decided those games were already advanced in development and programmed?

According to several rumors, it is suggested that FF pixel Remaster could be announced soon on XBOX. I also remember that Octopha 2 was shadowdrop launched on XBOX (even gamepass). Maybe one of those is a similar case.

That said, I repeat, it does not have to mean that everything comes to Xbox but rather that more will arrive than previously. It will be especially important to see the big launches.

I didn't think it was theatrical, but the incompetence that followed afterwards is just strange to me, and only Square are to blame for that.

They somehow managed to make the worst out of a Sony moneyhat AND managed to miss the boat on the Series consoles launch slates. That's impressive in a sense.

Yes, Square is totally nonsense and impossible to predict.
I suppose that within a couple of years we will have answers about what the agreement with P. Spencer turned out to be and how the new strategy is working for them.

 

[delishcaek]

The problem is while final fantasy could have sold better all their AA games sold like crap. People forget those are expensive as well. So they should focus on AAA games.

Dunno about if they should focus on AAA games. I'd argue they should focus on making games people want and not games that betray their fans or are pure trash (Forspoken or Foamstars. like wtf?). Final Fantasy has sadly been on a decline ever since 13, XV was a flare up, 7 Remake should've revived it but alienated fans, hence 7 Rebirth didn't have it easy. 16 and Remake have pretty much split the fan base as 16 was a DMC action game and Remake was not a remake...

Funnily enough Dragon Quest has been on the rise with XI selling 7m copies upping their sales with each entry (outside of X which was an online game). Octopath Traveler 2 also did 3m-ish.

Imo they should put FF single player games on ice (after the 3rd part of FF7 comes out) for a couple years and focus on FFXIV and Dragon Quest instead, throw in some old IPs people want to see again like Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver remakes. Get Yoko Taro to make Nier Automata 2. Then reboot Final Fantasy in 10 years or so.

Anway you weren't far off with your guess, found the actual number in this report: https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/ir/library/pdf/24q4slides.pdf

They sold 26.3m games. 6m retail, 20m downloads. 99 billion Yen divided by 26m copies comes out to 3800 yen, or 27 USD, on average per game sold.

Where does it say they are explicitly disappointed with ff sales?

I mean... they explicitly state FFXVI and 7 Rebirth in their report. 7 Rebirth is mentioned twice. Like "we only made this much DESPITE FFXVI and 7 Rebirth". They clearly had much higher expectations for both of these games.

 

[Madflavor]

You misplaced your focus.
SE problem is Genshin eating out their playervase, not potentional 20% max more users on PC+consoles.
Going full multiplatform will not save them as we see on number of smaller titles, they have to find a way to battle high-profile gaas invasion.

Player retention wise they should focus on finding a way to get back their core audience (that is asian players, mostly console) and not expanding, money wise they should go whatever is more profitable (and I doubt that Xbox sales would bring more than marketing deal from Sony)

I know all that. Again, I'm only saying going exclusive accelerated the IP's decline in sales.

 

[MoreJRPG]

Not a single third party exclusive this gen has done anything notable sales wise. I can’t see a publisher entering into an agreement like this again, despite 60+ million consoles on the wild, people aren’t buying these games.

PlayStation has become the de facto console and a cheap way to play Fortnite and Warzone and 2K, and occasionally first party IP like Spider-Man and God of War. But these third party exclusives aren’t moving the needle for anyone and the data backs it up.

 

[Fabieter]

I mean... they explicitly state FFXVI and 7 Rebirth in their report. 7 Rebirth is mentioned twice. Like "we only made this much DESPITE FFXVI and 7 Rebirth". They clearly had much higher expectations for both of these games.

They mentioned several times that their smaller games sold poorly. This means all of their titles performed so badly that not even Final Fantasy could make up for it.

Show me where Octopath Traveler 2 sold that much. The last thing I saw was that it took much longer to hit 1 million copies, despite being available on more platforms. Final Fantasy might have fallen short, but the poor sales of all their smaller games certainly didn’t help either. They've already stated that, for this very reason, there will be fewer smaller games in the future. It's unfair to single out Final Fantasy like this and factually not even true.

We had confirmation last year that it sold 1 million copies in June last year and in the end of the year some people made up some stuff about the game shipping 3m. That's not reasonable. And with your own logic that game bombed really hard compared to OT1 despite being better and on more platforms.

 

[ProtoByte]

As I've said, and as has been repeated in this thread, this isn't an issue of exclusivity. The PC ports for these games will not and would not have changed the the overall reality. FF15 sales were 80-90% on PS4. I imagine a lot of PC sales were double dips.

FF16 is not appealing. FF7 Rebirth is an appeal to a fanbase from most of 30 years ago.

It is really that simple.

 

[Thebonehead]

If square do another deal with Sony after this they are dumb as fuck.

Square just shot themselves in the foot.

I don't know how much the rest of you know about Japanese culture (I'm an expert), but honor and shame are huge parts of it. It's not like it is in America where you can become successful by being an asshole. If you screw someone over in Japan, you bring shame to yourself, and the only way to get rid of that shame is repentance.

What this means is the japanese public, after hearing about this, is not going to want to purchase FFXVI for either system, nor will they purchase any of Square's games. This is HUGE. You can laugh all you want, but Square has alienated an entire market with this move.

Square, publicly apologize and cancel FFXVI for PC or you can kiss your business goodbye.

 

[Felessan]

I know all that. Again, I'm only saying going exclusive accelerated the IP's decline in sales.

Financial losses accelerate it even faster.
Their HD division barely profitable, so for them it's better to focus on profitability now and recapture of core audience as a plan for the future, than trying to woo PC+Xbox while having problems on 2 main fronts.
No amount of non-core gamers will save SE jrpgs if they fail to stop their core audience exodus.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Switch 2 will save SE.

 

[Paulistano]

Enix can't complain, she lost so many original fans with the fake remake and ff16 is more of a dmc game, this company is nuts.

Don't get me wrong they are good games but not what I expected, Ff7 Remake is a good game but not a remake it's more like a FF7-2, and 16 is so bland I might as well play dmc.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

The final fantasy audience is deeply fragmented because Square's development of the IP since the PS1 days has been very erratic.

Aesthetic and gameplay elements are rarely built on, and are instead comprehensively overhauled every game.

Compare how Sega has built up the Persona (from 3 on) and SMT franchises in recent years vs how Square did with their own crown jewels and you will see a massive difference imo. They're also doing the same with the Ichiban installments of Yakuza.

I think the erratic approach used to work back when it was 1-2 years between each mainline game. Yeah not everyone liked every game in the series, but we still played them all and at the very least, it was fun to debate and compare/contrast them. Even if FF N wasn’t your thing, FF N+1 was just around the corner and it’d be something totally different.

Now that mainline FF is some momentous once-per-generation event, I think it’s a lot easier to say “fuck it, FF just isn’t for me anymore”

 

[UnrealEck]

I said in the XVI PC thread, they're not designing FF games anymore. The character and world design is nothing like the games from the PS2 era and even less so than the PS1 era.
They should go back the the highly stylised high fantasy of FF IX for FFXVII

 

[mdkirby]

And water is wet.

If square release a game, hearing “it underperformed” is as certain as the sun rising in the morning

 

[Madflavor]

Financial losses accelerate it even faster.
Their HD division barely profitable, so for them it's better to focus on profitability now and recapture of core audience as a plan for the future, than trying to woo PC+Xbox while having problems on 2 main fronts.
No amount of non-core gamers will save SE jrpgs if they fail to stop their core audience exodus.

Regardless it's not in their best interest to keep their flagship IP on one platform, even if they aim to recapture their core audience. You brought up Genshin, but even MiHoY understands this. That's why games like Genshin and Honkai aren't Playstation exclusive.

 

[mckmas8808]

They say sales were up 20 billion yen, so yeah, their games sold well. It’s just never enough for them.

That's $140 million.

 

[yogaflame]

First games today are very expensive. 70 dollars is to much especially in Japan who are more into cheaper games especially handheld games. 2nd I think Square is expecting to much in this generation. There are numbers in sales is already good for this gen , its just that Square got use to 5 to 10 million in sales. 3rd, allot of gamers especially in Japan still has ps4, they should have ported the game to ps4.

 

[Felessan]

Regardless it's not in their best interest to keep their flagship IP on one platform, even if they aim to recapture their core audience. You brought up Genshin, but even MiHoY understands this. That's why games like Genshin and Honkai aren't Playstation exclusive.

I don't know how much Phil begged Mihoyo for Genshin
But Honkai and ZZZ (and most non-Mihoyo AAA gaas) are exactly proper platform positioning - they are only on "core" platforms (mobile, PC and playstation) and skipped non-core platforms (Xbox, switch)

Mobile is the biggest userbase, PC is huge in place like China/Korea (core markets for anime games), Playstation kinda big in Japan and WW

It's actually big achievement of playstation and it's growth opportunity that they did bring these games to it's platform, as these games started mobile-only, then mobile/PC and now mobile/PC/playstation (some though still only on mobile or mobile/PC)

 

[delishcaek]

They mentioned several times that their smaller games sold poorly. This means all of their titles performed so badly that not even Final Fantasy could make up for it.

Show me where Octopath Traveler 2 sold that much. The last thing I saw was that it took much longer to hit 1 million copies, despite being available on more platforms. Final Fantasy might have fallen short, but the poor sales of all their smaller games certainly didn’t help either. They've already stated that, for this very reason, there will be fewer smaller games in the future. It's unfair to single out Final Fantasy like this and factually not even true.

We had confirmation last year that it sold 1 million copies in June last year and in the end of the year some people made up some stuff about the game shipping 3m. That's not reasonable. And with your own logic that game bombed really hard compared to OT1 despite being better and on more platforms.

I mixed up OT1 with OT2, my bad. OT2 may sit at 2m by now, though, we don't know. I used this article and didn't read correctly

Octopath Traveler series hits 4 million sales amid current-gen resurgence

Square Enix's HD-2D franchise has found an audience ahead of its launch on Xbox Game Pass and current-gen systems.

www.gamedeveloper.com

OT2 is a much cheaper game, though, same for both Dragon Quest spin-offs... Foamstars wasn't terribly expensive either hence the $30 price tag. You simply can't put the blame on their niche spin-offs here, they were never expected to sell millions of copies. Star Ocean I don't know, that franchise has a history with not selling well and being jank, there can't have been huge expectations for this game either. They may have had higher expectations for Foamstars, though.

They did blame their MMORPGs, but they had no expectations here either as they knew that FFXIV won't have an expansion which they also state in the report.

I don't understand why you are so defensive about this. They simply expected more from both their biggest releases they had this year, arguably two of the biggest games this gen in terms of IP, and it is an undeniable fact that XVI and 7 Rebirth did worse than 7 Remake and that is an issue hence they are blamed for the low turn out. Again, they should have cracked $1 billion easy this year with both of these games, but they only managed $750m across their whole game catalog. 26m games sold when it should've been 35m.

 

[tusharngf]

 

[Fabieter]

I mixed up OT1 with OT2, my bad. OT2 may sit at 2m by now, though, we don't know. I used this article and didn't read correctly

Octopath Traveler series hits 4 million sales amid current-gen resurgence

Square Enix's HD-2D franchise has found an audience ahead of its launch on Xbox Game Pass and current-gen systems.

www.gamedeveloper.com

OT2 is a much cheaper game, though, same for both Dragon Quest spin-offs... Foamstars wasn't terribly expensive either hence the $30 price tag. You simply can't put the blame on their niche spin-offs here, they were never expected to sell millions of copies. Star Ocean I don't know, that franchise has a history with not selling well and being jank, there can't have been huge expectations for this game either. They may have had higher expectations for Foamstars, though.

They did blame their MMORPGs, but they had no expectations here either as they knew that FFXIV won't have an expansion which they also state in the report.

I don't understand why you are so defensive about this. They simply expected more from both their biggest releases they had this year, arguably two of the biggest games this gen in terms of IP, and it is an undeniable fact that XVI and 7 Rebirth did worse than 7 Remake and that is an issue hence they are blamed for the low turn out. Again, they should have cracked $1 billion easy this year with both of these games, but they only managed $750m across their whole game catalog. 26m games sold when it should've been 35m.

Iam defensive about it because their whole lineup is the problem and final fantasy can't make for it anymore. They clearly said as much. So yes games like octopath are very much a problem. I don't dislike those games but it's fact.

Square Enix says their HD-2D solution costs more than people think

Square Enix are renowned for their impressive HD-2D tech which has driven the visual style of their Nintendo Switch JRPGs including the well-received Triangle Strategy and Octopath Traveler.

mynintendonews.com

So i wouldn't be so sure that those games are cheap. They probably break even but don't make any profit so it's all on their bigger games.

They also called out Foamstars explicitly so the focus on final fantasy is just weird. It's a smaller game but they definitely lost money on that. I doubt they didn't break even on the final fantasy games yet.

 

[mckmas8808]

Lol thats not the problem…Would you prefer they make a deal with Xbox?
The problem is SE’s expectations. They think FF is 20Million+ selling games. They aren’t. But no matter how much they sell SE ‘expects’ more…

Yep! FF sell 5-10 million units. Good, but not great compared to other huge 3rd party games. Square doesn't want to be honest with themselves that Final Fantasy as a franchise is just smaller in reality, than the media and some gamers act like. The Witcher games will always outsell Final Fantasy games at this point (given both are good games).

 

[MagiusNecros]

FF brand continues to rot. More at 11. Even GILGAMESH can't save the series.

Turning Rebirth into a FF7 Theme Park Minigame Collection and XVI a DMC clone with the plot progession and pacing of the worst FFXIV had to offer while stripping anything resembling a RPG might have had a factor in the games underperforming.

Sounds like they wasted so much money on Final Fantasy and they just aren't getting a whole lot back.

 

[Spooky Scary Skeleton]

Time for SE to pull konami and make ff games on pachinko slots

 

[Haint]

FF16 online is a half of FF15 on steam and for FF15 sales were 9:1 in favor to playstation
Day1 on PC would change nothing here. Some doubledippers would just pay once instead of twice

FF15 was a decade ago, and also a year and a half delayed on PC. Most people don't even know 16 PC released at this point, that's the price they pay releasing so far outside the marketing and hype cycle zeitgeist. There's no chatter at all about it, and the market is infinitely more crowded and competitive today.

Based on how much Nintendo paid for MH Rise ($6 million), Sony's checks are very likely a pittance, and aren't even close to covering a fraction of a fraction of the sells they lose skipping day 1 Xbox/PC. Realistically day 1 PC/Xbox combined would probably deliver around 50% of PS's volume, so if PS sold 3 million, they'd probably do 1.5. Nearly 2 years later as catalog titles and PS Plus Extra fodder, they'll stuggle to move a few hundred thousand units.

Their biggest issue is how many potential new fans/customers they've now lost from being a defacto Sony second party publisher for the past 20 years. They've completely missed the boat on all the PC Zoomers playing Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox.

 

[Gojiira]

Yep! FF sell 5-10 million units. Good, but not great compared to other huge 3rd party games. Square doesn't want to be honest with themselves that Final Fantasy as a franchise is just smaller in reality, than the media and some gamers act like. The Witcher games will always outsell Final Fantasy games at this point (given both are good games).

Exactly, they caused so much damage to their own image and brand recognition.
The only thing they should have done was release on PC on day one.
But all the people rattling the sabers about them partnering with Sony are just moronic, given how much money Sony put towards them with dev costs and marketing etc. Without PS they wouldnt be hitting that 5-10 million, and they arent selling that much on PC either, and so negligible amount on Xbox that porting to that platform is just a waste of resources..

 

[Garibaldi]

Square has higher expectations than modern women. Whoever sets their forecasts should be binned off. Both games did fine.

 

[Neofire]

There is zero evidence that it would have done significantly better had it been released day and date on any other platform lol. Everyone knows SE's expectation regarding sales are extremely high, this is a fact.

 

[Punished Miku]

There is zero evidence that it would have done significantly better had it been released day and date on any other platform lol. Everyone knows SE's expectation regarding sales are extremely high, this is a fact.

We haven't invented time travel yet or the means to travel to alternate dimensions, but once we do, trust me, you'll get your evidence.

 

[Fortress of Regrets]

Square Enix sells games to other corporations instead of customers, then wonders why business is shit.

Maybe they'll get wiser. They have shown tiny glimmers of improvement.

 

[Efren is G.O.A.T.]

Yep! FF sell 5-10 million units. Good, but not great compared to other huge 3rd party games. Square doesn't want to be honest with themselves that Final Fantasy as a franchise is just smaller in reality, than the media and some gamers act like. The Witcher games will always outsell Final Fantasy games at this point (given both are good games).

But FF has a much greater pedigree and panache spanning decades. How the hell can Witcher be bigger?

 

[adamsapple]

Square management should be kissing the feet of the staff which revived FF14. Without it, they would be in a much worse situation.

 

[Raven117]

It always seems that SquareEnix puts their expectations too high. I cant name a game in the last 15 years where they have said sales have met expectations.

 

[poodaddy]

Congrats guys, you got what you wished for: FF not selling well

So what do you guys want to do about this?

Nothing?

 

[Goalus]

I wonder what these two titles have in common...

 

[Synless]

Square management should be kissing the feet of the staff which revived FF14. Without it, they would be in a much worse situation.

They did by letting them make a single player game that didn’t meet expectations.

 

[Lambogenie]

As I've said, and as has been repeated in this thread, this isn't an issue of exclusivity. The PC ports for these games will not and would not have changed the the overall reality. FF15 sales were 80-90% on PS4. I imagine a lot of PC sales were double dips.

FF16 is not appealing. FF7 Rebirth is an appeal to a fanbase from most of 30 years ago.

It is really that simple.

I agree. An exclusive game isn't a detriment.

The games just aren't appealing and grabbing the attention compared to what else is out there today. I wonder if the demo for VII had a negative effect - it was a bad demo... and even XVI was on rails gameplay not far removed from Asura's Wrath.

The franchise isn't what it once was. But it can come back. Just needs to refocus on a good, seriously compelling and complete core title. Don't be overly ambitious, don't shave critical bits for DLC, just finish your game and get it out there. And don't make shit demos or demos at all.

Just my opinion, but they should make a brand new one using battle system of VII Rebirth. Iterate on that. Other than that, make an actually compelling, original, intriguing and complete story for once. I think that's where X succeeded so well, and XV could have if it didn't fragment and cut the story!

 

[MagiusNecros]

They did by letting them make a single player game that didn’t meet expectations.

 

[Jigsaah]

Well I'm gonna buy both. I want them to keep making Final Fantasy games.

 

[Ebrietas]

They’re not selling because the games suck. They’re not fun and they don’t feel like FF. The series lost its identity after IX. It has failed to appeal to a broader audience and no longer appeals to longtime fans either.

Day 1 PC will squeeze out a few extra sales but won’t fix the underlying issue.

 

[Felessan]

FF15 was a decade ago, and also a year and a half delayed on PC. Most people don't even know 16 PC released at this point, that's the price they pay releasing so far outside the marketing and hype cycle zeitgeist. There's no chatter at all about it, and the market is infinitely more crowded and competitive today.

People have no problem knowing about GoW, HZD or Spiderman release on PC.
And if people have problem now, they will have problem at simultaneously release as well.
And don't overestimate PC crowd - it should have be barely better statistric distribution between gamers than xbox (like no single jrpg in Steam top 100 for 2023), and xbox failed miserably to attract FF fans with simultaneously releases.

Realistically day 1 PC/Xbox combined would probably deliver around 50% of PS's volume, so if PS sold 3 million, they'd probably do 1.5. Nearly 2 years later as catalog titles and PS Plus Extra fodder, they'll stuggle to move a few hundred thousand units.

That's a strong delusion here.

 

[intheinbetween]

I still can’t believe SE hasn’t learned anything from Capcom, SEGA and Bamco, release all of your titles on all existing platforms day one, the age of third-party exclusives hurts more than it helps

 

[Kenpachii]

Last final fantasy i bought was final fantasy X.

Everything else after it i didn't care for.

Also if u do release on PC, make sure the game doesn't run abysmal such as ff7 remake did when it launched on epic games.

 

[ssringo]

The problem isn't just the late ports. You can't build much of an audience on a platform you keep giving the cold shoulder. Late ports, bad ports, leaving games in poor condition, store exclusivity, broken promises.

Day 1 PC might not move the needle much but it would start getting some of us to give a shit about what they're doing again. At this point "Square Enix" and "Final Fantasy" mean nothing to me and I rarely buy  anything from them.

 

[Hookshot]

It's never getting the sales of old. The company is doomed if they keep trying to chase the FF7 bubble, that was down to nothing but fortunate timing.

 

[Tarnpanzer]

When do we expect Rebirth on PC?

 

[Astray]

This just proves that most gamers just want to play the same shit over and over and don't actually want pubs to be innovative.

The value of slowly and incrementally building up a franchise over time is not to be underestimated imo (all the biggest franchises do this).

Better to have a smaller yet more easy to please audience than a big fragmented one that can't be won over with a single game.

Square experimented wayyyyy too much with the FF series, and they're paying for it now.

 

[Neofire]

We haven't invented time travel yet or the means to travel to alternate dimensions, but once we do, trust me, you'll get your evidence.

I'll be waiting

 

[LordOcidax]

 

[Sleepwalker]

Just release day and date on PC and PS

I promise you the PS users will still buy it on PS. They don't know how to operate a computer judging by the PS5 pro threads.