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Yoshinori Kitase: 'Final Fantasy VII Rebirth' sales don't disappoint but they can't be exclusive to a single console anymore

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
So what happens with the third party examples in Tomb raider and dead rising? Scorn, the ascent... Countless others. Did their shit sales result in people blaming timed exclusivity and the devs stupidity? Yet people are trying to suggest stupidity missing massive sales on a dying xbox platform.

Aside from Dead Rising, which released at a time Capcom was barely doing day and date PC ports, all the examples you've listed launched on PC along with Xbox.

Most FF games are locked to a single platform and not met expectations, per Square's President.

These are not comparable examples at all.

No shit but we're talking about the "lecturing" on exclusivity leading to poor sales that never really happened.

Lecturing? the fuck .. lol
 
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Ebrietas

Member
It’s already on PC and Switch 2 is the only other console moving forward (OG switch is not capable and Xbox is dead).

The problem with FF isn’t the amount of platforms. It’s already on the two major ones. The problem is they can’t seem to make a widely appealing game anymore. They seem even more confused than the fans about FF should be. Until they figure that out they can toss it in as many platforms as they want and sales will still be lackluster and continue to decline.
 
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Three

Gold Member
Aside from Dead Rising, which released at a time Capcom was barely doing day and date PC ports, all the examples you've listed launched on PC along with Xbox.

Most FF games are locked to a single platform and not met expectations, per Square's President.

These are not comparable examples at all.
Why not? If the sales were low because they skipped PS why wasn't it widely said that they would have done better if they didn't make the "stupid" decision to go timed xbox exclusive. As if it wouldn't have helped, but xbox would in these scenarios. Why do you sidestep Dead Rising too? What would be the reason for that narrative not to exist with that game exactly?

Edit after your edit:
Lecturing? the fuck .. lol
Maybe read the thread. I'm not the one who used the term to refer to people second guessing SE.
 
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C) Turn based
denzel washington GIF
 

delishcaek

Member
If the sales didn't disappoint someone up the chain, then you wouldn't be talking about having to ditch exclusivity.

The fact is that back in the day they used to sell around 10m copies per entry just on Playstation. Now they only manage 5m on Playstation and they need other platforms to further boost sales. FFXV should've made it obvious (like 6m on PS, 5m on PC and Xbox), but nope... instead they shoved their middle fingers into PC gamers faces, twice, and treated Xbox games like an unwanted step child.

Anyway, looking forward to FFXVII in 5 years and on which platforms it's going to launch.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Why not? If the sales were low because they skipped PS why wasn't it widely said that they would have done better if they didn't make the "stupid" decision to go timed xbox exclusive.


Because it sold at, or better, than Capcom's expectations.


Their president didn't need to come out and state that it was not meeting expectations.

But later when Dead Rising 4 did not meet expectations, they stated as such, just like how Square have done now for FF7 Rebirth and FF16.




Why do you sidestep Dead Rising too? What would be the reason for that narrative not to exist with that game exactly?

The narrative that Dead Rising 1 released before the PS3 came out ?


Maybe read the thread. I'm not the one who used the term to refer to people second guessing SE.

Sure, but O Ozriel 's point is correct tho. Square, themselves, have stated their intent and disappointment in single platform exclusivity for their marquee games.

 

Ozriel

M$FT
So what happens with the third party examples in Tomb raider and dead rising? Scorn, the ascent... Countless others. Did their shit sales result in people blaming timed exclusivity and the devs stupidity? Yet people are trying to suggest stupidity missing massive sales on a dying xbox platform.

Scorn and Ascent released on Xbox AND PC/Steam day one. And the general consensus - even here - was that the Rise of the Tomb Raider sales underperformed because of the exclusivity deal.

Don’t go full daftie with the console warz here. ‘Multiplatform’ doesn’t just mean Xbox here. People are agreeing with Square that Final Fantasy should target as broad an audience as possible to reverse the franchise decline. Said expanded audience includes PC, Switch and Xbox day 1.

they decided to become first party and sell less with financial backing from a platform holder. Some even went financially kaput and shut down. Yet you don't see similarities in "poor choices".

Do I really have to respond to this inane contribution? You imagine people would be blaming Tango for choices made by Zenimax?

Season 9 Lol GIF by The Office


Not to mention the fact that these games launch day one on PC and Xbox. So already way more ‘multiplatform’ than Square’s past decisions.

No shit but we're talking about the "lecturing" on exclusivity leading to poor sales that never really happened.

Again, people are agreeing with Square Enix execs here.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Because it sold at, or better, than Capcom's expectations.


Their president didn't need to come out and state that it was not meeting expectations.

But later when Dead Rising 4 did not meet expectations, they stated as such, just like how Square have done now for FF7 Rebirth and FF16.






The narrative that Dead Rising 1 released before the PS3 came out ?




Sure, but O Ozriel 's point is correct tho. Square, themselves, have stated their intent and disappointment in single platform exclusivity for their marquee games.


Also the point that Dead Rising 3 and 4 were published by Microsoft. Basically, MS paid for the whole thing. And Dead Rising 3 sold quite well.

Comparing this to Final Fantasy games developed and published by Square Enix is frankly silly.
 
This is great to see. Really feels like the age of exclusives is coming to an end, which all gamers will celebrate, right? You can play everything, wherever you prefer - that’s the dream?
 

leo-j

Member
Always these one sided arguments. I guess in the same vein, it would have been better for the IPs if Space Marine 2, Elden Ring and Black Myth Wukong were console exclusives?

Expand the player base and you sell more. It’s a simple as that. Some franchises are strong or popular enough to sell very well on a single platform. Some aren’t. Quality notwithstanding. You can make exceptions for first party games where the intent is to leverage exclusivity to sell hardware, but it’s often insane to do this as a third party developer.
Black myth is a console exclusive. Unless you mean ps5/pc is not considered console exclusive. Hell divers and black myth did millions just being on ps5 for console and launching for pc as well. Regardless that’s not the point of what I said. Zelda and Mario sell 20 + million copies because their games have been consistently quality and growing their base. FF on the other hand did well with XIII and it was a pretty okay FF compared to VII-XII. Since then, there’s been inconsistency with their releases when it comes to quality and people do not trust that. It’s like FF XV, then World of FF, then Chaos, and forspoken etc. Unlike souls games you aren’t getting consistency with quality. That and FF used to be the big boy in the block. Now we have 250 RPG’s and game as service MMORPGS that take a lot of that market share.
 
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Metaphor isnt a good example.

A more appropriate example would be Elden Ring, Monster Hunter World.

These titles are approaching mainstream appeal. They did well on Xbox.

I am assuming SE is aiming to make something like that instead of Metaphor.

You believe in the same mystical gamers Phil thinks are out there instead of reality. FF will never be an Elden Ring type game. It’s way more Japanese. Closer to Metaphor.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Also the point that Dead Rising 3 and 4 were published by Microsoft. Basically, MS paid for the whole thing. And Dead Rising 3 sold quite well.

Comparing this to Final Fantasy games developed and published by Square Enix is frankly silly.

You're right, I had completely forgotten about that. I've seen some users here cite games like Rise of Ronin (developed by 3P, published by 1P), as examples of first party games, so Dead Rising 3 and 4 at release would apply too.
 
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BTW I would budget Part 3 expecting somewhere around 1.5M sales plus whatever it does on Switch 2 (which would be hard to predict TBH)
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
You believe in the same mystical gamers Phil thinks are out there instead of reality. FF will never be an Elden Ring type game. It’s way more Japanese. Closer to Metaphor.

I also agree that I don't expect any single FF game to reach elden ring levels, but disagree that it's closer to Metaphor.

FF has a lot more broad casual appeal and is one of the most valuable IP in games, Metaphor is an off shoot from an incredibly niche developer by comparison.
 
It never should have been exclusive, Sony wastes their money doing this with Square games, xbox owners aren't buying them when they release day and date on both platforms anyway so I have to ask how many xbox owners are really going to buy one of these games? I'm guessing switch 2 will be a platform they are going for, the last FF game that came out on PS4 and X1 at the same time sold around 5 times better on PlayStation.
 
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playbignbox

Member
They probably didn't take a loss, but the game could have sold a lot more with a simultaneous release on PC, Nintendo (if the NS could run it), Xbox and cloud services.
 

KingT731

Member
If the sales didn't disappoint someone up the chain, then you wouldn't be talking about having to ditch exclusivity.

The fact is that back in the day they used to sell around 10m copies per entry just on Playstation. Now they only manage 5m on Playstation and they need other platforms to further boost sales. FFXV should've made it obvious (like 6m on PS, 5m on PC and Xbox), but nope... instead they shoved their middle fingers into PC gamers faces, twice, and treated Xbox games like an unwanted step child.

Anyway, looking forward to FFXVII in 5 years and on which platforms it's going to launch.
Not necessarily. SE just happened to be on a train of fuckery under Yosuke Matsuda. FF was never a consistent 10M seller they had 2 titles that sold exceptionally well (7 and X/X-2) they're usually in the 5M-8M range (modern era) and have been for the better part of 20 years. Yes FFXV did 10M but the vast majority of the sales were in the bargain bin which doesn't necessarily help much. An example of this from Sony would be Days Gone selling 9M and the reason it's considered a massive flop.
 
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Not necessarily. SE just happened to be on a train of fuckery under Yosuke Matsuda. FF was never a consistent 10M seller they had 2 titles that sold exceptionally well (7 and X/X-2) they're usually in the 5M-8M range (modern era) and have been for the better part of 20 years. Yes FFXV did 10M but the vast majority of the sales were in the bargain bin which doesn't necessarily help much. An example of this from Sony would be Days Gone selling 9M and the reason it's considered a massive flop.
This is one thing I think people miss about ff15 that game felt like it was always on sale. Espicially on pc.

I remember the days gone guy saying people should have bought the game at release and not wait. I know I got it for $20 and that was digital.
 

GHG

Member
Xbox people are working overtime for a quote that is dedicated to PC-day-and-date and (huge maybe) Switch 2.

By the time Remake 3 will release Microsoft's own biggest platform will be PlayStation 5 or 6.

They're just setting themselves up for disappointment, as usual.

Silver lining, they will likely be able to access this game on whatever hardware Microsoft come up with next by virtue of it being a PC and Square Enix starting to put all their games on the windows store/Xbox app.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Xbox people are working overtime for a quote that is dedicated to PC-day-and-date and (huge maybe) Switch 2.

Happy Cracking Up GIF by Regal


‘Huge maybe’ for the platform guaranteed to see sales is quite the wild take.

They're just setting themselves up for disappointment, as usual.

Silver lining, they will likely be able to access this game on whatever hardware Microsoft come up with next by virtue of it being a PC and Square Enix starting to put all their games on the windows store/Xbox app.

…or just buy it on Steam?
 
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Scorn and Ascent released on Xbox AND PC/Steam day one. And the general consensus - even here - was that the Rise of the Tomb Raider sales underperformed because of the exclusivity deal.

Don’t go full daftie with the console warz here. ‘Multiplatform’ doesn’t just mean Xbox here. People are agreeing with Square that Final Fantasy should target as broad an audience as possible to reverse the franchise decline. Said expanded audience includes PC, Switch and Xbox day 1.



Do I really have to respond to this inane contribution? You imagine people would be blaming Tango for choices made by Zenimax?

Season 9 Lol GIF by The Office


Not to mention the fact that these games launch day one on PC and Xbox. So already way more ‘multiplatform’ than Square’s past decisions.



Again, people are agreeing with Squar Enix execs here.

I'm going to use your favorite, most used .gif :
giphy.gif


Happy new year Ozzie, keep fighting the good fight !
 

GHG

Member
Who exactly is going to buy an unsubsidized PC doesn’t run Steam?

There are plenty of people here who have said they will buy whatever they put out next hardware wise regardless, so those people.

If it's a 'PC', why wouldn't it have access to Steam? 🤔

Because there is a strong possibility it will ship only with a cut down version of windows ("Xbox OS") designed around restricting users to their store.

There's no appx version for steam, the only way you'd be able to install it (along with all the other storefronts/launchers and the games that reside within them) would be via a dual-boot scenario which also gives you access to full-fat windows on a separate partition.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
There are plenty of people here who have said they will buy whatever they put out next hardware wise regardless, so those people.

Most of those are referring to a theoretical next Xbox console that follows the usual console model. I buy pretty much everything, so I’d be in that camp too.

Where are the ‘plenty of people’ that will buy a locked down, unsubsidized PC instead of just going out and buying a PC?

the ‘next Xbox is going to be a PC’ is still a rumor at the moment. Pinch of salt tier too.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Because there is a strong possibility it will ship only with a cut down version of windows ("Xbox OS") designed around restricting users to their store.

If they do that then it's basically another console, just more scalable.
 
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GHG

Member
Where are the ‘plenty of people’ that will buy a locked down, unsubsidized PC instead of just going out and buying a PC?

Well that's the question that those who are deciding to push ahead with this idea will have to come to terms with.

I certainly can't make sense of it.

If they do that then it's basically another console, just more scalable.

The games that reside on the windows store/Xbox app are not console games.

Placing the burnt of the optimisation burden on end-users means it's no longer a console.

But of course you're free to make it identify as a console, it will be 2025 afterall.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
The games that reside on the windows store/Xbox app are not console games.

Placing the burnt of the optimisation burden on end-users means it's no longer a console.
Locking users to a single store interface is pretty console like behavior and isn't something that I would classify as a PC.

But of course you're free to make it identify as a PC, it will be 2025 afterall.

🍻
 
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Reactions: GHG

GHG

Member
Locking users to a single store interface is pretty console like behavior and isn't something that I would classify as a PC.

But of course you're free to make it identify as a PC, it will be 2025 afterall.

🍻

It would be as much of a console as the Steam deck is.

It isn't.

Yes, you can have a console-like experience on the device if you so wish, but there are a whole host of reasons why it still isn't a console.
 
I also agree that I don't expect any single FF game to reach elden ring levels, but disagree that it's closer to Metaphor.

FF has a lot more broad casual appeal and is one of the most valuable IP in games, Metaphor is an off shoot from an incredibly niche developer by comparison.

It has wider appeal due to the IP and it’s not turn based. But it still wouldn’t break 1 million on Xbox. Probably not even close.
 

Three

Gold Member
Because it sold at, or better, than Capcom's expectations.


Their president didn't need to come out and state that it was not meeting expectations.

But later when Dead Rising 4 did not meet expectations, they stated as such, just like how Square have done now for FF7 Rebirth and FF16.






The narrative that Dead Rising 1 released before the PS3 came out ?
You answered your own question no? dead rising 4 was timed and sold below expectations.
Sure, but O Ozriel 's point is correct tho. Square, themselves, have stated their intent and disappointment in single platform exclusivity for their marquee games.

You're in a thread titled "Final Fantasy VII Rebirth' sales don't disappoint" yet this exists just like capcom went multiplatform for the Dead Rising remakes but the point is that nobody invented this narrative and fanfare about the piblishers "stupidity". You know that.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
You answered your own question no? dead rising 4 was timed and sold below expectations.

Yes, Dead Rising 4 sold below expectations. Capcom outright said as much themselves. No one is arguing otherwise.

Just like how FF16 and 7 Rebirth sold below expectations leading to Square publicly announcing a pivot in their release strategy.


You're in a thread titled "Final Fantasy VII Rebirth' sales don't disappoint" yet this exists just like capcom went multiplatform for the Dead Rising remakes but the point is that nobody invented this narrative and fanfare about the piblishers "stupidity". You know that.

But Capcom has always been mostly a multi-platform developer with some exceptions like DR3 and 4 which were *published* by MS. Square's recent games, that they have said failed to meet expectations, were not published by any platform holder. They are all published by Square, and now they've pledged to cut back on platform exclusivity for their games.

These continue to not be apt comparisons no matter how much you want them to be.
 
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I believe it's the first time square waited more than more month in quite a long time to beg for more money from Sony for more exclusivity - because this is exactly what is happening.
 

Three

Gold Member
Scorn and Ascent released on Xbox AND PC/Steam day one.
So? So did Street Fighter 5 yet xbox forum fools did the same song and dance about capcom selling its soul, doing something idiotic and losing sales for the franchise. Nobody really does this for the xbox paid exclusives though. Nobody comes out and says what a thickhead X or Y publisher is for skipping PS and taking xbox money.

Don’t go full daftie with the console warz here. ‘Multiplatform’ doesn’t just mean Xbox here. People are agreeing with Square that Final Fantasy should target as broad an audience as possible to reverse the franchise decline. Said expanded audience includes PC, Switch and Xbox day 1.
Except it doesn't because exclusivity is over for said games and it's PC and PS5 only still.
Do I really have to respond to this inane contribution? You imagine people would be blaming Tango for choices made by Zenimax?

Season 9 Lol GIF by The Office


Not to mention the fact that these games launch day one on PC and Xbox. So already way more ‘multiplatform’ than Square’s past decisions.
They should have been blaming Phil for cancelling or delaying Zenimax games but obviously they were cheering both the acquisition and the exclusivity. Square didn't release Octopath 2 on xbox initially (released on PC, Switch and PS) and again people were complaining about squares strategy. So what it was PC and Xbox when their strategy was giving up PS sales? Nobody is allowed to complain then?
Again, people are agreeing with Square Enix execs here.
No, it's more Square Enix telling people what they want to hear after people like Arthands and co were complaining throughout the year about the strategy which before the PC release they were saying was great.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
So? So did Street Fighter 5 yet xbox forum fools did the same song and dance about capcom selling its soul, doing something idiotic and losing sales for the franchise. Nobody really does this for the xbox paid exclusives though. Nobody comes out and says what a thickhead X or Y publisher is for skipping PS and taking xbox money

This is a joke right? You've done that using multiple examples in this very thread so your premise is false already. As have many others, you can scan through the big Activision acquisition thread for numerous examples, I shouldn't have to find individual quotes for you.

Using another example, despite MS publishing Rise of TR, people relentlessly hounded Square over it not being on PS on release so much that their US president had to make public statements about it. It's brought up pretty often here on GAF as well.

Don't act like a fool, you know all this very well.
 
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Three

Gold Member
Didn't indiana jones drop on pc day one and the playstation version is launching within 3 to 4 months?

It's a far cry from these playstation exclusives.
Can you explain how what you said no longer applies for this specific title?
"Finally.....they get that they were living in a fantasy.

Time to drop it on (Playstation) day one.

There's not enough players on any single platform to cover these budgets anymore and you are actively shooting yourself in the foot missing out on day one sales from other platforms"

Are they living in a fantasy and shooting themselves in the foot or not by not releasing day one?
 

Fabieter

Member
Why not? If the sales were low because they skipped PS why wasn't it widely said that they would have done better if they didn't make the "stupid" decision to go timed xbox exclusive. As if it wouldn't have helped, but xbox would in these scenarios. Why do you sidestep Dead Rising too? What would be the reason for that narrative not to exist with that game exactly?

Edit after your edit:

It even closed the whole dead rising studio.

The final fantasy deal definitely made sense at the time and I actually think Sony isn't interested in doing so anymore so square is naturally pushing for these kind of messages.
 
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