Final Fantasy 7 Remake + Intergrade Shipped Over 7M

[Jaum]

7 million feels like a big number, but when you have stuff like BG3 projecting to sell just as good in less than 12 months it's quite telling.

Comparing apples to oranges. BG3 had 2.5m sales over the early access years, it's on a RPG style with much more replay value, has multiplayer and literally got rated as one of the best games of all time critic-wise. There are simply a lot of things pushing it to be a big seller, something that this game didn't.

 

[BoktaiFan]

I know it was at the other site but I think it's worth remembering almost half thought FF7 was going to beat animal crossing. Expectations for the remake were quite high

 

[Astrogamer]

I know it was at the other site but I think it's worth remembering almost half thought FF7 was going to beat animal crossing. Expectations for the remake were quite high

I thought that was only at launch which wasn't that odd of prediction considering New Leaf was significantly closer to FF's peak. Longterm, I think most expected Animal Crossing would be notably over Final Fantasy

 

[BoktaiFan]

I thought that was only at launch which wasn't that odd of prediction considering New Leaf was significantly closer to FF's peak. Longterm, I think most expected Animal Crossing would be notably over Final Fantasy

No the poll was labeled global lifetime sales

 

[BassForever]

No the poll was labeled global lifetime sales

Clearly they meant all parts of the FF7 remake vs Animal Crossing New Horizons, and it still wouldn't be close

 

[ILikeFeet]

Sorry if this off topic, but even until today I still have no idea how this FF7 remake works? Is it supposed to be 3 different standalone games that are loosely related to each other? Or are they tightly connected, if so, does the first game ends on a cliffhanger that makes you wait for the next game? I have played the original a long time ago, but apparently the remake changes a lot of the story. My brother got a ps5 last week and is looking for something to play, so I want to recommend him this game.

it's not a remake. it's kinda doing what Rebuilt of Evangalion did, story-wise

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Nice to finally get an update. It is pretty much what was assumed so no big surprise there. That number should grow given how they are bundling FF7R with Rebirth digitally.


Game was exclusive on EGS for a year, it should have sold way more than this there. That kind of ratio applied to game launching to both launchers at the same time.

You're right, I blame my error on the fact that it was late at night! Certainly would mean that the legs for the game came from the PC releases with minimal PS legs.

And yet Square still treats their PC releases as an afterthought, gotta do better.

 

[Mekanos]

I know it was at the other site but I think it's worth remembering almost half thought FF7 was going to beat animal crossing. Expectations for the remake were quite high

I don’t see what out of touch nerds’ predictions have to do with anything. Yes, the remake didn’t set the world on fire, but it’s still one of the best selling FF games in a long time.

 

[Lelouch0612]

I don’t see what out of touch nerds’ predictions have to do with anything. Yes, the remake didn’t set the world on fire, but it’s still one of the best selling FF games in a long time.

It is below FFXV and on par with FFXIII to be completely fair. However, it remains a faster and stronger seller than XVI.

 

[BoktaiFan]

I don’t see what out of touch nerds’ predictions have to do with anything. Yes, the remake didn’t set the world on fire, but it’s still one of the best selling FF games in a long time.

We are on a sales forum. What do peoples perceptions that it sold well have to do with anything? Why is anyone commenting at all?

Obviously I think there is value in seeing what the expecting were at the time versus what happened.

 

[SkyerIst]

I don’t see what out of touch nerds’ predictions have to do with anything. Yes, the remake didn’t set the world on fire, but it’s still one of the best selling FF games in a long time.

It did nothing special compared to Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XV -- numbered Final Fantasy games from last 15 years.

 

[Mekanos]

It did nothing special compared to Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XV -- numbered Final Fantasy games from last 15 years.

XIII took 7 years to sell 7 million, this will pass that. So that only leaves XV, really.

 

[Astrogamer]

XIII took 7 years to sell 7 million, this will pass that. So that only leaves XV, really.

Is there any proper source for that claim as the one source used on wikipedia/vgsales wiki is an opinion piece that sources VGchartz elsewhere in the article.

 

[The Tribal Chief]

XIII took 7 years to sell 7 million, this will pass that. So that only leaves XV, really.

FFXIII sold 6.6M in less than 3 years (around 2 years and 10 months if I recall). It also launched stronger than FFVIIR. This was an entry that also clearly had terrible word of mouth pretty much immediately. That was across 2 platforms. FFVIIR is on 3 platforms, got a covid boost which helped the entire industry at launch, and has just managed 7M after almost 4 years. The market is also much bigger now.

By no stretch of the imagination is VIIR's performance more impressive than XIII's, especially over a decade later with the market the way it is now. Even XV was basically killed by SE themselves due to the funeral stream or it likely would've sold a few million beyond 10M. They're now giving away FFVIIR with pre-orders of the new game. Pretty much tells you its sales from this point forward are basically bullshit since they will pad the numbers this way.

I'd bet in future, we'll hear what the FF7R series has sold rather than what Rebirth has sold. That way they'll be able to distort the numbers. Like the extra 1.5M or whatever copies that'll be given away with Rebirth pre-orders soon.

 

[Golden Darkness]

By no stretch of the imagination is VIIR's performance more impressive than XIII's, especially over a decade later with the market the way it is now. Even XV was basically killed by SE themselves due to the funeral stream or it likely would've sold a few million beyond 10M. They're now giving away FFVIIR with pre-orders of the new game. Pretty much tells you its sales from this point forward are basically bullshit since they will pad the numbers this way.

Mind you, this is not for every preorder for Rebirth, only for those who purchase the Digital "Twin Pack" bundle of both games for PS5 from the PlayStation store. It's just currently priced as a two for one deal. When Rebirth is officially out, the bundle will be priced at $100 instead. No one else is doing this bundle or there is a version for physical copies.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

Worring results from my opinion,this franchise is just mantained of old gamer population,so if the trend is not reversed It will become in a niche series in the future,very sad outlook

SE has absolutely made mistakes with FF, particularly when it comes to these dumb exclusivity deals, but we’ve been hearing about the downfall of FF since XII and it continues to be SEs most profitable franchise, not as big as it could be with better management, but very far from what some are claiming.

 

[Ryuichi Naruhodo]

What is the historical low for the game on PS outside the PS+ Period ? I know on PC it is somewhere in the late $30's

I think it is a good result considering the game didn't have Big discounts and it was on PS+ for some time , and there is no Xbox Version too

 

[sfortunato]

The issue is when a remake becomes your biggest product in the Final Fantasy franchise. Rebirth looks like a big ste up from Remake, however the appeal of a direct sequel is usually smaller than the original entry. There is always the risk that Rebirth and the third entry will sell less and less and that won't be the best outlook if mainline entries sell even less.

 

[BTB123]

I don't think it would have remotely approached XV, let alone beat it. XV came to PC over a year later as well. It took VIIR over a year on the market -shortly after the PS5 release- to match XV's day one numbers.

VIIR was at 5M after a few months, not after over a year.

 

[Stranger]

VIIR was at 5M after a few months, not after over a year.

Yeah, I just confirmed it happened in August of the same year. I might have mixed the dates when digging up the Press Release for that one.

 

[derby_440]

FFXIII sold 6.6M in less than 3 years (around 2 years and 10 months if I recall). It also launched stronger than FFVIIR. This was an entry that also clearly had terrible word of mouth pretty much immediately. That was across 2 platforms. FFVIIR is on 3 platforms, got a covid boost which helped the entire industry at launch, and has just managed 7M after almost 4 years. The market is also much bigger now.

By no stretch of the imagination is VIIR's performance more impressive than XIII's, especially over a decade later with the market the way it is now. Even XV was basically killed by SE themselves due to the funeral stream or it likely would've sold a few million beyond 10M. They're now giving away FFVIIR with pre-orders of the new game. Pretty much tells you its sales from this point forward are basically bullshit since they will pad the numbers this way.

I'd bet in future, we'll hear what the FF7R series has sold rather than what Rebirth has sold. That way they'll be able to distort the numbers. Like the extra 1.5M or whatever copies that'll be given away with Rebirth pre-orders soon.

FF7r also ended up on 47m PS+ subs 1 year later. Even Sony is taking more then a year to release their games and that too on new more expensive PS+ extra. I have no doubt it would have sold between 8-9m by now if not for that. People need to keep in mind these subs and how it affect game legs.

 

[Stranger]

FF7r also ended up on 47m PS+ subs 1 year later. Even Sony is taking more then a year to release their games and that too on new more expensive PS+ extra. I have no doubt it would have sold between 8-9m by now if not for that. People need to keep in mind these subs and how it affect game legs.

It went to PS Plus about half a year after it hit 5 million, which was already the slow stretch from its launch milestone to get 1.5 million units more. I don't think PS Plus had a significant effect on the tail in the least, let alone an opportunity cost of 1-2 million units. Multiple promotional bumps accompanying the PC release and Intergrade on the PS5 expanding the audience didn't do the job, and I can't imagine pegging that on cannibalization at all.

For a contextual top-off, I don't even think the game necessarily found wide scale adoption when accounting for those subscribers. PS Plus games need to be claimed and aren't attached to every active subscriber's library when released. With around the same number of PS Plus subscribers, Sonic Forces was the second most popular PS Plus offering of all time when it came to the service. Trophy/account data indicated the combination of purchased, borrowed, and PS Plus redeemed copies (players) hit 6.8 million at the time. No data that I've found indicates VIIR was ever notable on PS Plus or stand out in terms of adoption or disrupted the top 5 at any point. If the Forces number is representative of the range for the highest levels of adoption for titles on the service -bolstered by players outside of the PS Plus context- then the effect on VIIR would not have remotely approached the potential of those 47 or so million subscribers.

 

[Danny]

How much would a port of FF7 to Switch 2 add to this total? About 1 million or more?

 

[Danny]

Final Fantasy XV went open world... and nothing happened. Market grew a lot since FF golden age — FF sales are not.

I see many people saying "But it's a JRPG, weak legs are expected", "Great for a JRPG not named Pokemon".

The difference is Final Fantasy is not a just a random JRPG — numbered FF games are among the most expensive Japanese games of all time.

FromSoftware flagship games are cheaper to produce, and they're selling in a 10-20M+ range worldwide. Square Enix spends more on development, but Final Fantasy IP is not growing.

JRPG is a niche genre, FromSoftware make western RPGs even if they are a japanese company. Maybe Square Enix could pivot to make more western style RPGs in the future though. The market for JRPGs are probably declining instead of growing in the west.

 

[Damage2]

It went to PS Plus about half a year after it hit 5 million, which was already the slow stretch from its launch milestone to get 1.5 million units more. I don't think PS Plus had a significant effect on the tail in the least, let alone an opportunity cost of 1-2 million units. Multiple promotional bumps accompanying the PC release and Intergrade on the PS5 expanding the audience didn't do the job, and I can't imagine pegging that on cannibalization at all.

For a contextual top-off, I don't even think the game necessarily found wide scale adoption when accounting for those subscribers. PS Plus games need to be claimed and aren't attached to every active subscriber's library when released. With around the same number of PS Plus subscribers, Sonic Forces was the second most popular PS Plus offering of all time when it came to the service. Trophy/account data indicated the combination of purchased, borrowed, and PS Plus redeemed copies (players) hit 6.8 million at the time. No data that I've found indicates VIIR was ever notable on PS Plus or stand out in terms of adoption or disrupted the top 5 at any point. If the Forces number is representative of the range for the highest levels of adoption for titles on the service -bolstered by players outside of the PS Plus context- then the effect on VIIR would not have remotely approached the potential of those 47 or so million subscribers.

FFVIIR was a big game at the time, i doubt subscribers wouldnt even try to download the game and play.

We dont have any data that can show how many people are playing FFVIIR in the recent years, Gamestat stopped working before the game released, so theres no way to find out

 

[Stranger]

FFVIIR was a big game at the time, i doubt subscribers wouldnt even try to download the game and play.

We dont have any data that can show how many people are playing FFVIIR in the recent years, Gamestat stopped working before the game released, so theres no way to find out

The point is that the very most redeemed PS Plus games list as of our last update featured a title that hit about 6.8 million players across purchases, borrows, and PS Plus subscriptions- and the purchases are almost certainly not negligible due to the quarterly/yearly report putting Sonic Forces up alongside a Yakuza title and Football Manager as headliners to a sales period of over 14 million units of physical software. Subscribers have to opt in and redeem titles they want, and our reference for the most notable titles makes it evident that the amount of redemptions for a given title do not come remotely within range of the member cap. This was in a period where the number of subscribers was in line with the amount during the VIIR PS Plus addition. The last time a notable game joined the list -and on top- was Fall Guys, I believe. For a title that was not highlighted for its performance on the service, the expectations should not be in beyond or even in range of titles at that height. This is a reference point that helps in evaluation of PS Plus's potential effect cap on titles in what approaches the most ideal circumstances: something brought up to make it more distinctly clear that such a factor is not as pivotal in affecting what was already a meager tail near half a year past the 5 million unit milestone.

How much would a port of FF7 to Switch 2 add to this total? About 1 million or more?

If we have it, data for other FF rereleases might give us a sense of interest to consider. Hard to say, though. There are other factors like surrounding software options in that period on both the new Nintendo platform and in the broader calendar alongside crossover for potential buyers coming from other platforms that already had the game.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

How much would a port of FF7 to Switch 2 add to this total? About 1 million or more?

I think they’d have to do something like DQXI did to reach that number.

 

[Damage2]

Most of the DQXI Switch came sales from Japan, i think that FFVIIR Switch would sell better in the west

 

[bladestrikex]

Potentially could have beaten XV if they had put it on steam/xbox.

It is on Steam, and the PS5 version likely sold more than the XBOX version of XV so no, not really. There is just no reality where 7R beat XV when it didn't even beat it on Steam, EGS has no bearing on its Steam sales since EGS sales aren't even that big to begin with, and the audience who would have bought it on Steam only bought it once it was on Steam.

Pretty hyped on this. I had my estimate right at 7M. Only on PS4/PS5/PC. All things considered I think this is okay. Will eventually hit 10M after super steep discounts. SE likely went in this entire project knowing that each part wasn’t going to sell as much or over the vanilla VII so three titles selling roughly 5-10M each seems pretty good.

Before we start the FFXV comparisons let’s look at everything between the 2 & be as fair as possible.

FFXV sold 7M in 15 months & legged it out to 10M after being released on four different platforms, four story DLC with a plethora of updates, patches, & royal edition re-release. FFXV was heavily discounted & a year after release could be found for under $10.

FFVIIR managed 7M after 3 years on three different platforms with one major DLC. FFVII was only on PS+ sometime after its release.

Lastly one thing to understand is that FF is not gow, spider man, TLOU, horizon, & heck even RE has risen to new heights. FF is a series that constantly fallen with 5-10M with each vanilla release of a new mainline entry so keep that in mind. (Not including re-releases)

FF7R has been heavily discounted too, and the official price for XV from SE is still $35-$40, XV is also only on 3 platforms, not 4. There was a reason FF7R was put on PS+ so fast...
7R is at 7m in 3.5 years on 3 platforms, XV was at 7.1m in 1 year 3 months and on 2 platforms, it hit 7.1m before it hit PC, also PS5 is much bigger at the moment when 7R has hit 7m than Xbox One was in 2018 too when XV hit 7.1m.

Congrats!

It should eventually reach 10m eventually with ports, discounts and part 2/3 launching.

What else is it being ported to? And if SE counts people getting free copies from pre-ordering Rebirth as sales for FF7R that is super shady.

 

[GoldenFingers]

What else is it being ported to? And if SE counts people getting free copies from pre-ordering Rebirth as sales for FF7R that is super shady.

Switch 2 and Xbox.

The problem with Xbox is that that actual sales it contributes are going to be small, because it is going to be Microsoft paying for the port and putting it straight to Game Pass.

And there's nothing "shady" about counting bundle sales, just holy fucking christ at the insinuation. Those types of bundles don't count while we are totally willing to count ~$0.50 keys generated for bundle services? An actual bundle bundle for a console is far easier to count as a sale.

Pretty hyped on this. I had my estimate right at 7M. Only on PS4/PS5/PC. All things considered I think this is okay. Will eventually hit 10M after super steep discounts. SE likely went in this entire project knowing that each part wasn’t going to sell as much or over the vanilla VII so three titles selling roughly 5-10M each seems pretty good.

Before we start the FFXV comparisons let’s look at everything between the 2 & be as fair as possible.

FFXV sold 7M in 15 months & legged it out to 10M after being released on four different platforms, four story DLC with a plethora of updates, patches, & royal edition re-release. FFXV was heavily discounted & a year after release could be found for under $10.

FFVIIR managed 7M after 3 years on three different platforms with one major DLC. FFVII was only on PS+ sometime after its release.

Lastly one thing to understand is that FF is not gow, spider man, TLOU, horizon, & heck even RE has risen to new heights. FF is a series that constantly fallen with 5-10M with each vanilla release of a new mainline entry so keep that in mind. (Not including re-releases)

Yeah, I mostly agree with all of this. People trying to chart out legs and compare them to sales on other platforms are just kind of wasting their time. This is a Final Fantasy game doing Final Fantasy numbers. +/- some margin. If Sony, Microsoft, or Epic are willing to pay up the equivalent of hundreds of thousands or millions worth of sales, Square Enix is going to take it if they think the math gels even if it makes the top line # on sales look smaller. We are in a different era in terms of revenue streams, legs, price trajectories, subscription services, and bundles than we were a decade ago, or a decade before that, etc.

I'd love to get actual numbers on the Epic sales guarantee, or how much Sony paid for the PS+, or the value of marketing for those deals, or the type of money that Game Pass tends to offer for these. Epic almost certainly paid for hundreds of thousands of copies that don't exist.

I think they’d have to do something like DQXI did to reach that number.

Yup, and I don't think there's any chance for Square Enix to do a same-generation remake that has no upgrade path, unfortunately/fortunately.

 

[enpleinjour]

Good result, places it around the 2nd fastest selling FF game ever, only behind FF15.

EGS likely resulted in a muted PC LTD, but I think the 10 month PS+ release really effected long tail LTD. Obviously, Playstation paid for it and SE felt the added players as being more valuable than past 10 month revenue.

Rebirth has a lot going for it now.

 

[bladestrikex]

And there's nothing "shady" about counting bundle sales, just holy fucking christ at the insinuation.

The game literally being free and the game being purchased for extremely cheap that it's price is counted within the bundle are two different things.

Good result, places it around the 2nd fastest selling FF game ever, only behind FF15.

EGS likely resulted in a muted PC LTD, but I think the 10 month PS+ release really effected long tail LTD. Obviously, Playstation paid for it and SE felt the added players as being more valuable than past 10 month revenue.

Rebirth has a lot going for it now.

It doesn't, there is a nebulous amount that FF7 made from its 2nd year to 6th year where it went from 6.57m to 9.3m, a nebulous amount for FF8 in in 1 year 4 years with 6m to 8.1m, both of which are most likely above 7m in their respective 3.5 years since launch.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

Good result, places it around the 2nd fastest selling FF game ever, only behind FF15.

EGS likely resulted in a muted PC LTD, but I think the 10 month PS+ release really effected long tail LTD. Obviously, Playstation paid for it and SE felt the added players as being more valuable than past 10 month revenue.

Rebirth has a lot going for it now.

I really wish we could see what it would do as a full multiplat release day 1. I know im the target audience but with the strong reception to the first game and the incredible trailer they just showed i think it would have the potential to be the best selling game in the series.

 

[Guarabyra]

Comparing apples to oranges. BG3 had 2.5m sales over the early access years, it's on a RPG style with much more replay value, has multiplayer and literally got rated as one of the best games of all time critic-wise. There are simply a lot of things pushing it to be a big seller, something that this game didn't.

Divinity Original Sin 2 has also outsold FF7R, assuming Swen's memory is good.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Divinity Original Sin 2 has also outsold FF7R, assuming Swen's memory is good.

Man, when you put it like that... And it's not like it's getting any better when you're looking at the legs.

On Steam D:OS2 is pulling in 1450~ reviews on average per month in recent times and FF7R is doing 130~
The last few months are trending downwards for FF7R while D:OS2 is actually going up a bit, probably due to BG3 players looking around for more of the same after getting a taste. Heck a smaller bump is also happening to D:OS1 as well.


FF/Cloud/Sephiroth/Tifa/Aerith and Square Enix are getting beaten up by a CRPG with a top down view.

 

[storres]

The thing with modern FF is we will never know its full potential until Square does a competent day 1 multiplatform release.

 

[Damage2]

Divinity 2 its a PC centric game, of course it would do better on Steam, you have to compare with other JRPGS games like Tales of Arise, Persona 5 Royal, Final Fantasy XV

FFVIIR usually keeps in the 400-600th Position when its full price and go to 20-50th when it enters on sale like its right now

 

[storres]

Divinity Original Sin 2 has also outsold FF7R, assuming Swen's memory is good.

You mean on every platform or just PC?

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Divinity 2 its a PC centric game, of course it would do better on Steam, you have to compare with other JRPGS games like Tales of Arise, Persona 5 Royal, Final Fantasy XV

FFVIIR usually keeps in the 400-600th Position when its full price and go to 20-50th when it enters on sale like its right now

The point isn't to compare it's steam/PC sales vs FF7R 1 to 1, obviously the gulf is large due to the nature of the games and how they relate to PC. But it was simply to illustrate that currently D:OS2 has much bigger legs while FF7R legs are non-existent.
FF7R is not outselling selling D:OS2 x9 times more per month on PSN to offset that difference.

You mean on every platform or just PC?

In total, the numbers come from : https://www.eurogamer.net/larian-on...g-a-new-era-and-games-youve-never-heard-about

So while this is going on, Original Sin 2 comes out and does very well. Can you talk about how many copies those two Divinity: Original Sin games have sold?


I actually don't know on DOS1. It's a lot. DOS2 is more

[Laughs] Can you be more specific?



You're going to quote me so I don't want to say a quote which is not true on this.


I want to say, but I'm not sure if it's true, that DOS2 sold three times DOS1. 'Many millions' is the real answer. Enough to sustain something like BG3 and allow us to develop it.

This is why @Guarabyra says "If Sven's memory is good"

The numbers for D:OS1 were 2.5M copies sold per a GDC presentation in 2019, add another, maybe 100-150k~ copies to that probably inbetween 2019 and now.

That number for D:OS2 is entirely probable because if we do the estimates from the number of reviews we get 5.9M copies sold on PC alone.

 

[Astrogamer]

Divinity 2 its a PC centric game, of course it would do better on Steam, you have to compare with other JRPGS games like Tales of Arise, Persona 5 Royal, Final Fantasy XV

FFVIIR usually keeps in the 400-600th Position when its full price and go to 20-50th when it enters on sale like its right now

The issue is that they should be in a similar league. Even with its leaning towards PC, Divinity shouldn't be doing 10 times the reviews of FF7, which is a newer game. It's like a swimmer failing to be a runner in a race when that runner is a middle school athlete.
For your terms, on the best-sellers charts, Persona 5 is currently 20th, Sonic Frontiers is 35 and Final Fantasy VII Remake is 45. It's selling okay but, that's going to be 60% of what Persona is doing. For that matter, the 400 to 600 position you mention is marginal numbers. Like how going below say 20 on the weekly UK charts is only a couple hundred, it should be expected to see that for at best 300 on Steam global charts. 400-600 position on any given week is going to be less than 100 copies.

 

[Jimmy Joe]

I would like to gently suggest that we should rely on the numbers and dates we have, instead of attempting to postulate the timing of milestones that came between the press releases.

 

[duvjones]

The thing with modern FF is we will never know its full potential until Square does a competent day 1 multiplatform release.

Or they find a schedule that actually works for the franchise. Which at this point, I don't know if there is one.

What has been clear for a while is that the franchise has been losing its value for quite some time, and while Rebirth looks very nice... there seems to be very little in it that would convince me that this trend is changing. It's as if the player base is shrinking, which catches me as a lot more concerning than how the market is reacting.

 

[Laguna]

Final Fantasy is one of SQEX cashcows, but it is clear that they failed to take advantage of the big market expansion. Just look at Nintendo, From Software and Playstation Studios flagship IPs, what jump they managed to achieve in sales.

The FF IP was at the top of the market but its sales stagnated and the most recent FF16 shows clear signs of decline. Will be interesting to see what the next FF7 R parts will sell, but direct story sequels tend to perform worse. Final Fantasy lost a lot of mindshare over the past generations.

 

[Danny]

Final Fantasy is one of SQEX cashcows, but it is clear that they failed to take advantage of the big market expansion. Just look at Nintendo, From Software and Playstation Studios flagship IPs, what jump they managed to achieve in sales.

The FF IP was at the top of the market but its sales stagnated and the most recent FF16 shows clear signs of decline. Will be interesting to see what the next FF7 R parts will sell, but direct story sequels tend to perform worse. Final Fantasy lost a lot of mindshare over the past generations.

The main problem they seem to have is that most of the entire FF fan base is around 30 years or older, they have entirely failed to gain new and younger fans into the franchise. And many of their older fans mostly complain about the change from turned based combat, So the change of combat system has failed to bring in new fans which was the whole point of changing the battle system in the first place.

 

[westlake]

Good numbers, but, definetely below what you'd expect from a remake people have been calling for a decade and half.

Square under the previous CEO did such akward exclusivity deals for a big company that they backtracked support on huge levels on Xbox which is unheard in the industry, and even PC got major flak with EGS deals: Final Fantasy 7 Intergrade was released on Steam 6 months after EGS exclusivity ended and only did up to 13k players simultaneously, which is an awful result for such game, its just a fraction of what Persona 4, 5R and Tales of Arise did.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Good numbers, but, definetely below what you'd expect from a remake people have been calling for a decade and half.

Square under the previous CEO did such akward exclusivity deals for a big company that they backtracked support on huge levels on Xbox which is unheard in the industry, and even PC got major flak with EGS deals: Final Fantasy 7 Intergrade was released on Steam 6 months after EGS exclusivity ended and only did up to 13k players simultaneously, which is an awful result for such game, its just a fraction of what Persona 4, 5R and Tales of Arise did.

I suspect Rebirth will not be EGS exclusive just because EGS have moved away from just giving absurd amount of money to developers for exclusivity, they've figured out their store adoption wasn't growing.
But even so, inroad on PC is going to be tough for SE. FF7 Intergarde wasn't the best of ports, still isn't, and it remains to been seen how Rebirth's will be.

Subs across the different services have drastically slowed down in growth, they're also probably offering lesser bags.

The Xbox situation is still a big question mark, we've had the meme photos with Phil/The new CEO/Yoshi-P at the Fan Fest with the upcoming Xbox FFXIV release but no idea how this will translate to other titles.


It's impossible to figure out what kind of release strategies Square Enix is going to do for any game, but the chances of more multiplatform/less staggered releases is higher than it was in the past.

 

[Quinton]

Or they find a schedule that actually works for the franchise. Which at this point, I don't know if there is one.

What has been clear for a while is that the franchise has been losing its value for quite some time, and while Rebirth looks very nice... there seems to be very little in it that would convince me that this trend is changing. It's as if the player base is shrinking, which catches me as a lot more concerning than how the market is reacting.

Up until very recently, I was guessing there'd be a pretty sizable drop in sales between Remake and Rebirth. That State of Play trailer really seems to be galvanizing enthusiasm to a noteworthy extent, even among a few folks here and there who never picked up Remake. The openness on offer here is clearly enticing.

I strongly suspect a slim to moderate decline is still in the cards, for all sorts of reasons, but Square's marketing is doing a good job right now.

Final Fantasy is one of SQEX cashcows, but it is clear that they failed to take advantage of the big market expansion. Just look at Nintendo, From Software and Playstation Studios flagship IPs, what jump they managed to achieve in sales.

The FF IP was at the top of the market but its sales stagnated and the most recent FF16 shows clear signs of decline. Will be interesting to see what the next FF7 R parts will sell, but direct story sequels tend to perform worse. Final Fantasy lost a lot of mindshare over the past generations.

This is off-topic, but it's weird how almost all of my favorite franchises fail to court younger generations. I sometimes wonder what, if anything, that says about me. My biggest two are Star Trek and Final Fantasy, likely in that order. Zelda's up there, though, and that's the big exception, haha.

 

[GoldenFingers]

I would like to gently suggest that we should rely on the numbers and dates we have, instead of attempting to postulate the timing of milestones that came between the press releases.

There's just so many sources of fuzzy comparisons beyond that, even. A bunch of the SE games of that era got permanent price drops to Greatest Hits FAST, like FF8 went from $50 to $20 within a year of the US launch as far as I can tell.

Almost done of the Squaresoft games of that era were even published by themselves in the West, with Sony and EA partnerships covering almost all of the game.

The market was just so different back then. Permanent price drops were the tail revenue stream during the PSX era, but that has at least partially been replaced by subscription services. One of those counts for sales and the other doesn't but companies care about revenue in the end.

 

[HFbob]

That State of Play trailer really seems to be galvanizing enthusiasm to a noteworthy extent, even among a few folks here and there who never picked up Remake. The openness on offer here is clearly enticing.

While it's certainly possible, we heard the same thing about FF16 and its demo, I'm skeptical about these sorts of pre launch online "enthusiasm".

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

Rebirth has a substantially better sales pitch than remake.

Its almost all FF7 locations vs Midgar and 8+ playable characters vs 4. If the exclusivity period is truly only 3 months and they have steam/xbox ports ready to go then rebirth will reach 7 million significantly faster than remake.