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Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters reach 2 million units milestone. [Update: Now 5M as of March 2025, Franchise at 200M]
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We still dunno how this is calculated.
Given they say “Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series” it would be safe to assume they are summing them all together. You can buy them individually also.
I'm almost sure each game in the collection count as one.... or else they would have only counted the complete collection and not separate purchases
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Basically, if someone buys the whole collection, that counts as six units?
Yeah. That would be the assumption. Similar to MegaMan Battle Network collection retail counting as two copies cause it has Vol 1+2.
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Not terrible. Console likely makes up the majority & physical sales are problem less than 10% due to very limited availability via square enix online store & play Asia. It would be interesting to see sales by title.
On PlayStation if you buy the complete bundle - as I did - you do not receive one SKU with all six games on it a'la something like Uncharted Collection or the Sega Genesis Collection, you receive six different games. I'm sure the collection counts as six different games because it literally is six different games. Not sure if the bundle works the same way on PC/Switch.
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I saw a tweet which showed a screen of the Switch main menu that basically confirmed what you're saying
Edit: found it
They released separately spread out on PC, so I'd assume it must be the same there.
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The Pixel Remasters began releasing in 2021...
The prices are not all $12. When bought separately some of them are more expensive. And also what Pipe Dreamer said.
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I have no doubt these games will do quite well, especially on Switch (and likely have already done well on PC), but as others have said, 2 million unit sales across 6 different SKUs isn't anything particularly impressive. I'm honestly a little bit surprised that it didn't cross 2 million from the PC and mobile releases already.
Yeah going by yheir selling strutture, I think each collection is counted 6x here
Btw, we are hosting a giveaway for some ofnthese titles, if interested
Switchitalia
Btw, we are hosting a giveaway for some ofnthese titles, if interested
Switchitalia
Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster reaches 3 million units sold.
it's probably as six sales given the price and how they brand the game in the news
Results is pretty good considering the fact that being definitive versions of those games they will keep selling over time.
1 million in 4 months is fantastic, especially considering it wasn't really on sale during that time. It'll probably have some very good legs and just keep selling, being definitive versions of the games that'll be available on all future systems as well due to BC.
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This is pretty optimistic
It would do well though, no doubt.
I think 3 million sales for all 6 games combined is certainly a decent number. I wasn't all that impressed when they announced 2 million, but 500k each (on average) feels like a solid milestone.
That's awfully optimistic... I can see it doing the regular ~1 million copies HD-2D games have been doing after Octopath 1.
Legs are strong, should be a long seller.
Considering how Live-A-Live and Tirangle Strategy sold 800k-1mil and they were obscoure IP/new strategic IP I'd say that an official FF remake could still sell way more (3mil is way too high imho)
I could totally see it in-between the 2 Octopath games, so around 2mil
This is pretty optimistic
It would do well though, no doubt.
I think 3 million sales for all 6 games combined is certainly a decent number. I wasn't all that impressed when they announced 2 million, but 500k each (on average) feels like a solid milestone.
I don't see why you would expect a full FF6 HD-2D remake to perform less than Octopath 1, which did 3 million.
While HD-2D has been around 1 million since Octopath 1...the IP of those games haven't been FF6.
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Atlus, Harada, Night game is the new Alliance!!!
Still one of the biggest miss shot from SE if u ask me. The physical being this stupidly expensive end up rendering many potential customer away from the game.
The HD-2D aesthetics was a phenomenon when Octopath 1 released, it just doesn't have the same appeal as is clearly shown by the decline in sales from new entries. I believe any kind of FF VI remake would do similar numbers, HD-2D or not.
And, honestly? I can see FF6 being responsible for a million out of the 3 the Pixel Remasters did in total. So it's probably good enough of a "remake" for Square at this point.
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Atlus, Harada, Night game is the new Alliance!!!
FF5 actually is another big seller especially for japan there. So that can actually be hidden sales driver as well.
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The trend is so absurdly subtle that I don't think it is worth mentioning. Live-a-Live and Triangle Strategy both wildly, hilariously overperformed to other RPGs of their respective styles, and Octopath 2 is still trucking along and cements the OT series firmly within SE's Top 10 franchises. Seriously, Triangle Strategy is one of the Top 10 selling Japanese SRPGs at this point, right? Using it is proof of some sort of sales decline seems like a total misfire.
As for FF6, there's not really any indication at all that there's some giant 3:1 disparity between games that would be necessary for FF6 to have such a disproportionate chunk of sales. Too many bundles, no indication of sales disparities in the little information we have (SteamDB or mobile store estimates), FF6 released way later, at a higher price than 1&2, and there's reasons for/against any version of any of these games that kind of come out a wash. As far as I can tell these are like the 15th-19th platform/release for FF6, so the marginal sales one can ever really expect up front is relatively small. These are in Unity so they can keep selling for years to come with relatively little effort, but I have to imagine these all exceeded expectations.
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Steam owner estimations (PlayTracker, VG Insights, SteamSpy):
Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster
PT: 243,000
VGI: 151,000
SS: 438,000
Final Fantasy II Pixel Remaster
PT: 203,200
VGI: 54,200
SS: 248,000
Final Fantasy III Pixel Remaster
PT: 192,800
VGI: 48,400
SS: 189,000
Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster
PT: 188,500
VGI: 52,100
SS: 156,000
Final Fantasy V Pixel Remaster
PT: 186,900
VGI: 40,400
SS: 293,000
Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster
PT: 231,200
VGI: 79,300
SS: 300,000
PlayStore Downloads (Android)
FF1: 10,000+
FF2: 10,000+
FF3: 10,000+
FF4: 10,000+
FF5: 10,000+
FF6: 10,000+
FFVI doesn't really seem outsized from the rest of the series from what I can find.
Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster
PT: 243,000
VGI: 151,000
SS: 438,000
Final Fantasy II Pixel Remaster
PT: 203,200
VGI: 54,200
SS: 248,000
Final Fantasy III Pixel Remaster
PT: 192,800
VGI: 48,400
SS: 189,000
Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster
PT: 188,500
VGI: 52,100
SS: 156,000
Final Fantasy V Pixel Remaster
PT: 186,900
VGI: 40,400
SS: 293,000
Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster
PT: 231,200
VGI: 79,300
SS: 300,000
PlayStore Downloads (Android)
FF1: 10,000+
FF2: 10,000+
FF3: 10,000+
FF4: 10,000+
FF5: 10,000+
FF6: 10,000+
FFVI doesn't really seem outsized from the rest of the series from what I can find.
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I wonder if Square Enix just wanted the reward with no risk. The games probably didn’t need much in the way of development costs - I wouldn’t be shocked if they spent significantly less than $5M on this collection. And with the only physicals they paid to be produced being sold out even before production began, they’d be guaranteed to not lose any money on physicals. This release was more about padding their income than it was about growing their business.
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$5M for 6 full RPGs is way way way low. You can just look through the credits to get at least some ballpark of how elaborate this is.
These are 6 full remakes in Unity. Like, almost no other publishers treat their back catalog with this care and attention because the cost is too high relative to the potential reward. If these were actually cheap we'd see way more revivals of old RPG franchises, but FF is really the only franchise that justifies this amount of effort for the $15 price tags.
Planning probably started sometime around 2017 and 2018 during whenever SE was getting the interviews and early ideas for the FF Dot book that came out around then. Then the core credits for the series overlap between games so it was probably people bouncing back and forth between projects at Tose for like 3-4 years of development (as we can kind of guess from how far behind schedule the entire project was by the end, and that FF1-3 were all ready to launch together by the time they were announced.
The credits, broadly:
30+ Developers
30+ Planners
30+ Artists
10 Sound team
10 Arrangers
20 QA
A variety of distinct directors/products on the SE side that DO change from game to game.
~20 Directors/Managers on the SE side for various departments
Localizations in 12 languages, some of which are wholly new.
Outsourcing to Matrix, Amazing, Linked Brain, Scenario and Technology, Creek and River,
50+ people credited from Pole to Win, which is probably not really reflective of anything specific
Orchestras and support staff in both Osaka and Tokyo, due to having to record 300 tracks with live instrumentation during the peak of a pandemic.
It's... a lot. No, it isn't AAA, but there's not the remotest chance that this entire set of six games was some tiny $5M budget. Very few assets were lifted wholesale from any previous versions of these games. What has carried over are FF1/FF2 tilesets and FF4/5/6 monster sprites, but that is the bulk of what is reused.
WARNING: FFV ending with credits:
Serious question, for people with actual knowledge of the game industry. How much would a 300 track live soundtrack cost? Yeah, it is a mix of full orchestration vs. some smaller pieces that might only have one of the instruments be live, but the soundtrack alone is a huge achievement.
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The topic of if Final Fantasy VI would have been better suited as a full-on HD-2D Remake is interesting to me. Partially because that's kind of already what we got, and also because it makes me wonder if Square Enix missed a big revenue stream.
There is something special about VI with respect to the earlier games and it does sort of feel like the beginning of where FF was going in the PS1 era onwards. It's also in the top 4 FF games for Japan with its position fluctuating depending on the poll.
That being said, outside Japan it's definitely a "fan game" for fans, it did increase the popularity of the series in the West, but the difference between FF pre-PS1 and post-PS1 worldwide cannot be understated.
I could see a hypothetical FFVI having sold 1-2m+. Anymore than that and it's a toss up, I think it's a fairly easy game for fans to overhype as a big sales release. Octopath didn't just have the benefit of HD-2D being new, it also had the benefit of being one of the first bespoke expensive looking third party games on the Switch. Which yes, has to do with HD-2D, but not just HD-2D. It was a new IP to boot, which might have actually created some more enthusiasm for the title by the end.
There is something special about VI with respect to the earlier games and it does sort of feel like the beginning of where FF was going in the PS1 era onwards. It's also in the top 4 FF games for Japan with its position fluctuating depending on the poll.
That being said, outside Japan it's definitely a "fan game" for fans, it did increase the popularity of the series in the West, but the difference between FF pre-PS1 and post-PS1 worldwide cannot be understated.
I could see a hypothetical FFVI having sold 1-2m+. Anymore than that and it's a toss up, I think it's a fairly easy game for fans to overhype as a big sales release. Octopath didn't just have the benefit of HD-2D being new, it also had the benefit of being one of the first bespoke expensive looking third party games on the Switch. Which yes, has to do with HD-2D, but not just HD-2D. It was a new IP to boot, which might have actually created some more enthusiasm for the title by the end.
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The question isn't whether or not it makes money, it is whether or not they want to spend like $20-30M on a remake when there is a back catalog of like ~50 SE games that could plausibly get decently budgeted remakes. SE probably has ~15-20 remakes/remasters in the works right now as well as an original HD-2D Final Fantasy. Hard to really say which games should get which budget of remakes/remasters.
There's no way that the 20th or more availability of a version FF6 is going to be some sort of massive revenue stream. With the Pixel Remasters they are just in a sate of semi-permanent availability at a $15 price point and they've prioritized other games for full-priced releases for now.
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Replaying older FF through Pixel Remasters made me think how difficult would be to develop full-fledged remakes. Even FFVI, which is the most modern of the bunch, can't really be translated into a modern jRPG experience. HD-2D seems the best fit --- even 1:1 3D remakes à la Trials of Mana could be difficult thinking of some scenes/characters.
I was expecting something more from FFVI being one of the most successful and most appreciated entries on NES-SNES. However it is also more expensive than NES entries. FFV seems popular as well even though it appears to have a smaller legacy than IV and VI.
I was expecting something more from FFVI being one of the most successful and most appreciated entries on NES-SNES. However it is also more expensive than NES entries. FFV seems popular as well even though it appears to have a smaller legacy than IV and VI.
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There's so many reasons for or against any of the games in the Pixel Remaster collection.
- FF3PR is the closest any of these are to a true definitive version with it losing the least gameplay content and all of the actual gameplay changes being considered massive improvements. Also has been available the least out of any of the FFs so there is just way more room for first time players.
- FF5 is usually considered the most replayable in the series so there is more justification for quadruple dipping.
- FF6 is considered a high-watermark for the era so it is a reputation and stature to get attention.
- FF2 is the closest to a "fixed" version of the game, overall the least PITA of any version of the game for multiple reasons.
I'll also broadly disagree with a bunch of "Make it HD2D!" demands for remakes. It isn't just taking the assets and propping them up in a 3D space. Everything is more varied and more animated, so there's a gargantuan gap in budget. Making something like the Magitek facility and escape into Octopath style would be a tremendous amount of effort-- scrolling backgrounds, little text dialogue slowly appearing in battle, and static bosses and figures in dramatic scenes just aren't going to cut it.
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A lot of people underestimate the budget of HD2D games because it's a retro inspired. They think these games must be super cheap but that's not the case at all.
I do think however that the benefits of a HD-2D FFVI vastly outweight development costs; if Live-A-Live can sell a million units worldwide I'm pretty sure this remake could aim at 2-3m.
I was saying that among the remaking options, HD-2D seems the most fitting and cheapest of the bunch. In terms of pace and cutscenes HD-2D wouldn't need much changes unlike a 3D remake.
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Yeah, back to the DS/3DS conversation earlier, 4 Heroes of Light is a weird outlier as it should share some engine / porting nuance that the Matrix FF3 and FF4 remakes. It was just kind of a flop in need of some substantial work so I guess it got really low priority compared to the mainline games.
2-3M is more than the original run of FF6 did. I don't think people realize how extremely high 2-3M is for a JRPG. That's like a tiny fraction of the top percentile of RPG releases ever. Very, very, very few of SE's 50+ remakes have hit that number. Only 1 Atlus game has ever hit that. No Tales games? No Falcom games? Etc.
HD2D FF6 would be something in the $20M-40M range, or something that sounds crazy but isn't. If they are spending that much money, why not just do a new FF entirely in the style (which they are certainly doing), or why FF6 specifically? FF9, FFT, FF7, FFX are all currently getting attention with remakes/remasters and 1-6 just got a full set. Hard to see the rationale why FF6 should be getting a big budget when there's already those FFs, plus new FF spinoffs to try, plus the handful of DQ games that are getting remakes/remasters.
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I feel like that is kind of what Star Ocean 2 and Trials of Mana went for-- Low-fi or Low-Poly are distinct ideas but clearly dialing down the budget. Intentionally not big AAA budget to better deal with the kind of crazy scope for the more impressive 90s RPGs. SE has a really good stable of styles to go to at this point. Lo-fi, HD2D, 3Dx2D, pre-rendered, AI upscales of old 2D backgrounds, pixel remake, proper budget... I'm really happy and optimistic.
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