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So what are you saying? That FF should be more like the 3DS version of DQ11?
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Square Enix "hoped for more" from Final Fantasy 16 sales, expensed all costs in FY24 Q1 so future sales will all be profits
- Thread starter Phantom Thief
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- Start date
- Financial Results
So what are you saying? That FF should be more like the 3DS version of DQ11?
Right, and people use the install base as an excuse while ignoring it still underperformed if we use that logic.
FFXV sold 4M+ on PS4 to an install base of 47.2M at launch. That was day one. Around 6 weeks later, they'd sold another 1M across both PS4/Xbox and if the ratio was the same as launch, that'd mean another 800k or so on PS4. On the one hand, people will say Xbox sales aren't important, but when it's convenient, we get them throwing out the 5M number and saying "It released on Xbox too!" to try and make it seem like the extra platform made a substantial difference and as if 80% of the sales weren't on Playstation.
We now know PS5's install base was around 40M when FFXVI launched. That means to simply match FFXV's penetration to the PS audience, FFXVI would have had to sell 3.4M+ on PS5 day one. We got 3M for it's launch figures and it's been 6 weeks now with no update.
So it's not matching FFXV, the previous new entry. The install base excuse is just that, an excuse. And considering the conversation surrounding the game, and how SE has no update, it's pretty obvious the comparison is only going to get worse for it.
It's been 8 years since FFXV. How is any investor going to be looking at that and thinking, "Yes, amazing!" Final Fantasy has always had massive launch sales, and we're now seeing that the audience that is there day one for Final Fantasy is shrinking. And the legs are not making up for it either. While costs go up, other franchises and IP grow, FF is clearly showing signs of stagnation and decline. None of this bodes well for the future of the franchise.
Investors don't just look at the next 3 months. If we're talking launch aligned sales, this is probably the worst launch for a FF game since before FFVII was a breakout for the franchise. How is any long-term investor going to look at results like that and think it's good. With mobile underperforming too, it's pretty clear the company is not heading in the direction it needs to. They're not getting anything right as it stands in this moment.
Honestly, I think Square is right. Lets not pretend like the late last year/early this year run of:
Diofield Chronicles
Front Mission Remake
Tactics Ogre
Theatrhythm
Octopath 2
Harvestella
Paranormasight
Crisis Core Remaster
Various Daylife
Valkyrie Elysium
Star Ocean Divine Force
Forspoken
all in like 5-6 months wasn't AA/middle tier game overkill to where half of these games got completely lost in the shuffle.
There's some good games on that list too. I personally enjoyed a few of them. But from a business perspective Square was just cannibalizing itself. You can't properly market that many games in a short time span. A lot of them all shared the same relatively niche audience as well.
Were any of the games on that list truly financial successes or overperformers that we know of? I don't think so.
Square should do more games of DQ11 scale, budget, (and expectations), and let Team Asano stick to their one-game-every-6-months pattern that they have been on for the last 3 years. An occasional remaster like a Tactics Orgre or a VN like Paranormasight is fine as well. Drop the rest.
Harvestella was literally developed by an indie studio though.
Oh my mistake. I guess we can all blame the indie devolpers now for square enix their business decisions.
Like a few people have noted their mobile/mmo numbers are extremely worrying as this has made up for AAA problems. Likely cost of living is hurting in this area as lapsed users end their subs.
16 might leg it out but am not sure to expect anything significant there. Meanwhile their next very expensive looking FF game is a sequel to a remake of 7 which already wasn't amazing sales wise. Can expect a further drop from that performance.
16 might leg it out but am not sure to expect anything significant there. Meanwhile their next very expensive looking FF game is a sequel to a remake of 7 which already wasn't amazing sales wise. Can expect a further drop from that performance.
Front Mission is licensed out so we can largely ignore it. Of those games, the best reported performances were Tactics Ogre, Crisis Core and Octopath 2. You also missed a couple (Dragon Quest X Offline, Dragon Quest Treasures, Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song) and there were a couple of Switch ports. We can tell that Valkyrie, Star Ocean and Forspoken were intended to perform better but beyond that it's hard to tell. The issue is more that they all came out right after each other when months like May, June and August were empty. It's utterly baffling to have 3 games in December. They never had a lineup this busy so, something was up that they couldn't put these games on hold. Maybe they tried to stack them all together to paint a bigger target than the underperformance of Forspoken and FFXVI and the general decline of mobile. If this was Square Enix's annual Japanese lineup, instead of what was largely September to December, we'd have a regular lineup. Honestly, the fact that SE is pointing it out in Q1 (where besides the FF remasters console port and the PS4 Live A Live port, there was nothing) instead of Q3 or Q4 is what makes it the most suspicious comment. I don't think Square Enix ever had such a busy quarter before even in the heyday of the DS and pushing out shovelware based on their manga.
No, just that a games appeal is far more complex than this.
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Why do you keep on having this accusatory attitude? He is a journalist, he can get things wrong too (Like the switch pro/2 reveal back in 2020), that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve a job jeez.
Also all those random commenters have literally nothing to contribute to the discussion, just saying.
I don't understand that Gibson tweet ?
No one who is even remotely knowledgeable about FFXIV was surprised about Dawntrail ( new expansion ) coming in summer of next year .
The game is currently on patch 6,4 which means we are still due at least 2 more major patches until 7.0.
Not to mention that the last Fanfest event in Japan is slated for January 7-8 2024 with the last patch right after it after which their is usually a 4-5 month gap before an expansion launches .
Thinking that Dawntrail would come out any earlier then Summer was never realistic .
No one who is even remotely knowledgeable about FFXIV was surprised about Dawntrail ( new expansion ) coming in summer of next year .
The game is currently on patch 6,4 which means we are still due at least 2 more major patches until 7.0.
Not to mention that the last Fanfest event in Japan is slated for January 7-8 2024 with the last patch right after it after which their is usually a 4-5 month gap before an expansion launches .
Thinking that Dawntrail would come out any earlier then Summer was never realistic .
I feel if a follow up game to Three Houses that had a similar serious look with better production values could have made it reach bigger highs as TH sold over 4 million but I feel that boat has sailed as Intelligent Systems made the wrong bet by making Engage
Which is also ironic since they made it clear so many times the reason for the story, designs and characters (which been always said to be the reasons for the bad word of mouth) was to go for a new audience
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I don’t think making Engage was wrong but the execution nor production decisions were there to capitalize off their stated goal; things like missing the anniversary & 3H unexpected blow up didn’t help it either.
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So Three houses is a 4m selling game?
I still don't see FFXVI selling over 5m without more versions, and by more versions I don't mean a 6-months-epic-store-exclusive PC release only.
I also don't see FF7RE selling more than 4 million. So calling FF a FE-tier franchise is correct, they don't need to sell exactly the same but in the same order of magnitude. For FF to be a higher tier most mainline games would need to sell 10m+ LTD or close to it.
I still don't see FFXVI selling over 5m without more versions, and by more versions I don't mean a 6-months-epic-store-exclusive PC release only.
I also don't see FF7RE selling more than 4 million. So calling FF a FE-tier franchise is correct, they don't need to sell exactly the same but in the same order of magnitude. For FF to be a higher tier most mainline games would need to sell 10m+ LTD or close to it.
There's something ironic about Squenix sinking $170+ million (purportedly) trying to chase Destiny with their Avengers game just to get blindsided by MHY in their own home field. Whether Squenix could have made "Genshin" before MHY is a hard question to answer, but I do feel like because they think their IPs are so strong, they end up getting cocky and putting minimal effort/budget in their mobile games because they think people will play it anyways just for the IP.
And I agree that because MHY is flying so close to Squenix now that Squenix is going to have to, on some level, attempt to take MHY head on. How they'll do that will depend heavily on the aptitude of their senior leadership. As we've seen in the aftermath of a landmark disrupting title such as PubG, the copycats have to strike fast and with high quality. It gets exponentially harder to stand out the more crowded and stabilized the field gets. A major mistake was when Squenix launched FFVII: The First Soldier way too late to the battle royale party, which still baffles me in a way. Now MHY obviously knows this and they are making this harder by literally releasing their own competitors HSR and soon ZZZ potentially next year.
Squenix DOES have one huge advantage this time though which is that it should have a lot of assets it can reuse to speed up the process. Fortnite recycled Save the World mode, Apex recycled Titanfall 3 and Warzone recycled a lot of existing CoD assets and we've already seen Sega reusing Persona 5 assets for Persona 5 The Phantom X and trying to rush this to market. I feel like FFXVI's aesthetics doesn't really fit gacha, but I could potentially see DQXI being used. If they are REALLY bold, they can repurpose DQXII entirely, but they will risk pretty heavy backlash if they fail.
Square Enix appears to have already reviewed its MMO line up & taken steps, aside from the long in the working announcement of Final Fantasy XIV expansion & Xbox versions, Dragon Quest X Online is coming to an end on 3DS/WiiU alongside its next expansion pack in 2024. More interesting to see efforts to bolster numbers paying & playing Final Fantasy XI.
Thoughts? Note these are my (hot) takes based on information readily available, bearing in mind they could always be working on unannounced titles for Square Enix or may end up doing support work on any new 'AAA' projects greenlit by Square Enix in the years to come. Much harder to work out for privately owned companies but here's a summary from the current Financial Year:
April 2023 - present.
PlatinumGames (Final Fantasy XVI) - Tencent funding for self publishing initiative, hiring staff & expanding to Fukuoka.
Kai Graphics (Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai) support team, limited exposure to console/PC work from Square Enix but worked on several mobile/arcade titles.
Gemdrops (Star Ocean The Second Story R) - title has greater sales potential than recent mainline entries, company has multiple contracts plus it also has a self-publishing division.
Toylogic (FOAMSTARS) - NieR Replicant has not been ported to Switch, maintaining f2p title Warlander (fell out of PSN top 10 in July 2023)
Amata K.K. (Dragon Quest III HD) - major project with ability to sell in line with mainline entries. Publishing division & diverse business - time for more Final Fantasy XIV tv series & films!
Privately Owned:
ARIKA // Artdink Corporation // Cattle Call // Claytechworks // Dokidoki Grooveworks // h.a.n.d. // historia // indies zero // Lancarse // Live Wire // Sonic Powered & xeen - paging @Fisico
With regards to Star Ocean The Divine Force, tri-Ace parent company NJ Holdings will publish its Financial Report for the year ending June 30, 2023 next Monday so we'll see if anything is mentioned directly or in passing about its sales performance. While there is no mention of Square Enix or any other publisher, they did report cancelled project(s) that caused a second downward revision as it's scuppered plans in its initial forecast to secure project(s) in the second half of its financial year. That is something to consider, what impact will a decision by Square Enix that leads to fewer 'mid-budget' console/PC titles have on a myriad of contract studios that worked for the publisher these past two financial years (April 2021 - present)...
Publicly Listed (A-Z)
Most Recent Title for Square Enix: Octopath Traveller II
Current Project(s) with Square Enix: None
Impact on Business: Moderate
Reason: XALADIA: Rise of the Space Pirates X2, AMEDAMA (IzanagiGames), Class of Heroes 2 Remaster, DRPG, Deck Builder, ADV (Aniplex) & 1 more (Gematsu) but no major title.
Current Project(s) with Square Enix: None
Impact on Business: Moderate
Reason: XALADIA: Rise of the Space Pirates X2, AMEDAMA (IzanagiGames), Class of Heroes 2 Remaster, DRPG, Deck Builder, ADV (Aniplex) & 1 more (Gematsu) but no major title.
Most Recent Title for Square Enix: [PS4/PS5/XB1/XBS/Steam] Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins (Team Ninja)
Current Project(s) with Square Enix: None*
Impact on Business: Minimal
Reason: Successful developer/publisher, contract work & ambitious new IP (Rise of the Ronin). *console/PC but Dragon Quest Champions (Omega Force) just launched on iOS/Android.
Current Project(s) with Square Enix: None*
Impact on Business: Minimal
Reason: Successful developer/publisher, contract work & ambitious new IP (Rise of the Ronin). *console/PC but Dragon Quest Champions (Omega Force) just launched on iOS/Android.
Most Recent Title for Square Enix: [PS4/PS5/XB1/XBS/Steam] Star Ocean: The Divine Force (tri-Ace)
Current Project(s) with Square Enix: [NSW/PS4/PS5/XBS/Steam] Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai <RPG> (Game Studio/Kai Graphics) {2023.09.27}
Impact on Business: Major
Reason: Star Ocean: The Divine Force sales. Cancelled project(s) in past financial year. No confirmed title for tri-Ace & Square Enix hired other companies for Star Ocean & Valkyrie Profile.
Current Project(s) with Square Enix: [NSW/PS4/PS5/XBS/Steam] Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai <RPG> (Game Studio/Kai Graphics) {2023.09.27}
Impact on Business: Major
Reason: Star Ocean: The Divine Force sales. Cancelled project(s) in past financial year. No confirmed title for tri-Ace & Square Enix hired other companies for Star Ocean & Valkyrie Profile.
Most Recent Title for Square Enix: [PS4/PS5/Steam] Valkyrie Elysium (Soleil)
Current Project(s) with Square Enix: None
Impact on Business: Minimal
Reason: Tencent is loaded, funding Project Edo by Soleil which has ongoing post launch support for Naruto to Buruto: Shinobi Strike & Wanted: Dead. Vengeance is Mine for 110Industries.
Current Project(s) with Square Enix: None
Impact on Business: Minimal
Reason: Tencent is loaded, funding Project Edo by Soleil which has ongoing post launch support for Naruto to Buruto: Shinobi Strike & Wanted: Dead. Vengeance is Mine for 110Industries.
Most Recent Title for Square Enix: [Steam] Dragon Quest Treasures (Shadow Drop)
Current Project(s) with Square Enix: None
Impact on Business: Moderate.
Reason: Share price is down after publishing its latest results but has stabilised, Square Enix is an important client for the company but it works for a wide variety of clients at once.
Current Project(s) with Square Enix: None
Impact on Business: Moderate.
Reason: Share price is down after publishing its latest results but has stabilised, Square Enix is an important client for the company but it works for a wide variety of clients at once.
April 2023 - present.
PlatinumGames (Final Fantasy XVI) - Tencent funding for self publishing initiative, hiring staff & expanding to Fukuoka.
Kai Graphics (Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai) support team, limited exposure to console/PC work from Square Enix but worked on several mobile/arcade titles.
Gemdrops (Star Ocean The Second Story R) - title has greater sales potential than recent mainline entries, company has multiple contracts plus it also has a self-publishing division.
Toylogic (FOAMSTARS) - NieR Replicant has not been ported to Switch, maintaining f2p title Warlander (fell out of PSN top 10 in July 2023)
Amata K.K. (Dragon Quest III HD) - major project with ability to sell in line with mainline entries. Publishing division & diverse business - time for more Final Fantasy XIV tv series & films!
Privately Owned:
ARIKA // Artdink Corporation // Cattle Call // Claytechworks // Dokidoki Grooveworks // h.a.n.d. // historia // indies zero // Lancarse // Live Wire // Sonic Powered & xeen - paging @Fisico
That explains a few directions that they have gone to over the years. Still, I think that that it is a question of what the company is doing to foster talent and personal movement within the company, given so many personal.
It is clear that they still content with this issue, so what has been done to attempt to solve it?
I agree and pretty unusual
NOT JOKIN': could this be part of their "18 months plan"? This will surely boost sales imho
Another serious question: can the variable % of the discount being related to the sales curve in each region? The higher the discount, the "relatively (to the region/expectations) lower" the sales for SE?
It happens with a lot of games, even TOTK is $50 on Amazon after 3 months.
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Im sure that means that TOTK its a failure in sales
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This is normal, Diablo 4 dropped to $55. Now Diablo 4 is bomb? FF16 didn't set world on fire but this post again remind me of Matt tweet.
We have more than one data point (actual sales, discounts, legs ect) for each game, that's why a discount for one may or may not be worrying while not for the other.
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That's retailers discount and not officially discounted by Nintendo.
Take a look at the price history on PS Store and Nintendo Eshop for both games.
Diablo 4 has not been discounted officially in digital stores.
Retail discounts are often discounts from retailers. In case of Final Fantasy XVI it's not.
Retailers' discounts are pretty common, even for successful games - in fact, they might be used to lure consumers in buying the popular game such that they might buy something else at full price or at a price where margins are higher.
A publishers' discount is much less common for newer games, indeed successful games are always at full price besides promotion of individual retailers. You don't find Tears of the Kingdom at 20% discount on the eShop.
A publishers' discount is much less common for newer games, indeed successful games are always at full price besides promotion of individual retailers. You don't find Tears of the Kingdom at 20% discount on the eShop.
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We have data for that.
Zelda TOTK - 18.51 million units and set to become the best selling game of the year. 0 official bundles and discounts.
FFXVI - 3 million units and officially discounted after 2 months on the market.
As others have said about retailers vs official discounts. And saying ToTK out of all games when it’s the 2nd biggest exclusive launc of all time is a bit ironic
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70$ have more room for discounts than 60$ games, most 70$ games get a discount to 53-55$ 2-3 months after release but not that much for months
From what I can see FFXV didn't get an official discount until August 2017 (so 9 months from launch) though it did have plenty of retailer discounts before that.
TOTK and Diablo IV have yet to get an official discount (unless you count vouchers).
I wonder if Sony helped with the discount or if SE has to eat it themselves?
TOTK and Diablo IV have yet to get an official discount (unless you count vouchers).
I wonder if Sony helped with the discount or if SE has to eat it themselves?
Diablo IV has a price promotion going on right now on bnet (back to school sale on bnet and every game has some form of promotion)
Nintendo games basically never get official discounts so it is pointless including them in this sort of discussion.
This seems relatively quick for a publisher discount but JRPGs just lose steam so quick I can undertand desire to capitalize early.
This seems relatively quick for a publisher discount but JRPGs just lose steam so quick I can undertand desire to capitalize early.
Don't do this, it's just dumb trolling with no point.
No- at least not if this is in reference to just that post. If you take a look at the asterisk in the same image, you'll see that the game is 20% off digitally without qualifiers and 29% off physically in the US and Canada within the two respective date brackets, leaving no regional percentage variation. It may, however, be worth asking about the difference between digital and physical in the arrangement.
A larger physical discount isn't desirable from the Publisher's end in that the distribution of profits is more segmented, making the alternative more attractive. This may indicate some sort of retailer preference being involved in the matter, but it's hard to make substantiable conclusions. A smaller digital discount makes sense as a desirable restriction in terms of per-unit profitability being higher, but the far greater profit margins mean that digital is the more reasonable avenue for a high discount if sales volume is more important. A guess may be that they might hope bolstered sales/mind-share might drive digital sales in a way they can take advantage of. There could perhaps also be a relative strategy for the benefit of the retailers who aren't clearing units ordered, making physical look more attractive to consumers considering the game and helping get that stock moving.
Actually, Nintendo does discount their software on the eShop. Physical discounts also occur, which may be arranged -or at least evaluated- by them as well.
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I meant permanent discounts. I probably should have highlighted that. Obviously they run their 30% eshop sales from time to time.
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outside of me not being serious, TOTK had a lot of price cuts in Amazon and other stores, can we please stop with that narrative "Nintendo doesnt give price cuts so they are the only one that matters" feels like console wars shit
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But ... they don't give price cuts? Those are retailer price cuts, which happens for all games.
While a price cut after 2 months isn't exactly out of the norm, it's a bit eyebrow raising because we've seen time and time again people casting doubt that the sales are a bit disappointing. This is more evidence to add onto that theory being correct. For example REmake 4 still hasn't had an official discount after almost 5 months, from a company that's known for its insane discounts.
This doesn't mean FF did bad. But I don't see a reason to not see the discount as further evidence that sales were just ok and also a bit disappointing. Both can be true at the same time.
Making a distinction between random competitive retailer discounts and a universal publisher driven cut is not "console wars shit".
The only console wars shit I really see regarding TOTK itt is probably the trolling you did piggybacking the original immaterial comparison that inserted it.
Should we remind you that you're on a thin ice for exactly this?
Also the moderation ladder in case you didn't follow
If you sold me something, and then I went and sold it to someone else for cheaper. Did *you* give that person a price cut?
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Yeah, no announcement for the PC version, nothing about the Road Plan for the DLCs, no post launch stream talking about the game and stats like Tabata liked to do, no updates and free DLC like an Arena mode.
They are going to release a patch fixing the Arcade Mode because people keep talking how broken the ranking system is (its terrible)
Is it just me or does it not make sense to change strategy to emphasize AAA even more? Forspoken bombed and FF16 isn't necessarily lighting up the charts (but doing decently). It seems like a big risk to gut AA projects (which Nier Automata basically was) and instead go even more in on the even riskier and resource-intensive AAA space.