Well, 1 year Epic exclusivity and 80 Dollar price tag certainly wasn't helping.
[Bloomberg] Sales of FFXVI, VII Rebirth, and Foamstars failed to meet expectations
- Thread starter Clippy
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Well, 1 year Epic exclusivity and 80 Dollar price tag certainly wasn't helping.
The idea isn't to "upend" XIV.
Sure a graphics overhaul injects some additional life into the game, but how long does that last for? You telling me in 2034 that XIV is going to be as strong as it was two years ago? That's not a promise any producer can realistically make in this industry.
Contingencies and risk-adversity is the name of the game and relying on one game to prop up an entire subdivision of your earnings is not smart. You want to be developing for the future in case things start to turn south for the current game.
You can have two MMOs/successful live service games at once. Hoyoverse is doing it with Genshin and Star Rail. I mean Square did it with XI and XIV. XI was still putting out expansions after XIV launched.
So it's not a matter of trying to "hurt" XIV but a realistic understanding of games and live service games: they eventually start to die off. Whether that is tomorrow or ten years from now, it will happen. And Square Enix would be foolish not to start to prepare for that and get ahead of it.
To be honest, considering how long MMOs take to make, if hypothetically they started this month to start conceptualizing the next FF MMO I think they are starting VERY late and very likely could lead to painful FY reports in the future if they don't get on top of it.
Yeah, I doubt that too. It was only XI where they were tasked with a bespoke port though, on X they were just another co/support dev on the Wii original and then later expansions. Saito seems to like them though, he throws them a good amount of work (Foamstars, Replicant remake).
Remake PC release strategy was so badly handled on multiple fronts (years long delay, then EGS windowed, overpriced, zero marketing) that I wouldn't take it as the standard to follow. XV PC wasn't day and date but still did incredible anyway.
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Unless Sony have locked in part 3 as an exclusive too, I'm wondering if Part 3 might get a bit of a delay and they release on PC day 1 too. There will also be people waiting for the complete bundles to play it all together (the mad men lol) and if they get them on Switch 2, then that would probably sell a decent amount too.
Both VII and VIII had already sold more outside Japan than within Japan.
I'm pretty sure DQ7 was targeting 1998 when it was first announced. Enix did not intend to release their only Dragon Quest game at the very end of the PS1 life cycle.
DQ9 was not so much as development hell but really just redevelopment. We know the entire combat system was redone and the release was pushed back for two years.
DQ10 also went through troubled development. They had been trying to make an MMO since PS2. The game came out on Wii in 2012 when the console was basically dead.
Back to DQ12, all I got was rumors circling on Japanese social media. In fact, I also heard DQ3 remake got into trouble. Horii didn't like the work the outsource studio had done.
I know I speak for everyone (yes you're welcome) when I say no more Nomura FF for fuck's sake. His name don't mean shit going by Rebirth's sales. He can stick to character design but please no more, he has had way too much leeway for decades between the nonstop FFVII Compilation stuff, Versus, expensive CGI movies, fucking Stranger of Paradise and TWYWY flops. He has his own damn dream Disney game series to worry about on top of that. I actually struggle to think of anyone else in the company who has been allowed as much as he has. Well besides the last CEO and his flop pet projects and foolishness in signing exclusivity deals but he got kicked out.
When Nomura only did character design for FFX or XIV's Eden raid storyline, that was nice. Keep him doing that for FF every once in a while and let him go wild with KH.
I've very much enjoyed his work in the past but certain changes with the VII Remake series he allowed to go through, almost everything KH post 2, the mess that Versus turned out to be, etc, I'm just done. That's a good way to ensure more problems down the line. I don't think he's a good producer or director. He's an art and ideas guy you keep on a leash.
I legit would rather them bring back old surfer dude Sakaguchi if they feel the need to chase past glory (if they can get him to stop playing XIV).
When Nomura only did character design for FFX or XIV's Eden raid storyline, that was nice. Keep him doing that for FF every once in a while and let him go wild with KH.
I've very much enjoyed his work in the past but certain changes with the VII Remake series he allowed to go through, almost everything KH post 2, the mess that Versus turned out to be, etc, I'm just done. That's a good way to ensure more problems down the line. I don't think he's a good producer or director. He's an art and ideas guy you keep on a leash.
I legit would rather them bring back old surfer dude Sakaguchi if they feel the need to chase past glory (if they can get him to stop playing XIV).
Tbf to Nomura he didn't make a bunch of story changes in the remake series, that's not to say he's an amazing writer but I don't think it's all his fault.
Well at least your self aware enough to debunk this in your first sentence :p
Nomura made the best FF games, so no. He gets blamed for way too much stuff which isn't even his fault.
Yeah, I don't expect Rebirth PC port to be Epic exclusive.
But being on Unreal, I don't have high hopes for its technical state.
XV's PC port was pretty good at the time IIRC.
You're right. Hexadrive and Orca announced so far.
Never heard of DQ7 on Saturn. I read that Sega presented a 3D Dragon Quest demo to Enix but it didn't take.
See this is the thing, no he did not. He did not "make" those games. A huge group of people did. Nomura's biggest involvements with FF are VII, VIII, Versus, and VII compilation
Everything else he was usually just character/monster designer. Even with OG VII he was a small part of it all and primarily the artist. A lot of famous moments from VII weren't even him.
Look I used to buy this bs too but at some point he had to put his foot down. He is the lead on the project besides Kitase, he allowed it and takes just as much credit for some of the changes that I personally feel were messy at best.
Nomura was not a small part of FF7. Here are all of his credits from OG FF7:
- Character Design
- Monster Design
- Story & Scenario Concept
- Battle Visual Director
Nomura isn't even the main director on Rebirth, Hamaguchi is. The ending of Rebirth was also Hamaguchi's idea as we learned from interviews.
Hamaguchi is very inspired by Nomura's previous past works such as Kingdom Hearts and Nojima gets inspired by those games too. You can say that maybe those choices were INSPIRED by Nomura's work but Nomura is not the one who decided on them or had those ideas.
Well, he is a great artist imo and VIII is my favorite FF. Remake and Rebirth are both awesome games even if the latter sold less than it should but the reasons for that were not on him I would say.
I am not saying he should do everything but people blame way to much on him in my opinion.
So much ignorance in this post. Sorry it's objectively wrong and anyone who has followed and read up in depth on the development of FF7 and FF8 in detail will tell you so.
Nomura is instrumental to what modern FF is from 7 onwards. His visual contribution is a lot more than just designing the character, summons, and monsters. It is also in giving the clear visual direction for cutscenes and combat animations by storyboarding the majority of it in a time when he was the only one in the team talented and hardworking enough to do that.
Sakaguchi himself credits the story outline and tone of FF7 to Nomura specifically, before the entire core team all took their stab in the different scenes and events. Nomura took Sakaguchi's original outline and detailed it with a structure that became what we know today as FF7.
Kitase as director had a strong desire for the games in 3D to have a real cinematic flair that reflected what the medium was capable of. Nomura was the hand that turned that desire into reality.
Go visit and actual FF7 or FF8 exhibition in Japan or look into any of the production artbooks and you'll see how much of these games are Nomura.
Don't speak in ignorance next time. Nomura for life.
Pretty much assumed that Sony will market exclusivity for Part 3 when it comes to consoles as well as the Complete bundle. Though recent multiplatform strategy puts a question mark behind this. But for FF7 I still assume the prior.
Final Fantasy VII: COMPLETE...
on three discs* (?) just as Jenova intended.
*internet connection required
I just typed biggest involvements were in 7 and 8. He's still a smaller part of a whole that was FFVII between Kitase, Sakaguchi, Nojima, Toriyama, and more. VII might be his biggest contribution to FF and why he was jointly given the reigns for VII Remake but I'm sick of hearing about Nomura this and that with regards to FF for decades. He's simultaneously the worst and best thing to happen to the series but he has had his time and they need new blood.
They do have new blood. Naoki Hamaguchi is the director of FF7 Rebirth. That being said, I love Nomura and hope he continues to be a big part of Square until he dies. And I hope that future new blood becomes inspired by his legacy and carries the torch.
Too bad no one cares what you are sick of and we will continue talking about him.
All hail Nomura-sama!
The wacky shenanigans and twists and turns are what separates FF from being a generic Fantasy RPG story. Nomura's story quirks are why I love Kingdom Hearts and why I was looking forward to Versus. Even if Nomura is not part of a Square Enix game, his influences are still seen in other Square games because people who work at Square Enix are inspired by his stories and that kind of writing is just tied to Square Enix now regardless of who is directing or writing.
This is a weird sudden turn. I personally love Nomura games and style. We are saturated with Yoshi-P games/expansions/presence, not gonna kill the company or you to have an occasional Nomura inspired game that exceeds and is something the mainstream likes more.
People attribute too much to Nomura and he somehow became the major face of FF despite so many other talented people working on it because people can't let go of FFVII. I wish he had been more adamant on his stance of changing too much in Remake project. I do believe he didn't want to change much, I even parroted that back around Remake's launch in defense of its messy ending but in the end as the lead creative on the project he shares the credit on allowing that stuff.
I wrote I've enjoyed his past work. I even like VIII which gets a bad rap! I just don't think he should be the one and only for FF and he has had plenty of spotlight over the years, a good bit of it in a bad light. My original post on this matter was sort of in jest if you didn't get that by the first sentence but I still do not want him to lead future FF, he has gotten a lot of opportunities on projects going even beyond games.
I look at the state FF was in between all the mediocre VII compilation works and what happened with Versus and I wonder, why not let new blood lead the charge? That actually does seem to be working game quality wise because Hamaguchi did great work with Rebirth even if I'm not a fan of some of his ideas either. Then there's the new talents that popped up over from XIV that are also doing great work.
Let Nomura have his fun with KH and let FF go new places.
I wrote I've enjoyed his past work. I even like VIII which gets a bad rap! I just don't think he should be the one and only for FF and he has had plenty of spotlight over the years, a good bit of it in a bad light. My original post on this matter was sort of in jest if you didn't get that by the first sentence but I still do not want him to lead future FF, he has gotten a lot of opportunities on projects going even beyond games.
I look at the state FF was in between all the mediocre VII compilation works and what happened with Versus and I wonder, why not let new blood lead the charge? That actually does seem to be working game quality wise because Hamaguchi did great work with Rebirth even if I'm not a fan of some of his ideas either. Then there's the new talents that popped up over from XIV that are also doing great work.
Let Nomura have his fun with KH and let FF go new places.
Didn't you get the memo? Yoshi P is the only Square Enix creator people are allowed to worship. /s
Nomura directed Remake, which was a big success according to Square. Hamaguchi and Takai directed Rebirth and 16 which aren't meeting expectations. The logical conclusion is that Nomura should direct every FF going forward.
obvious /s but what a weird turn this thread made lol.
obvious /s but what a weird turn this thread made lol.
KH is limited by the E for Everyone 10+ rating and by Disney dictating things they don't want in a game associated with their brands (and Nomura has spoke on this before).
With projects like Versus XIII and Stranger of Paradise, he is allowed to make projects he wants to make without those restrictions.
Not only that, but a creative mind like Nomura shouldn't be limited to one IP. He has spoken before about wanting to create Verum Rex (the trailer in KH3) as its own game separate from KH, why should he not be allowed to do that? Why can he not make a Final Fantasy game or a NieR game or other IP? I don't think it's fair to box him up like that, especially when he's one of the most senior creative voices in Square.
I wouldn't say one AAA game and bi yearly expansions for a decade old MMO is saturated lol. Even after 10 years there's still less Yoshida stuff in FF than Nomura stuff but both can exist, it's not some competition. These people have actively worked together before on the series, but these threads seem to forget this for some reason. Very bizarre shit lol. Not to mention how it's not relevant to the topic anyway, both games are commercial failures supposedly so what's the point even lol the mainstream didn't think either was worth it it seems, but I blame Kuro for starting this random tangent of Nomura hate really weird branch off.
If people really believe that the best and most interesting FF is a god damn remake of a nearly 30 year old game stretched into three entries, this series truly has no way forward.
Rebirth's performance is probably the clearest sign that the golden age worship among the JRPG community needs to die once and for all, you never see this shit at all among fans of other genres, and it's really no better than the gen 1 worship festering in the Pokémon fanbase, if not worse. Perhaps other JRPG franchises are experiencing growth and catching up to FF because they are becoming less and less beholden to the golden age identity.
The sooner SE pushes out 7R3 with a more reasonable budget, the better, so that all of the teams can actually focus everything they have into figuring out how to regain their relevance among today's mainstream, instead of the extreme opposite audience approach that happened between XVI and Rebirth.
I don't think this is about any individual director but rather about maybe constraining directors to an overarching vision in the future. Of course every director can have his say and this doesn't need to be like Marvel's movie studio process, but it does feel like every FF is free to be whatever it wants to be to a large extent.
And that's not a great thing, the games shouldn't feel so different. It's hard to recommend 13 or 15 to somebody that plays 16; they're not all that similar and somebody that likes 16 may not like 15 or 13 (and vice versa).
I think that's the real issue here, not the sales or acclaim of the games (13 and 15 individually did fine from a sales perspective and critics perspective).
Try to make the games consistent again and make them feel like somebody that likes 17 will like 18 and 19 (and vice versa).
And that's not a great thing, the games shouldn't feel so different. It's hard to recommend 13 or 15 to somebody that plays 16; they're not all that similar and somebody that likes 16 may not like 15 or 13 (and vice versa).
I think that's the real issue here, not the sales or acclaim of the games (13 and 15 individually did fine from a sales perspective and critics perspective).
Try to make the games consistent again and make them feel like somebody that likes 17 will like 18 and 19 (and vice versa).
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I didn't even bring up YoshiP but people are already starting the endlessly stupid inter division sniping. I even mentioned liking what Nomura did with the Eden Raids lol.
I don't see how my discussion on Nomura is a branch off when the discussion was heading towards the next FF and we have a journalist in here speculating it could go with Nomura producing.
Its not even fucking Nomura "hate". Its always all or nothing with you people. I'm a fan of KH, VII, VIII, Remake project, even fucking Advent Children I enjoyed.
I just think he has been given enough on the FF side of things and a good bit of it was not good as much as I do love the actual good stuff.
I don't see how my discussion on Nomura is a branch off when the discussion was heading towards the next FF and we have a journalist in here speculating it could go with Nomura producing.
Its not even fucking Nomura "hate". Its always all or nothing with you people. I'm a fan of KH, VII, VIII, Remake project, even fucking Advent Children I enjoyed.
I just think he has been given enough on the FF side of things and a good bit of it was not good as much as I do love the actual good stuff.
I mean it's not that they are ever gonna stop with making 7 stuff
I mean this thread is already 25 pages long but I feel it's basically just a rehash of the 7 Rebirth thread that hit 100 pages. SE knows and has some plan moving forward, but we won't see the full scope of this restructuring until 2026. I don't think another 50 threads on why did XVI and Rebirth not do well changes much. Hope for the best and powering through this rough patch is the most they can do going forward I'd say speculating on how we got here for another 70 pages doesn't mean much imo both games are already out it's too late for that part.
This is a real advantage that Nintendo RPGs have, most of them are younger/newer series because Square and Enix dominated their early consoles for so long other than stuff like Earthbound and Golden Sun which don't continue as series. So the Golden Age doesn't affect the younger series like Xenoblade (of course that has its own history but still) or the Mario RPGs which are free to be whatever they want to be.
Even with Pokemon I'm starting to be more sympathetic to TPC's plight with the series. There's so much nostalgia for the first 5 generations that it sort of holds everything hostage (how many comments do you see about Black/White remakes or part 3s on every Pokemon Direct or constant talk about more remakes of Kanto/Johto/Sinnoh/whatever else). Of course they have their own quality issues but still.
I don't think PS5 SSD speeds are actually necessary to run these games, they just improve the load times, I'd say they're almost overkill. You could get something running significantly slower and still have a good experience. I mean people have run ratchet and clank on HDD's and SD cards with varying results but they're fairly playable and that was supposed to be a premiere title that Sony were particular in mentioning SSDs with.
We are also hearing that Nintendo had a strong focus on zero load times during a BOTW demo at gamescom, the T239 chip has evidence of File Decompression Engine too which means speeds will be quite fast. Obviously not as fast as PS5 but you should be getting a good experience.
I have no reverence for FFVII OG and Rebirth is everything I have wanted out of a modern FF game so gonna have to disagree with you on your assessment
Super misguided hot take.
I'm talking about the new stuff; its core gameplay loop, the breadth and creativity of the games design/presentation, and the modern twist on classic JRPG combat.
I'm not talking about the parts it reuses from the original, which are still good too 👍
Improving MMO expansion release cadence will not change the fact that they do not have a big game coming this fiscal year and that will result in even more losses than they've already had the past two years which have been brutal in HD Console Games segment.
And for that I argue they are wasting their time and kneecapping the potential future growth of the franchise the longer they linger on this route.
It does not instill confidence among people on the outside looking in, if a significant amount of resources keep on being dedicated to ONE game out of a series of 16, one game created almost three decades ago, and a rabid ass fanbase acting like every game outside of one or two made ever since is an utter failure.
It's probably worth considering that we may have had fans brought in by a newer entry, that were immediately turned off years down the line because the rest of the fanbase and SE decided that the newer entry wasn't worthy of the special attention being afforded to VII, with the fanbase going as far as to insinuate that many of the newer games are ultimately a mistake. We saw it happen in real time with XV, and it absolutely bit us all in the ass. One could say it's been happening REPEATEDLY since XII.
It's just complete fucking chaos.
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If that is true, they have not told their investors that. What they said is that they had a 8.1B¥ loss in HD Console Games this year (with DQM, FFXVI, FFVIIR2). Last year, they had 4.1B¥ in losses (with Forspoken and closing down Luminous). And they said Dragon Quest XII is still in development (but not expected to be releasing soon). The only title they pointed to when talking about THIS fiscal year is Visions of Mana. And that's what made their stock tumble. If they said KH4 was coming out soon, that actually would've made the stock better.
In regards to KH, we know that Missing Link is coming out this year and that its story and characters will be linked to KH4. So very likely not releasing the same year as Missing Link. KH4 could be a Fall 2025 or early 2026 game which would be next fiscal year.
And I am not arguing that Rebirth is bad in any way. I am merely saying that if Rebirth was actually a proper FFXVII with its own new world and characters, there's a good chance these threads would not even exist. Yet at the same time, it's also possible we would have never seen anything like Rebirth in an entirely new mainline, because SE would have lacked the confidence to do it outside of the perceived (and now shattered) strength of the FFVII brand.