Daniel Ahmad (ZhugeEX): Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is underperforming sales wise. Selling about half of what Remake sold in the same timeframe

[GulfCoastZilla]

Never going to reach is harsh. Zelda only reached those heights with BOTW, throughout the franchises prior history it wasn't mainstream hit.


Square can do that with FF. It's got all the trappings that engineered and presented in the right way, would appeal to the millions and millions buying Zelda and buying FROM games.

First things first is go multiplatform.

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Zelda was never a mainstream hit? The same Zelda that use to have a afterschool Cartoon and has had nothing but incredible games since I was 5 with the gold cart.

Come on

FF and Square needs to do baby steps
Step 1, stop being a console exclusive at launch
Step 2, make a game that people outside of their fanbase wants to play. Right now I feel like only the FF fanbase is playing and not getting outside players.


It can also be chalked up to, ok remake was years in the making (people wanted an updated ff7 for years) the moment happened, people played and……that's it.
It's over, the magic moment came and went. I don't think the next two games will reach the hype and engagement of the first. You see the same thing happen in films.

 

[plow]

Zelda was never a mainstream hit? The same Zelda that use to have a afterschool Cartoon and has had nothing but incredible games since I was 5 with the gold cart.

Come on

FF and Square needs to do baby steps
Step 1, stop being a console exclusive at launch
Step 2, make a game that people outside of their fanbase wants to play. Right now I feel like only the FF fanbase is playing and not getting outside players.


It can also be chalked up to, ok remake was years in the making (people wanted an updated ff7 for years) the moment happened, people played and……that's it.
It's over, the magic moment came and went. I don't think the next two games will reach the hype and engagement of the first. You see the same thing happen in films.

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My guy, they released a game 6 Months ago that was definitely not exactly what the "FF fanbase" wanted.

 

[oty]

FF is selling "the same", kinda, as their games from 20 years ago, while the market has exponentially grown in size. that's a troubling sign. while most other major gaming franchises have managed to grow with the market, FF is trailing behind it.

but the worst part is, it's declining from XV, which was 8 years ago. compare XV to other major gaming hits in the last 10 years, and it's not even that big of a release. hell, Dark Souls 3, Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn. those were all launched in 2016 or early 2017 and they all outsold XV, two of them playstation exclusive and 1 new IP. and FF is not even close to reaching XV's levels again, and they are dropping

that all stems from multiple SE's decisions. the japanese playstation software market has "crashed", but they have not kept up with the western market enough like other big franchises. and they could have absolutely chosen to not forsake the japanese software market that is absolutely booming, aka Nintendo and the Switch, but they did.

this doesn't mean panic, if anyone is thinking of that, but it does show that the audiences are dwindling. now, we just got news that XVI managed to bring a fairly new type of audience to the franchise, and that's good. they have to continue doing that going forward, because the numbers do paint a clear picture. the audience for FF is slowly dwindling, and that's normal. you always have to bring in a new audience as the time goes

Zelda was never a mainstream hit? The same Zelda that use to have a afterschool Cartoon and has had nothing but incredible games since I was 5 with the gold cart.

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the highest selling Zelda of all time before BotW and TotK was TP with like 8m units. yes, it was never a mainstream hit

 

[BatThiago]

Not to be an annoying guy but if you say you're wild on hype, were you not following the news and interviews for the games prior to release?

Given that XV was salvaged from Versus XIII and they were handed a narrative scope way more than they were equipped for. A lot of promised narrative beats got shoved into Kingsglaive and all those DLC. It was an incomplete game, but the circumstances surrounding the game was pretty transparent, the game held a lot of progress reports that you can make a decision whether to buy it on launch or not.

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But that's the thing, a narrative that transcends media with anime, movie shouldn't imply in a chunk of the history removed from the base game like it did with the end of it at the chapter where noctis is captured, that's just convoluted. Blaming the consumer for not seeing it, or expecting a complete product at launch (which wasn't) is wrong in many levels.

I don't think anyone who played Remake thought that a Yuffie side story was missing, so when Intermission was announced, everyone treated it as just a DLC. Like, say, The Old Hunters for Bloodborne. Or Xenoblade's DLC. Or any other game, really.

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The thing is, when that DLC was announced, my feeling was not the "oh i need that to complete the story in the first part" The feeling was "if i hadn't spent 60 dollars in it like a mad man because of hype, i wouldn't end up spending 75.00 USD (i'm using the us value, but in my country i paid, in conversion, 74 dollars for the base game + 20 for the DLC, summing up 94 dollars, which is insane especially in my economy. The sole point of my argument is that people shouldn't bother buying square enix titles in launch anymore, because it's not worth it when you compare the value of the release and the relaunch of it, you simply paid more for the right to play it first with less content.)

Unless you only read headlines, you can see YoshiP and Takai repeatedly said that you won't need any other media to enjoy XVI's story, and that DLC is dependent on the game's reception. Come release, XVI's story was complete, the reception was good, so the DLC project when through. They stated this every time DLC was asked. And I can tell you that it's not a given that the PC release will include both DLC on a single price, because wordings on their interview stated they were still planning on how to include the complete version on PC--not indicating that PC players will get DLC for free. So if you're budget concerned, you should wait for price drop.
I'm genuinely curious because since XIV, SE's communications have gotten way better and at no point I'm buying any FF feeling I was duped or tricked. Everything else can be inferred. Like, I'm quite confident they're not doing an Intermission type DLC for Rebirth because they probably just want to get the series done now, but if Rebirth is ported to PC, it's quite likely that they add a few stuff or QoL changes or even new battles, because they can and it adds some value to the port.

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and now, after the good reception, square blatantly said they want more money of the installed base, charging more 25 dollars of people who, at launch, paid 70, in a package that one year later of the release will probably be sold by 60 or 70 dollars again, just like it happened with the royal edition, re intergrade and etcetera.
IF, which i don't believe they will, they release a DLC for rebirth i will have the feeling that i didn't felt robbed by square enix for the first time in almost 10 years.

 

[BatThiago]

That's just the norm for AAA games? Capcom is selling the "gold edition" of RE4 with the DLC included at a lower price right now.

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yes, they are, and yes it is.
Which is why we should enjoy this indie scenario while it is not plagued by the same things that plagued the big companies.

 

[GulfCoastZilla]

the highest selling Zelda of all time before BotW and TotK was TP with like 8m units. yes, it was never a mainstream hit

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Yet OoT broke Guinness book records before release
It was the best selling video game of 1998 and it released in November.

If that's not a mainstream hit for back then I don't know what to tell you.

 

[plow]

View: https://twitter.com/SquareEnixDE/status/1780261536197472677?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1780261536197472677%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=

 

[Derbel McDillet]

VII Remake is a perfect entry to start if you are new to FF imo.

Don't get people saying otherwise. Obviously if you are an FF7 fan you gain the extra hype seeing the PS1 locations brought to HD but that is the case for any modern remake (RE for example).

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The story not making sense regardless of the people who say "I've never played the OG and I totally get what's happening."

 

[Linus815]

wrt the japanese market, i think its also worth noting that elden ring ps4+ps5 had a 280k opening week, but then bandai announced 1m sales in japan alone like a week after that. I think a lot of people are seriously underestimating how much the pc market has grown over there, its not just western gamers driving the popularity of jrpgs on steam, which is clear when you look at what time of day the ccu peaks are for games like yakuza, persona or granblue.

final fantasy is actually doing quite well when you consider the circumstances. RE4 remake sold over 7m copies in a year on Series + PC + PS4/PS5. FF7Remake sold 5m copies in like 5 months IIRC on PS4 only. FF16 probably around 4 million now on a single platform 10 months after release. I rekcon Rebirth will be around that too in a year or so.

Not saying that they'd have doubled the sales if they released on PC+Xbox day 1, because that shit needs to be built up (and frankly squares scattershot approach to releasing stuff on non-playstation platforms the past 15 years has been really fucking poor and borderline disrespectful with the EGS exclusivity, poor ports and high prices) but there is a very obvious, large potential audience thats simply not being reached.

 

[HitMissYeah]

View: https://twitter.com/SquareEnixDE/status/1780261536197472677?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1780261536197472677%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=

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That's nice.

 

[BatThiago]

If GOTY awards are in Rebirth's favour, I see it receiving a second wind from word of mouth and fomo compounded alongside a PC release.

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But, the thing is, Square (like many publishers and big developers)is counting only on FOMO to sell their products

It's a name that still carries prestige, not many games have their music played in premier music halls in major cities across the World. The art design of the games are second to none in my opinion.

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Well, that happens not just because the music is beautiful but because the public got older and older and like to experience things they are familiar with in new forms of media or entertainment. I went to the different worlds concert when they were in Brasil because, like i said, i like the media and i like new forms of enjoying it. (i also like concerts).

One of my theories for FFs decline is that perhaps the young male demographic that is a large part of the gaming audience, finds Rebirth too colourful, the male characters too effeminate and the game too girly. You know how a large chunk of the gaming demographic are "manly men" who think toxic masculinity is something to aspire to. Perhaps not being able to engage this audience who find the game "gay" is where part of the problem lies? Maybe a simple strawmanning take but there aren't many or any games like that at the top of the sales charts outside of Nintendo which is its own special case.

Then again as I say this Horizon comes to mind. Hogwart's Legacy comes to mind. The audience for the latter surely would easily transfer over as an audience for FF surely?

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Don't think that is the reason, there are too many things to account for for the sales "underperforming" like less PS5 sold than PS4 at the time of launch, the fact that the first game had terrible pacing, the fact that the story is different, we will never known if one of those, or the sum of it was the real reason, we can only speculate.

 

[Ascheroth]

One of my theories for FFs decline is that perhaps the young male demographic that is a large part of the gaming audience, finds Rebirth too colourful, the male characters too effeminate and the game too girly. You know how a large chunk of the gaming demographic are "manly men" who think toxic masculinity is something to aspire to. Perhaps not being able to engage this audience who find the game "gay" is where part of the problem lies? Maybe a simple strawmanning take but there aren't many or any games like that at the top of the sales charts outside of Nintendo which is its own special case.

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Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail are very anime, very colorful and very popular, also among younger audiences.
Don't think your theory holds much water.

 

[Deluxera]

One of my theories for FFs decline is that perhaps the young male demographic that is a large part of the gaming audience, finds Rebirth too colourful, the male characters too effeminate and the game too girly. You know how a large chunk of the gaming demographic are "manly men" who think toxic masculinity is something to aspire to. Perhaps not being able to engage this audience who find the game "gay" is where part of the problem lies? Maybe a simple strawmanning take but there aren't many or any games like that at the top of the sales charts outside of Nintendo which is its own special case.

Then again as I say this Horizon comes to mind. Hogwart's Legacy comes to mind. The audience for the latter surely would easily transfer over as an audience for FF surely?

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It's really interesting that you think the potential audience for Final Fantasy is with the people who buy stuff like Horizon Forbidden West and Hogwarts Legacy, basically the most standard Western games you could possibly ever get. My opinion is the opposite of yours, if FF wants to get some ground back it should stop chasing Western trends and cater to the audience who actually buys JRPG.

There is a huge audience of people, including a lot of young males, who are engaging into JRPG through stuff like Genshin and HSR, and these people are not at all impressed by what Final Fantasy is nowadays (mostly an interactive CG movie).

 

[oty]

Yet OoT broke Guinness book records before release
It was the best selling video game of 1998 and it released in November.

If that's not a mainstream hit for back then I don't know what to tell you.

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that was one game, in 1998 with drastically different gaming audiences and they never replicated that kind of success up until botw, almost 20 years later. i'm not sure what to tell you. you could literally argue that Zelda was "smaller" than FF up until BotW and, as matter of fact, FF is still above them in total franchise sales units (even though that will be lost quickly since Zelda now sells 10x what FF sells on a single console)

also, sidenote but that guiness record of oot is so strange hahah

 

[sfortunato]

But the games you listed are also very popular. FF isn't as popular as those series so you shouldn't expect it to reach the same heights or have the same level of engagement. FF is never going to reach the heights of Monster Hunter, Resident Evil and Zelda. It's truly an unfair comparison. You can compare FF to other Square JRPG's.

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Popularity increases or decreases over time depending on the companies' strategies in nurturing and expanding the fanbase.

Final Fantasy isn't as popular as those series today, however it was much more popular even until 10 years ago.

Skyward Sword sold less than 4m units worldwide and all mainline entries had sold less than best-selling Final Fantasy entries. Yet Breath of the Wild sold 30m units. Nintendo was smart in changing the formula of the game whilst maintaining the identity of the franchise.

This is a very, very simplistic view. There is literally three FF games that sold that much, Final Fantasy 7 ( Reached 9 Million after 9 years ), Final Fantasy 8 ( Took 5 years to reach 8 Million ) and FFX ( Took 15 years to reach 8,5 million with the OG release ). All that happened in a time where the japanese market accounted for about 35-45% of those game sales. ( FF7 -> 42%, FF8-> 43%, 36% for FFX). Right now, it looks like the japanese market accounts for about 10-15% of modern FF game sales. Top that off, both Final Fantasy 12 and Final Fantasy 9 never reached 7m ( Only after plenty rereleases ).

So the bullet points as we can see are:

- Final Fantasy games right now are selling about the same as they did 10-15 years ago
- The Japanese playstation software market completely collapsed. A market that accounted for 40% of the series sales, only accounts for 10-15% now.
- This also means, that the series grew consistently in the rest of the world. When the game sales remain basically the same, but 30% of the sales die off, those 25-30% are recouped somewhere else -> Europe/US growing, but still not offsetting the decline of the japanese market.

So basically what we are seeing here is the originally strongest market of this game series completely collapsing, making it the main reason why it seems like the series is stagnating or even recessing.

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What's simplistic, exactly? Even Breath of the Wild didn't sell 30m in one month, rather in 7 years; Tekken 7 did that in many years as well as Monster Hunter. Further, you must look the trend: IX did less, true, but X brought back the franchise to high numbers. The decline started with XII. From XII onwards the series declined in popularity with XV being able to post good numbers overall.

It's not true that "the originally strongest market of this game series completely collapsing". It's true that console and perhaps gameplay choices made by Square Enix in the past few years didn't allow the franchise to keep its popularity in the domestic market. The domestic market didn't collapse, otherwise we couldn't see Zelda selling 4m units or Monster Hunter selling 3m units even on a Sony platforms.

Further, Resident Evil is selling less and less in Japan, yet it was able to increase popularity outside Japan, something Final Fantasy wasn't really able to do.

The fact that sales in Japan collapsed and Western sales weren't able to pick up the slack is Square's faults.

 

[oty]

What's simplistic, exactly? Even Breath of the Wild didn't sell 30m in one month, rather in 7 years; Tekken 7 did that in many years as well as Monster Hunter. Further, you must look the trend: IX did less, true, but X brought back the franchise to high numbers. The decline started with XII. From XII onwards the series declined in popularity with XV being able to post good numbers overall.

It's not true that "the originally strongest market of this game series completely collapsing". It's true that console and perhaps gameplay choices made by Square Enix in the past few years didn't allow the franchise to keep its popularity in the domestic market. The domestic market didn't collapse, otherwise we couldn't see Zelda selling 4m units or Monster Hunter selling 3m units even on a Sony platforms.

Further, Resident Evil is selling less and less in Japan, yet it was able to increase popularity outside Japan, something Final Fantasy wasn't really able to do.

The fact that sales in Japan collapsed and Western sales weren't able to pick up the slack is Square's faults.

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pretty much. SE is not passive to industry changes, in fact, they often influence it. other companies "suffered" the same changes and managed growth to their franchises, SE didn't because they simply did not make the right choices

 

[Glio]

I think Resident Evil is a really good comparison actually, because similar to how Resident Evil is the accessible survival horror franchise, Final Fantasy is the accessible JRPG, both were people's first step in the door of these genres, and they remained relevant throughout the years by continually catering to that. Similarly, their great stumbles were the ones that forego that accessibility (RE6 and FFXIII with their narratives for example).

Spoiler

Note that RE6 still sold really well, but they still reevaluated after due to the critic and fan reception and we got the back to the core values RE7

Arguably Rebirth is similarly inaccessible, its narrative requires playing a 30-40 hour RPG(and really 2 other games and a movie), it's got a weird "anime but mostly real but never quite achieving either" art style, and it is quite long and has a lot of systems to learn, the base complexity is higher than the days of yore. XVI was far more accessible (but far less successful as a role playing game) it's easy to get it into, no lore baggage, action game systems that aren't too taxing to learn, etc.

I would hope that the next take is learning from both Rebirth and XVI and who knows we might see Resident Evil sales numbers. Either way, for us consumers, there's plenty of reasons to be optimistic for the eventual XVII, they're lined up to make a breakout hit

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The accessible JRPG is Pokemon.

 

[plow]

It's not true that "the originally strongest market of this game series completely collapsing". It's true that console and perhaps gameplay choices made by Square Enix in the past few years didn't allow the franchise to keep its popularity in the domestic market. The domestic market didn't collapse, otherwise we couldn't see Zelda selling 4m units or Monster Hunter selling 3m units even on a Sony platforms.

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Final fantasy ( After FF6 ) was never sold on Nintendo Hardware so it's original market was playstation Users or "HD consoles" how they call it.

The fact that sales in Japan collapsed and Western sales weren't able to pick up the slack is Square's faults.

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SE is one of the biggest publishers apart from Nintendo on the Switch. They release plenty of games, many of whom are Switch exclusive. What is the play here? Scale back on the next game so that it can release on the Switch? Who tells us that it will behighly successfull? Another pretty similar JRPG with a lot of critical acclaim wished it did Final Fantasy numbers. Why isn't Xenoblade outselling Final Fantasy ( Strictly speaking about japanese sales ). Why do you think Capcom decided to do World 2 and not Rise 2?

Plenty people here think that the Switch automatically make a game sell bonkers. It's not like it's a button push "Make Switch version". I agree they should do their best to release the PC version asap, but they did the right call not releasing the game on Switch.

 

[sfortunato]

Final fantasy ( After FF6 ) was never sold on Nintendo Hardware so it's original market was playstation Users or "HD consoles" how they call it.

SE is one of the biggest publishers apart from Nintendo on the Switch. They release plenty of games, many of whom are Switch exclusive. What is the play here? Scale back on the next game so that it can release on the Switch? Who tells us that it will behighly successfull? Another pretty similar JRPG with a lot of critical acclaim wished it did Final Fantasy numbers. Why isn't Xenoblade outselling Final Fantasy ( Strictly speaking about japanese sales ). Why do you think Capcom decided to do World 2 and not Rise 2?

Plenty people here think that the Switch automatically make a game sell bonkers.

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Who said Final Fantasy should be on Switch? Not me.

The decline in popularity in the domestic market is due, in my opinion, first to gameplay choices and then to platform choice. XVI and Rebirth could have benefitted a lot by a PS4 version.

Also Xenoblade Chronicles 3 did 520k units in Japan so even if it's not outselling latest Final Fantasy entries it must be close. But you can't compare Xenoblade with Final Fantasy as the latter was much more popular. Dragon Quest XI S on Switch sold 1m+ despite being a super-late porting.

 

[Coinspinner]

I pre-ordered it but haven't played it. Honestly thought I'd be more excited by the time it came out.

 

[Pallo]

I know multiple people who played FF7 Remake as their first Final Fantasy game and have become big fans of the series because of it. One person I know even ended up playing the whole FF-series afterwards after completing Remake.

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This is literally me. I never grew up with Playstation consoles, I obviously knew about FF7 on the PSX, but I never played it myself. FF7R was my first proper venture into the franchise, and both it and Rebirth are two of my favourite games ever made. Since then I have jumped into FF14, FF16 and bought the Pixel Remaster. I love it!

 

[plow]

Who said Final Fantasy should be on Switch? Not me.

The decline in popularity in the domestic market is due, in my opinion, first to gameplay choices and then to platform choice. XVI and Rebirth could have benefitted a lot by a PS4 version.

Also Xenoblade Chronicles 3 did 520k units in Japan so even if it's not outselling latest Final Fantasy entries it must be close. But you can't compare Xenoblade with Final Fantasy as the latter was much more popular. Dragon Quest XI S on Switch sold 1m+ despite being a super-late porting.

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It's Dragon Quest, they could make a Dragon Quest game where you cook different recipes from the world and it would sell bonkers in Japan. Dragon Quest is also a game that basically stayed the same for 30 years. The last game plays basically the same as the first. Final Fantasy was never that. The game changed significantly each entry.

The gameplay choices led to the series growing in the west. Big Reason why while DQ is doing amazing numbers in Japan, it's doing a lot worse than Final Fantasy in the west. Could also be a reason why the series never really grew at all.

There is no way to please both parties and to be honest, especially the Remake series, is basically a best of both worlds.

 

[oty]

It's Dragon Quest, they could make a Dragon Quest game where you cook different recipes from the world and it would sell bonkers in Japan. Dragon Quest is also a game that basically stayed the same for 30 years. The last game plays basically the same as the first. Final Fantasy was never that. The game changed significantly each entry.

The gameplay choices led to the series growing in the west. Big Reason why while DQ is doing amazing numbers in Japan, it's doing a lot worse than Final Fantasy in the west.

There is no way to please both parties and to be honest, especially the Remake series, is basically a best of both worlds.

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the whole point sfortunato is saying is that DQ just got their highest selling title of all time with DQXI, while FF cant even get to the sales from XV. DQ made the right choices for it's franchise, and FF didn't. it's pretty clear cut

 

[Mephissto]

The story not making sense regardless of the people who say "I've never played the OG and I totally get what's happening."

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The stuff that doesn't make sense to them doesn't make sense or isn't clear to the OG players as well. That stuff was added specifically so even old players don't know 100% what is coming next.

 

[sfortunato]

It's Dragon Quest, they could make a Dragon Quest game where you cook different recipes from the world and it would sell bonkers in Japan. Dragon Quest is also a game that basically stayed the same for 30 years. The last game plays basically the same as the first. Final Fantasy was never that. The game changed significantly each entry.

The gameplay choices led to the series growing in the west. Big Reason why while DQ is doing amazing numbers in Japan, it's doing a lot worse than Final Fantasy in the west.

There is no way to please both parties and to be honest, especially the Remake series, is basically a best of both worlds.

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Until a few years ago you could say: "it's Final Fantasy, they could make a Final Fantasy game where you cook different recipes from the world and it would sell bonkers in Japan". See, popularity isn't some fixed quantity that doesn't change over time. It depends on company choices.

The fact that "staying the same" helps sales didn't help, in fact, franchises like The Legend of Zelda, that needed to reinvent themselves to stay relevant. They did good and now Zelda is among the top franchises in Japan.

So in your opinion the choices made by Square Enix over time have nothing to do with the fact that the franchise popularity is dropping both in Japan and overseas. Weird.

Also: "there is no way to please both parties" isn't really true. Plenty of Nintendo franchises grew or maintained sales in both Japan and overseas and this is true for games like Souls, Monster Hunter and Armored Core, to mention recent examples.

 

[JackOfSomeTrades]

The accessible JRPG is Pokemon.

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Good point, FF is then the accessible JRPG you play after Pokemon or if the Pokemon aesthetic doesn't appeal to you(i.e. you're a teen and above). My point is, it's typically far more approachable to a wider audience than it's contemporaries in the genre, in mechanics, aesthethic, narrative and difficulty

It's Dragon Quest, they could make a Dragon Quest game where you cook different recipes from the world and it would sell bonkers in Japan. Dragon Quest is also a game that basically stayed the same for 30 years. The last game plays basically the same as the first. Final Fantasy was never that. The game changed significantly each entry.

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Hard disagree, the rise of FF came from slow iteration, not grand revolution. This revolution in every iteration has only been since X, there was established patterns for narrative, structure and systems before then

 

[Neiteio]

I was so blown away by Remake that I practically forced my friend to take my spare PS4 and a copy of the game -- all free, from me to him -- and play it.

Suffice it to say, he loved Remake so much that he went on to play the OG, watch Advent Children, buy some merch from Square's online store, play Crisis Core Reunion, and buy a PS5 on which he completed Intergrade, Intermission, and now Rebirth.

These games make converts of most people. It's just a matter of making them accessible to more players.

 

[Clippy]

The gameplay choices led to the series growing in the west. Big Reason why while DQ is doing amazing numbers in Japan, it's doing a lot worse than Final Fantasy in the west. Could also be a reason why the series never really grew at all.

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Is Final Fantasy actually growing in the west? I don't see any numbers to back that up. Maybe some instances where it declines slower, but that's not growth.

All the FF games that have shown growth were worldwide hits, both in Japan and the West.

 

[sfortunato]

Is Final Fantasy actually growing in the west? I don't see any numbers to back that up. Maybe some instances where it declines slower, but that's not growth.

All the FF games that have shown growth were worldwide hits, both in Japan and the West.

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Nope.

In similar timeframes, Remake did less than XV and XVI did less than Remake. Rebirth apparently did more or less in line with XVI outside Japan.

So the franchise popularity (if we consider sales of mainline entries) is declining both in Japan and outside Japan.

 

[oty]

Is Final Fantasy actually growing in the west? I don't see any numbers to back that up. Maybe some instances where it declines slower, but that's not growth.

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yeah, idk how people can argue that rofl. 7R sold less than XV and then XVI sold less than 7R and now Rebirth sold less than XVI. it's about as linear as you can get, even though it's obviously not linear because you have the context for each launch. still, it's pretty clear cut that the franchise is very obviously declining

you know what's funny. there's another 3rd party major japanese gaming franchise who started making remakes alongside new titles of their famous games, and every single one of them, remake or new title, have outsold FF if you account for the release time of each. but sure, SE is obviously doing fine and Capcom cannot be the example

 

[Holundrian]

Nah DQ not doing well in the west has had more to do with Square some years ago just not doing a good job of making those games available and if they did it would take a decent amount of time.

Square Enix "Committed To Bringing More Dragon Quest Titles" West

For a long time, players in the United States and Europe didn't have the ability to play most of the Dragon Quest series. While many of the Final Fantasy gam...

www.vg247.com

It was around DQ builders 1 or maybe a bit before when they changed their strategy and since I think we mostly had every single title come over in a very timely fashion with very strong localization efforts tied to them(Like DQ11 got eng voices before DQ11 had any voice work at all).

DQ11 turned into the best selling DQ game in the west so they succeeded in growing the franchise overseas. I really don't think gameplay relates much to that people need to get over the preconception that turn based gameplay holds anything back in the west.

Not saying also that DQ is like some mainstream seller yet. Just that it's been growing as a direct result of just Square making a concerted effort of bringing it to western markets and the gameplay has remained on the same track.

 

[Derbel McDillet]

The stuff that doesn't make sense to them doesn't make sense or isn't clear to the OG players as well. That stuff was added specifically so even old players don't know 100% what is coming next.

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I'm aware, I've also described the game as "even more confusing to the people who've played the original" in this very thread. For the rest, I hope Part 3 gives you everything you're banking on, but this criticism doesn't stem from things being unclear or open ended.

There's setup and foreshadowing and then there's not making sense.

 

[sfortunato]

DQ11 turned into the best selling DQ game in the west so they succeeded in growing the franchise overseas. I really don't think gameplay relates much to that people need to get over the preconception that turn based gameplay holds anything back in the west.

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Also Pokémon is turn-based but it's as big as ever. Persona and Like A Dragon are turn-based and grew a lot in Western markets.

 

[Spehornoob]

Hard disagree, the rise of FF came from slow iteration, not grand revolution. This revolution in every iteration has only been since X, there was established patterns for narrative, structure and systems before then

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Yup. Final Fantasies IV-IX, arguably the "golden age" of the series, all used a very similar base gameplay template, largely altering the world setting and character development methods. They all played similar and had very similar scopes. You knew you were getting ATB combat, you knew you were getting a world map with vary improved methods of travel throughout the game, etc.

The era of rebuilding every game from the ground up has caused a fractured fanbase. If I like Final Fantasy XVI, then I don't have a clue if XVII will have anything in common with it from a gameplay perspective, or even a scale and scope perspective. XII went from an exploration heavy, western RPG inspired game to XIII being a hyper linear turn-based/action hybrid. The brand needs more consistency than chocobos, crystals, and summon names.

The positive reception to Rebirth shows what iteration can do for this series, but other elements seem to be keeping it from popping off

 

[Squall93]

Persona and Like A Dragon are turn-based and grew a lot in Western markets.

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We still have sales figures that are well below the major industry standards. Without forgetting that for Persona 5 this includes all spin offs and new versions. and finally we must not forget that it is for Persona 5 and Like a Dragon we are talking about games which have finally had translations in the different European countries

 

[sfortunato]

We still have sales figures that are well below the major industry standards. Without forgetting that for Persona 5 this includes all spin offs and new versions. and finally we must not forget that it is for Persona 5 and Like a Dragon we are talking about games which have finally had translations in the different European countries

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Ok but if turn-based were disliked by people then those franchises wouldn't have grown like that. Also, Pokémon is turn-based. Dragon Quest too.

 

[Holundrian]

What does industry standard even mean some of yall make 0 sense. And we just had a discussion on how what sales can mean varies from game to game. *facepalm*

 

[Squall93]

Ok but if turn-based were disliked by people then those franchises wouldn't have grown like that. Also, Pokémon is turn-based. Dragon Quest too.

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Because yes there is a market for turn-based. But even today the JRPG license that sells the most in the world remains Final Fantasy (I'm putting Pokemon aside because it's more of a special case)

 

[Theswweet]

Because yes there is a market for turn-based. But even today the JRPG license that sells the most in the world remains Final Fantasy (I'm putting Pokemon aside because it's more of a special case)

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Persona is turn-based, and there's a legit argument it's selling better these days. Maybe even the same for LAD8?

 

[sfortunato]

Because yes there is a market for turn-based. But even today the JRPG license that sells the most in the world remains Final Fantasy (I'm putting Pokemon aside because it's more of a special case)

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Pokémon isn't really a special case. It's a very traditional turn-based jRPGs that survived all these years because of a formula people like. Also Dragon Quest XI sold more than or on par with latest Final Fantasy entries (it did 2m first week in Japan alone). Even RingFit has turn-based battles.

 

[shadowman16]

Persona is turn-based, and there's a legit argument it's selling better these days. Maybe even the same for LAD8?

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Yakuza 8 is impossible to say right now. Its a complicated situation since:

- The series usually only does around 1mil per entry (maybe a bit more, getting any more info out of RGGS seems impossible)
- We only know that 7, and probably 0, maybe 6 have done way higher than that. 7 is at 1.8mil, 0 is probably similar, 6 was also a really good performing game back when it was PS4 only, so that's only going to have improved over time.
- Games have long legs and sell well over time, and we also know that while the series has dropped sales wise in Japan compared to PS2/3 days, its surged far more overseas so the series has not only made back what fans it lost in Japan over time, but gained more.

- Most importantly - 8 sold really well immediately. Like, its basically done general lifetime sales for an entry in a single week of sale. Which is nuts for the series (or sad when you think about how much it tends to sell per entry!)
But consider the above point about long legs, this game will go on sale various times etc. so its only going to do way better over time, its sales have definitely exploded, and it'll do a couple of mil at least, but lets be realistic - there's a chance it aint going to clear week 1 sales of Rebirth ever (or at least not for years). The series still needs to grow tons before an entry outsells FF. But it is growing exponentially at least, which is great news for Yakuza.

 

[Holundrian]

BG3 is turnbased and pretty sure I remember Sven or someone from the studio going over that you have very strong stats from mobile gaming that turn based is a market with a higher cap than people give it credit for. (duh as if we didn't know from Pokemon which we for some reason are always dismissing)
And before people go but it's a different type of turn based! You can throw all the same arguments at CRPGs that you dismiss JRPGs with.
BG3 wasn't completely out of nowhere success either, Larian clearly nurtured the break out to it with both Original Sin releases both doing numbers that you wouldn't expect from the "genre".

 

[ConflictResolver]

BG3 is turnbased and pretty sure I remember Sven or someone from the studio going over that you have very strong stats from mobile gaming that turn based is a market with a higher cap than people give it credit for. (duh as if we didn't know from Pokemon which we for some reason are always dismissing)
And before people go but it's a different type of turn based! You can throw all the same arguments at CRPGs that you dismiss JRPGs with.
BG3 wasn't completely out of nowhere success either, Larian clearly nurtured the break out to it with both Original Sin releases both doing numbers that you wouldn't except from the "genre".

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Yes exactly. It's not done and dusted set in stone that the audience isn't there. The audience wasn't there for a freaking Baldur's Gate game in 2023. Now look at it.

 

[Terraforce]

Ok but if turn-based were disliked by people then those franchises wouldn't have grown like that. Also, Pokémon is turn-based. Dragon Quest too.

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Persona has grown, but Yakuza 7 and 8 both sold less than 0.

 

[sfortunato]

Persona has grown, but Yakuza 7 and 8 both sold less than 0.

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I thought 8 did the best opening in the franchise.

 

[Jimmy Joe]

that was one game, in 1998 with drastically different gaming audiences and they never replicated that kind of success up until botw, almost 20 years later. i'm not sure what to tell you. you could literally argue that Zelda was "smaller" than FF up until BotW and, as matter of fact, FF is still above them in total franchise sales units (even though that will be lost quickly since Zelda now sells 10x what FF sells on a single console)

also, sidenote but that guiness record of oot is so strange hahah

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This is ahistorical

The number of non-bundled games that outsold LoZ, AoL, LttP, and OoT within their own generations can be counted on one hand. The original game (and Adventure of Link, kinda) had a cartoon series. Ocarina of Time outsold every PS1 game except Tekken 3, FFs 7 and 8, and Gran Turismo 1/2

You're right that Zelda fell off precipitously after Ocarina, with Twilight Princess and Phantom Hourglass being zeniths to stand against those nadirs, and it was a relatively niche series between 2006 and 2017, but the bar for being a mainstream hit in the 80s and 90s was a lot lower than it is today. The first five Zelda games sold pretty spectacularly, and in the context of their generations were all very mainstream hits that shifted the culture of video games like an earthquake

Zelda was also much bigger than FF until FF7, it could be argued, though you are of course right that Final Fantasies 7-15 hit their contemporary Zelda games with an elbow drop from the top rope (excepting Twilight Princess handily outselling FF12)

Sorry for the tangent, and I don't mean this to be aggressive, but I thought it was worth pointing out

 

[Terraforce]

I thought 8 did the best opening in the franchise.

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It did, but that's nowhere near Yakuza 0. That game had incredible legs by comparison.

 

[Sumio Mondo]

Persona has grown, but Yakuza 7 and 8 both sold less than 0.

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Sold less? By how much? 7 is the best selling entry outside Japan.

https://www.thegamer.com/yakuza-like-a-dragon-successful-international/

In an interview with Famitsu this week, Sega's Shuji Utsumi revealed that Yakuza: Like a Dragon was the most successful title in the series internationally when it comes to sales. The main reason for this success comes down to its release: Like a Dragon was the first game from the franchise to hit multiple platforms on the same day. In the past, Yakuza titles were limited to Sony platforms and nothing else.

This has led Sega to re-evaluate how it handles international releases.

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8 has the best sales opening in the franchise, probably will surpass 0 as the best selling entry too if WoM carries it.

 

[shadowman16]

It did, but that's nowhere near Yakuza 0. That game had incredible legs by comparison.

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Game out for more years sells more. Shocker. 7 can still outsell it over time, 8 almost certainly will considering that it sold more in one week than most of the series sell to date. So your comparison is rather floored... your basically assuming that a game out for a couple of months will never catch a game that's been out longer, despite its (8s) amazing performance out the gate, and 8s not even hit its "on sale legs" part of its life yet.

Plus, no one even knows how much 0 has sold, by the way. Only that its above 1mil. So do tell, just HOW MUCH has 0 sold?

 

[Linus815]

Yakuza 7 launched on all platforms with 3 different editions from 60 euros to 100 euros

Yakuza 8 launched on all platforms with 3 different editions from 70 to 120 euros

meanwhile Y0 launched with a single edition for 60 euros on PS4, then for PC in 2018 for 20 euros and I believe in 2020 for xbox for 20 also (with gamepass)

Even if Y0 moved more units (which is very possible as the original release was in 2015 in japan) I wouldn't be surprised if 7 and 8 generated more money. And 8 will easily become the best selling game of the franchise, I would be VERY surprised if it didn't, simply because both xbox and PC players were given quite a few years to "catch up". Reminder that when Y7 dropped, only Y0, K1 and K2 were available on PC.