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Final Fantasy 16 Extremely Underperformed On PC; Sold Only 289K Units Since Launch

Hrk69

Gold Member
It's on my list, but I generally don't pay $60 for PC games. $40 and lower, sure.

€39.59

Oh and bookmark this one if you never want to pay full price again:

 
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Well the year later release schedule doesn't help. Square wouldn't even put a date on the PC version. If you were remotely interested in FF16 how many people would wait an unknown amount of time for the PC version?

Having said that, I was one of those people who waited and purchased on PC. I enjoyed it, finished the main game. 7/10 final fantasy
 

Zacfoldor

Member
It's on my list, but I generally don't pay $60 for PC games. $40 and lower, sure.
eric cartman money GIF by South Park


See now this is the reason us playstation pro gamers set the zeitgeist.

PC gamers, here you are. Found you. Buy a 2000 dollar gaming rig to play the humble bundle game from 1998 for 2 cents a license or just "preserve" a new Nintendo game by emulating it then get on here and try to convince me to "upgrade" to PC. Sheeeeeet...

Season 2 Money GIF by The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
eric cartman money GIF by South Park


See now this is the reason us playstation pro gamers set the zeitgeist.

PC gamers, here you are. Found you. Buy a 2000 dollar gaming rig to play the humble bundle game from 1998 for 2 cents a license or just "preserve" a new Nintendo game by emulating it then get on here and try to convince me to "upgrade" to PC. Sheeeeeet...

Season 2 Money GIF by The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Most day 1 games on PC are between 40$ and 50$ bucks if you know where to get them.

Plus you have to understand. People that have been playing on PC for years have tons of games at their disposal, there's no really a need for getting a game on release unless you are very hyped about it.
 
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The PS5 sales had a strong start based on hype, and then quickly fell off as people realized the game wasn't great.

(fwiw I agree with the description that it's a mediocre to poor game punctuated with some of the coolest moments in gaming I've ever experienced)

Releasing a year after the hype was really not a good call for this title. It's performance on console is crap - I would have bought on PC instead had that been an option.
 
eric cartman money GIF by South Park


See now this is the reason us playstation pro gamers set the zeitgeist.

PC gamers, here you are. Found you. Buy a 2000 dollar gaming rig to play the humble bundle game from 1998 for 2 cents a license or just "preserve" a new Nintendo game by emulating it then get on here and try to convince me to "upgrade" to PC. Sheeeeeet...

Season 2 Money GIF by The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Yeah well, I can skip intro videos in my PC games.
 
After a year, people who wanted to play it, already played it, or watched it on Stream or YouTube.

Give an incentive to buy on PC, like exclusive content or something.
 

Sentenza

Gold Member
After trying the demo I'm not surprised.
It killed any vague interest in the game I may have had before.

More watching cutscenes and walking toward cursors for MORE CUTSCENES than anything resembling actual gameplay. What a fucking slog.
 
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xenosys

Member
Not too surprising. I expected something between 200-400K, and it'll probably do around a million over the next few years. Even GoW : Ragnarok, which came in with a lot more hype this year, looks like it's done around 300-400k based on the analytics.

You need to launch AAA titles on Steam D1 to capitalise on hype and momentum.

I imagine Rebirth will probably do similar numbers when it comes out, maybe a little more based on it getting more positive coverage and reviewing better this year.

Sony and Square Enix have had a good relationship over the last couple of decades, but Square's refusal to cut the cord with them 5-10 years ago will probably cost them a boatload of Final Fantasy $$$, at least until XVII gets released.
 
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rofif

Can’t Git Gud
I thought XVI was a failure as a JRPG and a failure as a character action game. Yeah the boss battles were cool but the other 95% was so boring. I fell asleep multiple times before I dropped it around the 70% mark. And this is coming from someone who was totally onboard with the shift to a mature GoT style story + action battles.

And I know I’m not the only one who felt that way.

It’s not an indie game, but I wouldn’t call those fights impressive. They quickly became stale, as all the enemies are just HP sponges.

I hated that the HP pools felt like mere checkpoints for the next phase of the fight. Especially during the Titan fight.
Hey I am not here to argue. It's ok you didn't like it.
I realize it's a specific game for smooth brained individuals. I just played it like if it was dragon ball z :p
 
Spider-man remastered sold 1.5 millions copies in a month on steam/epic even though it had been out for an eternity on console

It has nothing to do with release it day one on all platforms. The game was just average
This is revisionist history like fuck, lol. Spiderman alone sold close to 30 million copies on ps4/ps5. Its the highest selling superhero game of all time, and elementsfrom the game appeared in two different Spiderman movies. Your opinion if you like the game is subjective, but its far from average.
 

TheStam

Member
Delayed releases on PC at full price won't work. Single player games can sell great if they are good and released in a timely fashion. There is a ridiculous amount of games to choose from as it is on PC, I feel like people don't get this. The only ones who seem to get away with delayed releases are Rockstar. No one else has an IP like that.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Delayed releases on PC at full price won't work. Single player games can sell great if they are good and released in a timely fashion. There is a ridiculous amount of games to choose from as it is on PC, I feel like people don't get this. The only ones who seem to get away with delayed releases are Rockstar. No one else has an IP like that.
It's 50$ on steam.
Was 70$ on ps5. It's not full price
 

kevm3

Member
I dont' get this notion that FF16 was average or some bad game. It was one of the best games I've played. The only real thing it was lacking was exploration, but FF16 had some of the most amazing moments in gaming history.
 

TheStam

Member
It's 50$ on steam.
Was 70$ on ps5. It's not full price

Even then it's obviously not enough of a discount looking at their underwhelming sales figues. My main point is though, staggered releases aren't a good idea and Square Enix have talked about releasing games simultaneously on PC in the future. You gotta ride that release hype.
 
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Reactions: Fbh

Fbh

Member
Horizon sold almost 4 million copies on PC after being released 3 years later. Good games sells.

FFXVI underperformed on ps5, it wasnt a very good game nor rpg.
It will not sell well on any other platforms, that's just it.
Horizon sold 4 million over several years, not right away. And it got a ton of coverage and notoriety because as far as I remember it was the first of these big Playstation exclusives to make the jump to PC.

But yes, good games will still sell even if they launch later. And if FFXVI had been an amazing game with really good word of mouth instead of an ok casual action game wrapped around a mediocre RPG I'm sure it would have done much better on PC.
But be it a good game that ended up selling well or and average one that didn't, I still think every game that came to PC 1+ years later would have seen stronger numbers if it had launched on PC day 1.

In some way a game like XVI would have benefited even more from day 1 release, because by the time the hype and excitement died down and people realized it's not that good it would have probably sold a decent amount of copies already. Instead it came to PC when everyone had already had that realization.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Even then it's obviously not enough of a discount looking at their underwhelming sales figues. My main point is though, staggered releases aren't a good idea and Square Enix have talked about releasing games simultaneously on PC in the future. You gotta ride that release hype.
At this point it's not about the price anymore. Thing was 40$ on cdkeys day1 on pc and still is.
Hype was over, FF fans gave it bad rep and damage was done.
Strange because I remember very positive reviews and reactions when the game released. Everyone seemed surprised how good it was.

It's kinda bioshock infinite situation maybe? Like, when it released, everyone was shocked how good it was and now everyone shits on it.
 

Caffeine

Gold Member
Hype coming off marketing cycle is a big thing. They barely market the PC release after announcement over a year after original marketing window for ps5.
 

jburdick7

Neo Member
I bought it on PC and kinda wish I’d waited. The port really isn’t that good (I’ve had tons of crashing, mostly in the end game but one cutscene in the middle of the game always crashed and made me have to skip the entire cinematic) and features like unlocked cutscenes & ultrawide need a mod. Add in that you need a pretty beefy rig to get decent performance and it’s not super conducive to high sales early on.

I wouldn’t say the game itself is bad it’s just aggressively average and clearly made to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. That’s not a BAD thing in some regards (the story, characters, and voice acting are great) but it really, really hampers it in others (the combat starts fun but gets really monotonous halfway through, the dialogue is all over the place, especially with the swearing, and on the whole the game is just way, way too easy).

Launching at $40 w/out DLC or $60 with all DLC was a good idea and the average parts of the game are easy enough to cover up from prospective buyers but I think not really giving anyone a reason to buy it on PC besides “it’s no longer a ps5 exclusive!” hurt it.

I’ll still probably buy Rebirth when it comes to PC but I really hope they put a little more effort into it than they did XVI.
 

AmuroChan

Member
Like Concord, Horizon Lego, Horizon ZD remaster, and Until Dawn?

I think it's time to admit that the audience on PC and audience on consoles simply dont have the same taste. Plenty of third party games launch on PC day one and we know they max out at 10-15%.

I agree. I don't think day 1 release matters as much as people make it out to be. Sea of Thieves sold great on PS and it's a 5 year old game. GTA6 won't be day 1 on PC, but I guarantee it will still sell millions of copies on PC when it eventually makes it over there.
 

Ebrietas

Member
Love all the excuses PC gamers make when a game sells poorly on steam. As if every thread on this game wasn’t chock full of bros salivating and reminding everyone they were going to wait for the steam release. How late ports are not a problem since they have such a huge backlog and so much else to play. Oh wait nvm. Now PC gamers suddenly can’t wait more than a single day and won’t buy a game unless they get in on the initial marketing hype so of course it didn’t sell!
 
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DavidGzz

Member
Next time release it day one.

Yep, nothing like launch hype to pump numbers up. The honeymoon period ends for console gamers who tell people it really wasn't very good and word of mouth spreads and you end up with crap sales. Making better games helps too. Bloodborne wouldn't have these issues on PC even today.
 

Pejo

Member
I'm gonna buy it on sale someday. When a game releases over 3 months past the console release, what's the rush? Where's the hype? They used to fish for double dippers with this strategy but I think with so many games being released and the general quickness that games go on sale, anybody can rationalize that it's probably better to continue waiting a few months and pick it up cheaper.

I'm sure the diehards and the people that were super hyped and big fans of the series were part of the 200k~. Everybody else just has patience/smaller gaming budgets/don't like S-E's output/whatever the reason. Would a day 1 release boost sales? Of course it would, but there's plenty of other reasons why people haven't picked it up yet.
 
Both square and Sony need to learn if you're going after the pc market the need to release same time as console just for the hype buys alone. Pc players don't like to wait years for a half assed port. By then they've moved on to other games.

Ff16 would have sold a million at least plus same whatever it sold on console of it launched same as console.

Also FF brand just isn't what it used to be. Nobody is buying a console just to play FF. Far to much choice.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
I agree. I don't think day 1 release matters as much as people make it out to be. Sea of Thieves sold great on PS and it's a 5 year old game. GTA6 won't be day 1 on PC, but I guarantee it will still sell millions of copies on PC when it eventually makes it over there.
One is a live service game and the other one is GTA. Why ignore the countless examples and use obvious exceptions?
 

//DEVIL//

Member
The audacity these companies have …

They release a game years later on another platform without any major enhancement , asking high price, and they want them to sell.

Sony is the same shit. That’s why all their new releases on PC are barely selling.

The words fucking idiots doesn’t cut it sadly
 

Mercador

Member
But XV is the best one.
It's such a weird and fantastic game.
I only played Remake, XV, 16, Rebirth and XV is my fav out of these and it's soundtrack is downright dangerous to play in a car lol
Ah! That's why then I think; if your FF references are limited to those recent titles, I totally understand why you liked them that much. Nothing wrong about that but it could explain why your perception of the game is different from old folks like me that played the complete series. As a DMC type of game, FFXVI is sure a flashy thing. But it's not a Final Fantasy per se, from my point of view.

For me, the golden age of Final Fantasy were IV, V and VI. FFX and FFVII were incredibly popular at that time. FFXIV is still a seriously popular MMO. But even FFXV had a bit of JRPG into it. FFXVI is an impressive visual game but it's even more linear than FFXIII. They tried to spin the dark and gritty medieval theme, but like 10 years too late. I think they don't know where to go next. I think this is the first time in the series that we don't have any information on the next one, 18 months after the release of the most recent title. Heck, I remember playing FFXII in a E3 booth while seeing FFXV and FFXV versus trailers the same very morning. We're way beyond that point unfortunately.
 
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