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[DonkeyPunchJr]

I just don't get the argument.

In the last ten years we had 2 major releases in XV and XVI, we had XIV becoming one of, if not the single best MMO on the market, pixel perfect remasters of 1-6, high quality remasters of 7-9 and Crisis Core, the first official port in the west of Zodiac Age FFXII, and some of the most well liked spin off games in the franchise and the best versions of said spinoffs in Strangers of Paradise, Theatrythm Final Bar Line, and probably the only *good* Mobile Game with Opera Omnia. Also two of the largest remake projects with FF7 Remake and Rebirth.

Prior we were getting things like the much maligned XIII Trilogy, Versus was in Dev Hell, XIV 1.0 was one of the single *worst* MMORPGs in existence, The most despised mobile game and one of the most hated in general with All The Bravest, and more besides.

Square today is also returning to and making higher quality reboots/returns to classic franchises like SaGa and Mana while releasing some pretty damn amazing lower budget RPGs with Valkyrie Elysium, Harvestella, Voice of Cards, Triangle Strategy, and more.

I swear the people must be trolling at this point. I get if these games aren't your taste, but to say that people are delusional or that these games are objectively shit is baffling.

I was clearly talking about mainline FF. Now we’re counting spinoffs, remasters, and non-FF games too? So basically just… Square Enix in general? You can make an impressive sounding list from any Squaresoft/S-E era if you’re including their entire output. I guess maybe you can make the case that 360/PS3 into early PS4 was even worse than now, but TBH I’d take XIII + XIII-2 over XV and XVI any day.

 

[adamsapple]

Square is fucking weird then lol.

Just like when EA tried to convince people that Mass Effect 3 was a great entry point for new players, back in the day.

 

[KàIRóS]

Hopefully SE learns from this and will never ever change the story on future remakes, put Nomura on design duty only and tell Nojima to stop writing nonsensical filler, those 2 have completely ruined at least 4 characters (Sephiroth, Aerith, Red XIII and Zack) and will probably continue to fuck others on the final game.

It's crazy how this company literally released the best remake in gaming a few months ago with Star Ocean 2 R and then completely fucked up in Rebirth by ruining one of the most iconic scenes in gaming.

 

[TheGodfather07]

Remake was lower than I expected too. With how crazy people went over the reveal of that game, I thought it would sell atleast 20m. I guess final fantasy hasn't grown much. It sells to the same audience it always has. Still great numbers though but it shows how impressive it is for a game to sell 20m+. That's no joke and very difficult to do.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

I will not buy Rebirth because I played Remake.

Remake was, in my opinion, terrible. The dialogue, cinematic and character designs are, for lack of a better word, cringe. The story changes were not for the better, and dragging it out over 10x the time as the original was meandering and tedious.

What, you mean you didn’t enjoy all that awesome world building like “go door to door changing water filters”, “find my 3 missing cats”, “go kill the monsters at the abandoned garbage dump”, “go kill the monsters at the abandoned warehouse”, “go smash those boxes at the abandoned scrapyard”…

Man it really made me feel immersed in the world of Midgar, like I was living the life of a mercenary making a name for myself.

 

[ProtoByte]

PC release will save this. Sony must have gave them a massive bag for the timed exclusivity because they knew the numbers would be dire locking it to a single console.

No it will not. It didn't "save" the first game either.

 

[simpatico]

If Square keeps up the good work, soon they might be able to have similar sales number to true heavy hitters like PalWorld

No but seriously, noone who owned a black label launch copy of FF VII even owns a PS5. They’ve all moved to PC.

 

[BobLeeSwagger]

Game most likely did not break-even if that’s the case

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

No but seriously, anyone who owned a black label launch copy of FF VII even owns a PS5. They’ve all moved to PC.

 

[Madflavor]

Game most likely did not break-even if that’s the case

There's no good reason to think the game outright flopped and lost Square money, come on now.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

Again, that is not in itself the reason sales may've been slower for Rebirth. People really have to get it out of their head that games inherently need to be on multiple platforms to be financially successful, because that simply isn't true.

They also need to get rid of the idea that games being exclusive is "anti-consumer": it isn't. Unless those folks can prove these companies are legally banning them from even purchasing their games whatsoever (especially on fraudulent grounds), then they can shove the "anti-consumer" talk up their pie hole.

I genuinely dislike how exclusivity in game software suddenly became a dirty concept, yet these massive companies can play exclusivity for IP rights, patents, trademarks etc. all day, and even buy up other companies to absorb their material and claim ownership over it.

The game would sell better if it was on more than one platform. 2 million isn’t very good. It can do more. The rest of what you’re saying is neither here nor there. In order to justify the development costs it needs to not be selling half of what the first Remake sold. Particularly considering it no doubt cost more to make than Remake.

 

[BobLeeSwagger]

There's no good reason to think the game outright flopped and lost Square money, come on now.

Well obviously… It came out almost two months ago and they’re already committed to a third one.

I meant it didn’t even break-even yet.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

read the article and the source. 2 million at launch dau is very strong

…. that’s not what it says. Nothing about launch day. It came out six weeks ago and it’s just now estimated to have eclipsed 2 million. For this level of IP and with how critically acclaimed it was, those sales are nothing to write home about. Square needs the game to sell more.

It’s selling at half the clip of Remake, with a slower tail. Given that development costs were no doubt higher than Remake, that’s not the direction you want to be going.

 

[Draugoth]

The game would sell better if it was on more than one platform. 2 million isn’t very good. It can do more. The rest of what you’re saying is neither here nor there. In order to justify the development costs it needs to not be selling half of what the first Remake sold. Particularly considering it no doubt cost more to make than Remake.

Well this probably means it will come to PC faster

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

Well this probably means it will come to PC faster

Likely as fast as Square is allowed to, under whatever timing agreement they have made with PlayStation.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Well obviously… It came out almost two months ago and they’re already committed to a third one.

I meant it didn’t even break-even yet.

You have evidence of this? If so post it. Otherwise you are just talking out your rear.

I was clearly talking about mainline FF. Now we’re counting spinoffs, remasters, and non-FF games too? So basically just… Square Enix in general? You can make an impressive sounding list from any Squaresoft/S-E era if you’re including their entire output. I guess maybe you can make the case that 360/PS3 into early PS4 was even worse than now, but TBH I’d take XIII + XIII-2 over XV and XVI any day.

Your own post:

TBH someone who says that FF fans have been “eating better than they have in decades” seems to be pretty delusional, like you’re trying to convince yourself. Considering we’ve had a whopping 2 mainline games and a “announced in 2015 and still unfinished” 7 remake series in the last decade. Is there a worse 10-year period in the series’ history?

So let's just consider XV, XVI, XIV 2.0 and its expansions, and the FF7 Remake and Rebirth titles.

Compare that to XIII Trilogy and XIV 1.0 - some of the most maligned and hated games in the franchise by the *vast* majority of fans and non-fans alike. And FFXII which was well loved on average in that 10 year time span. So yes, most fans are happier *now* in this last decade and have had far more quality games on average than the previous decade.

So maybe project less with the bolded stance.

 

[BobLeeSwagger]

You have evidence of this? If so post it. Otherwise you are just talking out your rear.

Here’s some napkin math:

If they’re saying 2.2M users (assuming they all bought the game and not borrowing from someone or bought used) at $70/ea.

That’s $154M in revenue. They’re not getting all of that obviously and we don’t know exactly what the COGS are for a copy sold.

If the ball park figure people are saying for the budget is $150M-$200M, then yea they got an additional million or two at $70 a piece to sell to reach that point before they can turn a PROFIT.

For comparison, Remake sold I think 7 million.

Rebirth might not turn out to be really profitable.

 

[ULTROS!]

Well here are the factors:

- It’s 2/3 of a trilogy obviously sales will be lower
- It’s on a lower install base
- Doesn’t have the Covid boost
- It’s not exactly a new adventure and markets more to FFVII fans than newcomers

If the Sony bill offsets everything then that should be fine on SE’s end.

 

[tmlDan]

…. that’s not what it says. Nothing about launch day. It came out six weeks ago and it’s just now estimated to have eclipsed 2 million. For this level of IP and with how critically acclaimed it was, those sales are nothing to write home about. Square needs the game to sell more.

It’s selling at half the clip of Remake, with a slower tail. Given that development costs were no doubt higher than Remake, that’s not the direction you want to be going.

Yes it does, they utilize the ampere analysis which tracked launch peak of daily active users.

If you're illiterate it's not my problem, but the assumption that they only sold 2MM is based on 2MM peak DAU. That does not equate to total sales at all.

 

[lh032]

Is that your excuse?

is common sense.

lets be honest, the bashing towards this game has nothing to do with sales, but towards playstation.
I mean...theres not alot to talk about these days since a certain competitor has surrendered the console market.

So these warriors have to find something else to do lol

 

[GHound]

He is saying that they ARE profitable, in addition to being a catalyst for console sales and by extension a larger ecosystem.

He is listing all of the positives of Sony 1st party strategy in this tweet.

That was my point?

 

[ULTROS!]

is common sense.

lets be honest, the bashing towards this game has nothing to do with sales, but towards playstation.
I mean...theres not alot to talk about these days since a certain competitor has surrendered the console market.

So these warriors have to find something else to do lol

Honestly I feel like FF sales threads are infected with PC and the hypothetical Switch 2 fanboys, like “if x isn’t on my favorite system, it’s going to flop hard”.

I mean the Switch 2 isn’t even announced yet and they’re treating it like it will sell double the Switch and it’s the best platform yet.

 

[adamsapple]

Well this probably means it will come to PC faster

The 3 month exclusivity runs out in May, this is an Unreal engine game so the port job wouldn't require the kind of dedicated work FF16's port would.

Best case, this is out on PC by mid summer.

 

[asdasdasdbb]

The 3 month exclusivity runs out in May, this is an Unreal engine game so the port job wouldn't require the kind of dedicated work FF16's port would.

Best case, this is out on PC by mid summer.

I figure next year at the earliest. FF16 this year.

(I still say they should be focusing more on Switch 2... but since we don't know when that's release date is...)

 

[simpatico]

There's no way. Unless you just keep the PS5 around for exclusives and have to dust it off when you actually use it. Let me rephrase "no one who played FF VII at launch as an adult still uses a PS5 as a primary gaming system".

 

[ArtHands]

If Square keeps up the good work, soon they might be able to have similar sales number to true heavy hitters like PalWorld

No but seriously, noone who owned a black label launch copy of FF VII even owns a PS5. They’ve all moved to PC.

Make sense that a sizeable portion of Final Fantasy fans has likely migrated to PC, considering the sales figure for FF16 and the suggested sales figure for FF7 Rebirth.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Here’s some napkin math:

If they’re saying 2.2M users (assuming they all bought the game and not borrowing from someone or bought used) at $70/ea.

That’s $154M in revenue. They’re not getting all of that obviously and we don’t know exactly what the COGS are for a copy sold.

If the ball park figure people are saying for the budget is $150M-$200M, then yea they got an additional million or two at $70 a piece to sell to reach that point before they can turn a PROFIT.

For comparison, Remake sold I think 7 million.

Rebirth might not turn out to be really profitable.

It's false to say the budget is $200M+ based on comparisons to games made in California. Japan is dirt cheap in comparison. The Yen is way below the dollar, and Japanese employees get paid way less than devs in Santa Monica.

Additionally, the marketing budget was seemingly absent for this game. I saw hardly anything at all. So clearly they cut costs to the bone when it comes to promotion.

Maybe it is - I don't know - but it's not a slam dunk assumption compared to something like God of War. And if it's "merely" just breaking even on an assumed 2.2M sales, then it's clearly more than that because total sales are exceeding 2M. The 2M figure is just nonsense based on user activity metrics. And with the game coming to other platforms, it'll exceed costs. Maybe it's not an AMAZING seller like Square would want, but it's certainly going to justify its cost - and I think Japanese devs care more about the reception than whatever the profit figures are. The Japanese care more about the craft of their work and reception than they do about profits.

There's no way. Unless you just keep the PS5 around for exclusives and have to dust it off when you actually use it. Let me rephrase "no one who played FF VII at launch as an adult still uses a PS5 as a primary gaming system".

I and plenty of others do, troll. Go argue in bad faith elsewhere.

 

[bender]

Let me rephrase "no one who played FF VII at launch as an adult still uses a PS5 as a primary gaming system".

 

[Madflavor]

Here’s some napkin math:

There's your first problem right there.

If they’re saying 2.2M users (assuming they all bought the game and not borrowing from someone or bought used) at $70/ea.

That’s $154M in revenue. They’re not getting all of that obviously and we don’t know exactly what the COGS are for a copy sold.

2.2 daily active users =/= 2.2 million sold total.

If the ball park figure people are saying for the budget is $150M-$200M, then yea they got an additional million or two at $70 a piece to sell to reach that point before they can turn a PROFIT.

No, not an additional million or two. If for the sake of argument Rebirth sold 2.5 million, that extra $10 from the $70 price hike equates to $25 million. You're also not taking into account Deluxe and Collector's editions.

And you can't ballpark figure a game's budget like this. $150 - $200 million is pure speculation, and considering that a lot of the game reuses assets from Remake, it's likely lower than that.

For comparison, Remake sold I think 7 million.

Rebirth might not turn out to be really profitable.

Remake sold 7 million over the course of 3-4 years. If you want to compare the two games then you want to compare them within the same timeframe.

Rebirth is most likely profitable. The marketing budget was likely fairly low given how muted it was compared to Remake's, and Sony pays Square for Final Fantasy's exclusivity.

 

[TheCed]

There's no way. Unless you just keep the PS5 around for exclusives and have to dust it off when you actually use it. Let me rephrase "no one who played FF VII at launch as an adult still uses a PS5 as a primary gaming system".

I don't exists.

I never was

 

[bender]

I don't exists.

I never was

 

[BobLeeSwagger]

.

 

[Bernardougf]

Remake sucked ... The sequel is selling less ... it is only a surprise to the people that still think that SE still makes good FF games ... the last money Ill ever spend in FF was with the awful FFxv .. Ill never spend a cent more until they comeback to the fantasy turn based classic ff rpg

And I saw in this very topic people saying that Remake was better than FFX ... holy fuck balls... standards have fallen from a cliff.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Remake sucked ... The sequel is selling less ... it is only a surprise to the people that still think that SE still makes good FF games ... the last money Ill ever spend in FF was with the awful FFxv .. Ill never spend a cent more until they comeback to the fantasy turn based classic ff rpg

And I saw in this very topic people saying that Remake was better than FFX ... holy fuck balls... standards have fallen from a cliff.

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Long ago, we looked upon a foreboding sky. The memory of the star that threatened all burns eternal in our hearts. In its wake came an age of silence. Yet with each fond remembrance, we knew those encountered were not forgotten, that some day we would see them again. Perhaps it was no more than...

www.metacritic.com

 

[AREYOUOKAY?]

Spoiler

Still making my PS5 worth it so far. I just hope the last part can make it to PS5 as well.

 

[ArtHands]

I'll copy and paste what I said in the Europe thread here, since this thread is all about Rebirth:

There is almost no doubt in my mind at this point that Square Enix is disappointed with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's performance.

Final Fantasy 16 sales did not meet high expectations, says Square Enix president

Sales of Final Fantasy 16 did not meet Square Enix's high expectations, said president Takashi Kiryu.

www.eurogamer.net

Final Fantasy XVI met the low end of their expectations, and the SE president,Takashi Kiryu, blamed the performance on the slow adoption rate of the PS5. It appears Rebirth has fallen behind XVI. Rebirth did not receive the budget it did with the expectation that it would fall behind XVI after the PS5 had further grown its install base, even having gone through a holiday, since XVI's release. SE had their PR ready a week after XVI's release to praise its 3million sales performance. They would not be silent on Rebirth if things were looking pretty. The game must've missed its internal projections.

When you consider Europe is not that big a market, and Japan isn't showing good numbers for the game, and NPD had TEKKEN 8 (2 million first month debut, PR from Bandai Namco) ahead of FF7 Rebirth for the year 24' ending mid way through the first week of March for North America: https://wccftech.com/helldivers-2-beat-final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-npd-circana-february-2024/ it puts more shade on the game's 'success'.

Here is Final Fantasy VII Remake's debut performance for reference: https://www.destructoid.com/final-fantasy-vii-remake-launch-month-sets-new-franchise-sales-record/

If Zhuge is right and it's selling half of Remake's numbers, with a weaker tail, FF7 remake did 7 million by September 2020. Rebirth would be on track to hit 3.5 million-4 million in a similar time frame. Sounds too low to be true, but yeah, for this game that's not good at all.

Square Enix will verbalize how they feel about this game's performance soon enough.

Good analysis. But perhaps it is alright if Square Enix has lower expectation compared to their previous titles to begin with.

 

[Luc2010]

Some peeps just don't have a PS5 to buy this game, yet.

 

[Three]

It’s selling at half the clip of Remake, with a slower tail. Given that development costs were no doubt higher than Remake, that’s not the direction you want to be going.

Man you guys never give up. When FF7Remake released there were >95M PS4s sold. When FF7 Rebirth released there were only >50M PS5s. It still sold more than >2.2M and took 3yrs to make. It's one of the best selling games for the month. FF7Remake sold around 5M in 6 months on a 95M installbase and took 5 years to make. game sales have declined since 4 years ago too. The weird thing is the lot of xbox games that took 6-7 years or more to make and don't even chart at all dont get this kind of strange attention to make it seem like a failure from you guys. What's with that?

 

[drganon]

If Square keeps up the good work, soon they might be able to have similar sales number to true heavy hitters like PalWorld

No but seriously, noone who owned a black label launch copy of FF VII even owns a PS5. They’ve all moved to PC.

There's no way. Unless you just keep the PS5 around for exclusives and have to dust it off when you actually use it. Let me rephrase "no one who played FF VII at launch as an adult still uses a PS5 as a primary gaming system".

Make sense that a sizeable portion of Final Fantasy fans has likely migrated to PC, considering the sales figure for FF16 and the suggested sales figure for FF7 Rebirth.

 

[Fess]

Fuck man hope this isn't true
This is one of the best FF games ever. Wish had just the money to buy more copies.
I will be being this on pc atleast.

Should’ve been on PC day one. They had successfully built up a bigger user base through FF7 Remake on PC over a couple years, and also moved a portion of console gamers over there (I went from PS5 to Steam), and then they threw Rebirth under the bus with a much smaller userbase. They’ll probably go with Epic exclusivity again because they just can’t read the market.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Should’ve been on PC day one. They had successfully built up a bigger user base through FF7 Remake on PC over a couple years, and also moved a portion of console gamers over there (I went from PS5 to Steam), and then they threw Rebirth under the bus with a much smaller userbase. They’ll probably go with Epic exclusivity again because they just can’t read the market.

they’re fine, they aren’t able to support multiple platforms and get the game out in a timely release.

The game won’t sell as much as on pc, but they’ll get a little extra income from it

 

[Raven117]

There's no way. Unless you just keep the PS5 around for exclusives and have to dust it off when you actually use it. Let me rephrase "no one who played FF VII at launch as an adult still uses a PS5 as a primary gaming system".

Tales from your ass

 

[ArtHands]

Should’ve been on PC day one. They had successfully built up a bigger user base through FF7 Remake on PC over a couple years, and also moved a portion of console gamers over there (I went from PS5 to Steam), and then they threw Rebirth under the bus with a much smaller userbase. They’ll probably go with Epic exclusivity again because they just can’t read the market.

Yah. Seems the sentiment is that the SE is mishandling bunch of things currently. In conjunction with Foamstars' performance, SE isn't in an excellent shape.

According to a UK-based analyst, FF7 Rebirth's sales are not good. Formstars also seems to be in a tough spot. If that happens, the only hope will be DQ12, but there has been no word from that. It seems that they need to produce results from their organizational reforms as soon as possible.

 

[Ozriel]

Man you guys never give up. When FF7Remake released there were >95M PS4s sold. When FF7 Rebirth released there were only >50M PS5s. It still sold more than >2.2M and took 3yrs to make. It's one of the best selling games for the month. FF7Remake sold around 5M in 6 months on a 95M installbase and took 5 years to make. game sales have declined since 4 years ago too.

The install base argument kinda falters since FFXVI was PS5 only, with a significantly lower install base and still had the Square Enix PR shortly after release.

With FFXVI being current gen only, it’s hard not to imagine that the bulk of financially solvent FF fans have already migrated between last year and now.

The weird thing is the lot of xbox games that took 6-7 years or more to make and don't even chart at all dont get this kind of strange attention to make it seem like a failure from you guys. What's with that?

But We’ve had threads and posts about financial failures of stuff like Forza Motorsport, Redfall and a few others. Even HiFi Rush had its own thread. You’ve contributed enthusiastically to some of those discussions.

 

[Exede]

Not sure if FF7 Rebirth had to sell a single copy to make it a success for SE with the sweet Sony money.

 

[Three]

The install base argument kinda falters since FFXVI was PS5 only, with a significantly lower install base and still had the Square Enix PR shortly after release.

With FFXVI being current gen only, it’s hard not to imagine that the bulk of financially solvent FF fans have already migrated between last year and now.

What's this got to do with FFXVI?

 

[UnravelKatharsis]

Dying series if true. Its no one's fault but SQEX.

1) Short sighted exclusivity deals alienate fans and limit growth
2) Putting your best team on remakes for a decade is one of the worst management calls of all time
3) FFXVI had unforgivable design shortcomings.

Every SQEX exclusive on PS5 has underperformed. Forspoken, Foamstars, FFXVI, FFVII, and FFVII-2. Great strategy.

They def need to port their games to Xbox, where the majority of their fans are.

 

[Negotiator101]

is common sense.

lets be honest, the bashing towards this game has nothing to do with sales, but towards playstation.
I mean...theres not alot to talk about these days since a certain competitor has surrendered the console market.

So these warriors have to find something else to do lol

It's you making the excuses.

 

[Ozriel]

What's this got to do with FFXVI?

Dissecting the ‘install base’ argument ?

It’s a final fantasy game, launched exclusively on current gen.

 

[Three]

Dissecting the ‘install base’ argument ?

It’s a final fantasy game, launched exclusively on current gen.

Ok? But the comparisons being made were to part 1 of FF7 Remake not the next mainline FF.