Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy 16 Coming to Xbox (VII-R Winter, 16 Out Today)

If FF7R doesn't do numbers on Xbox too then you have to call that entire initiative a complete bust and a waste of resources/time.
I've never looked at it that way. If you're serious about being a multiplatform publisher trying to grow your audience instead of extract payments from platform holders for exclusivity, you take a more long term view. These are both games that didn't sell that well even on PS and have many critics. They're both late ports, in the case of FFVII it's literally a PS4 game. Most people that own Xbox also own a PS4 and a PS5. They've probably already played this and probably already bought it. I know I have. Porting an old game isn't some instant band-aid when SQEX has fucked up everything else. Most people buying this are going to be buying this for the 2nd time and the game isn't even on sale.

Sega takes a longer view. Port everything. Do it for several years. Build a reliable audience. Get promo deals. Put stuff on sale. Make consistently good games. Over time your audience grows. Sega and Capcom did the same thing on PC. Acting like it's some huge deal to port these games is an embarrassment honestly for a publisher like SQEX. Tons of indies do it every day.
 
Last edited:
All the 4 people interested bought the inferior port two years later.
Square Enix wasn't even smart enough to fool MS into giving them a lot of secure money in advance for a Gamepass deal.
In performance mode the xbox version is 60 fps all the time. Where the PS5 frame rater would jump from 60 t0 45 fps. I would have a constant 69 at 720p then a higher resolution where the frame rate jumps around.
 
Last edited:
Which is irrelevant considering even the PS5 version in performance mode was a blurry mess and this is even worse at 720p.
All the tv's I and my brother own only go up to 1080P so i play most games on performance mode. As I said I prefer performace over resolution.
 


GtjjKEWWkAAWVR5

No Alina Analytics please
 
I've never looked at it that way. If you're serious about being a multiplatform publisher trying to grow your audience instead of extract payments from platform holders for exclusivity, you take a more long term view. These are both games that didn't sell that well even on PS and have many critics. They're both late ports, in the case of FFVII it's literally a PS4 game. Most people that own Xbox also own a PS4 and a PS5. They've probably already played this and probably already bought it. I know I have. Porting an old game isn't some instant band-aid when SQEX has fucked up everything else. Most people buying this are going to be buying this for the 2nd time and the game isn't even on sale.

Sega takes a longer view. Port everything. Do it for several years. Build a reliable audience. Get promo deals. Put stuff on sale. Make consistently good games. Over time your audience grows. Sega and Capcom did the same thing on PC. Acting like it's some huge deal to port these games is an embarrassment honestly for a publisher like SQEX. Tons of indies do it every day.
No publisher in their right mind is gonna look at the long term view with xbox in mind.

On pc and switch yes. but certainly not on xbox.

Sega is most likley best performing saleswise on anything but an xbox.

They probably love their gamepass checks.
 
Last edited:
No publisher in their right mind is gonna look at the long term view with xbox in mind.

On pc and switch yes. but certainly not on xbox.

Sega is most likley best performing saleswise on anything but an xbox.

They probably love their gamepass checks.
Xbox is obviously transitioning to a store over the next few years, but you can still reach new customers and grow interest in your game. Just make it Play Anywhere. SQEX luckily did do that here. It's just that their game is late, and it sucks, and it's not even on sale. It'll sell over time. Lots of people have tons of their FF games on Xbox. They probably would have sold 1 million had this been on Xbox day 1. The exclusivity strategy really messed them up. XVI didn't even sell well on PC, but no one shits on PC. Everyone knows now that the game isn't good and they lost the benefit of all the series legacy sales and pre-orders.
 
Last edited:
I've never looked at it that way. If you're serious about being a multiplatform publisher trying to grow your audience instead of extract payments from platform holders for exclusivity, you take a more long term view.
I would agree with this if Square was not so all-in on being a JRPG company.

Like if this were the days when they had things like Hitman or Tomb Raider then I'd agree because even if FF doesn't sell you have something else that sells there, but when all your things are some form of JRPG then you are faced with a very dire issue publishing on Xbox as that audience profile just doesn't exist there at all.

So far their attempts at diversification this gen are things like Balan Wonderworld.. Which kinda says it all imo.

These are both games that didn't sell that well even on PS and have many critics. They're both late ports, in the case of FFVII it's literally a PS4 game. Most people that own Xbox also own a PS4 and a PS5. They've probably already played this and probably already bought it. I know I have. Porting an old game isn't some instant band-aid when SQEX has fucked up everything else. Most people buying this are going to be buying this for the 2nd time and the game isn't even on sale.

Sega takes a longer view. Port everything. Do it for several years. Build a reliable audience. Get promo deals. Put stuff on sale. Make consistently good games. Over time your audience grows. Sega and Capcom did the same thing on PC. Acting like it's some huge deal to port these games is an embarrassment honestly for a publisher like SQEX. Tons of indies do it every day.
Sega has an entirely different pipeline though, one that is far cheaper to make too. They are also far more diversified in their offering than Square, and even then you'd argue that their big Xbox JRPG push has not really yielded numbers. Yes the Xbox marketing and money is great for those Persona remakes, but the majority of their sales on these things is still PS/PC, so they have not really made a dent there.

Square on the other hand is just not a serious company. They had a two-year-long blitz of producer interviews, statements and stage shows etc talking up their Xbox ports (which no doubt pissed off SIE leadership), and ultimately end up with these numbers is just incredibly embarrassing and was not beneficial to them in any way (even FF14 ended up doing next to nothing).

Late ports can make mad cash if the audience exists for it, just look at MS's numbers on former exclusives going to PS5, or how well Stellar Blade is selling on PC rn. I don't agree with this notion that late port = no money coming in.

Your number 1 priority is making an appealing game, and then prioritizing placing it on the platforms that have audiences that are looking for it. Same as it ever was really.
 
Your number 1 priority is making an appealing game, and then prioritizing placing it on the platforms that have audiences that are looking for it. Same as it ever was really.
It's not a controversial thing to note that having your game on day 1 increases sales. If your game is great, you can port it late and people still buy it. People on Xbox bought up Death Stranding 1, despite being extremely late. But even with a lot of critics of that game, it was priced to move and it sold well. FFXVI sucks though, and so the late port destroyed PC and Xbox sales. All they had was the pre-release hype and inflated reviews and lost all of it after release.

They could port Stella Blade to Xbox and it would sell a lot more than FFXVI probably.
 
Last edited:
I am not FF16's biggest fan, but it seems like people are thinking too hard about this.

Even prior to Game Pass, FF has always struggled on Xbox. 15 sold massively fewer copies on Xbox than PS4, and that was a generation where the platforms were closer in terms of marketshare. FFXIV, which people generally speak quite highly of, landed on Xbox like a wet turd.

honor and shame are huge parts of it.
 
I am not FF16's biggest fan, but it seems like people are thinking too hard about this.

Even prior to Game Pass, FF has always struggled on Xbox. 15 sold massively fewer copies on Xbox than PS4, and that was a generation where the platforms were closer in terms of marketshare. FFXIV, which people generally speak quite highly of, landed on Xbox like a wet turd.

honor and shame are huge parts of it.
XV sold as much on Xbox as XVI did on PS5. That's how much the series is in the shitter. XIV has a free version out that can be played for hundreds of hours before you ever need to buy it, and the game is 12 years old.
 
I'm sure an overpriced, years late turd of a FF game that runs at 720p will sell bucketloads on Xbox, especially when the infinitely superior Expedition 33 is right there on GamePass.
 
Top Bottom