Sucks for them.
But I don't know why the article and this thread are talking as if this is 100% only about FFXVI when:
-Mobile and MMO are down
-Forspoken bombed
-Bunch of smaller scale but still full price titles like Diofield, Valkyrie Elysium and Star Ocean come out to middling reviews and fairly poor word of mouth
-Their inability to really come up with a truly successful new IP
-Multiple failed attempts at GAAS (Babylons Fall and that FFVII Battle Royale)
Honestly I think it's kinda pathetic that in the last year we saw ONE German dude and a Canadian team of like 20 people both come out with more compelling JRPG's on their first attempt than Square with their hundreds of millions and decades of experience.
Maybe Square should do some soul searching an go back to turn-based RPGs. Like the ones that everyone remembers. If SMT and Persona can be successful after all these years and they are TB. Why can't Square do something like X again? Though 7 Remake is pretty good. 16 in my opinion wasn't very good, and I'm sure remake part 2 will sell a vagina-ton of copies
FFXVI sold 3X more in under a week than SMTV did in like 5 months on the much bigger install base of the Switch.
Persona is popular because it's an anime highschool simulator, not because it's turn based.
Not that I'm against a good turn based JRPG (in fact my favourite ones in recent years have been turn based...and not made in Japan) but IMO the biggest issue with FFXVI isn't the type of combat but the fact it's not really a RPG and overall just isn't that good. It got solid reviews but most of the word of mouth I saw online was fairly negative for good reason. I still enjoyed it and it does a few things really well, but the game is like a 7/10 at best.
If FFXVI had launched with the same combat but like interesting locations that reward your exploration with new gear, sidequests, optional areas, etc, and good sidequests, and a decent loot system, and stores that actually have stuff worth buying, and dungeons that consist of more than walking almost in a straight line from one combat encounter to the next and like a semblance of challenge or at least an optional hard mode available from the beginning, I think it would have done way better.