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The Future of Final Fantasy, discussion thread

HockeyBird said:
I knew that link would go to that poorly made article where the author concludes that games are selling because of the $70. How about we examine the actual graph

91257_5_ps5-games-69-99-price-tag-leads-to-less-unit-sales-data-suggests.png


We can see that there's a spike in sales in 2020 and then a decline after. Can you tell me what happened in 2020 that might make people purchase more games in that specific year and why there is a decline after that peak? It was a pretty big event if you don't recall but I can tell you that wasn't because of switch from $60 to $70. If this article was a scientific paper, it would be ripped to shreds.

The fact of the matter is that games continued to sell well at $70. If publishers thought a 16.7% would result in a 16.7% or more decrease in total sales, they wouldn't change that the price. They upped the price because they knew it would net them more money while making a negligible impact on total game sales.
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Alright, I'll take the L on this one, because the pandemic absolutely inflated everything. I still stand by $70 reducing sales in some regard though, with some games weathering the storm (Tears of the Kingdom) and others being moved down a priority list though. It certainly made me a lot more picky and choosy, especially with economic situations getting dire.
 
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james said:
hey my fault, i coulda sworn i saw a few of those names on there when i looked the other day.

being real with you tho, i still dont think that matters. its an observable trend that game reviews skew lower these days. the sheer number of recorded opinions plays a role in this. keep in mind we're talking about a 4 point difference in metacritic scores to begin with. im not saying ff7 wouldve had a tanked metacritic score, but it probably wouldnt be above 90.

important edit because it just hit me how deep in the weeds i am in a conversation about something i ultimately hate: metacritic is stupid bullshit and i do genuinely wish we wouldn't use the metacritic number as a standard for what is acclaimed or important or whatever. meaningful criticism about games takes time to produce, and almost always comes in a form that isnt metacritic friendly.
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I’m not sure this is entirely true as a longrunning games media assumption.

@S_R_G put together an excellent spreadsheet of UK SNES review scores a couple of months ago and I remember being really surprised at the variety of scores on offer- so much shovelware got reviewed and got low scores, as there were only a few hundred SNES games released here so absolutely everything got reviewed, every tie-in piece of shovelware. I’d argue it’s the opposite, that there are way more games released today, and so the websites and remaining few magazines tend to focus more on the notable releases by notable studios, punctuated by indies by either notable developers or that caught peoples eye by being featured in the Directs etc. Sure, older magazines perhaps scored the big games a little higher, on average (although even then you can look at the big hitters of the time and it isn’t always true, games lauded as timeless classics today didn’t always get top marks at launch, like Megaman X). But they also handed out way more terrible scores too as they reviewed games that wouldn’t get any coverage at all today, as back then it was possible to cover literally every release.

famiboards.com

UK SNES Magazine Scores Spreadsheet

Hi, Google Docs Link Ive created a spreadsheet for SNES game scores in the magazines that i have, with a handy 'Average' column at the start .. I have almost all the SNES era Super Play, NMS, Total!, Gamezone & lots of others like Super Pro, Super Action, Super Gamer etc.. Its a work in...
famiboards.com famiboards.com
 
FWIW, regarding being limited by one system that's had supply issues: PS5 is still well ahead of where PS1, PS2, and PS3 were when they got VII, X, and XIII respectively. XV did arrive when PS4 was around 50m, though.
 
Game is really good, so hopefully it sold decently. It will never exceed what Square wants because they are crazy, but it doesn't deserve poor sales
 
JoshuaJSlone said:
FWIW, regarding being limited by one system that's had supply issues: PS5 is still well ahead of where PS1, PS2, and PS3 were when they got VII, X, and XIII respectively. XV did arrive when PS4 was around 50m, though.
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i would alao say that, obviously, the majority of fans of the final fantasy series would probsbly have a ps5.
 
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I've been watching a friend playing it for some time and I can't finish to like the game's undertones, it just doesn't scream Final Fantasy to me. Gold Saucer and Eiko's love letter shenanigans seem like a very distant past with XVI.
 
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I expected more because of all the pre-release hype tbh.

3m still seems pretty good tho.
 
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Sirhc said:
I expected more because of all the pre-release hype tbh.

3.5m still seems pretty good tho.
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It's just 3 million, not 3.5. FF7R is the one that sold 3.5. But it's overall a pretty solid result if nothing mindblowing.
 
Honestly the heated discussions around XVI will just overshadow the much more boring reality of it - it’s “just” a pretty great game that’s going to sell pretty well. 88 MC, 3 million in a week. Nothing that’s catastrophic and nothing that’s groundbreaking.

Will be interesting to see legs though. I don’t believe one bit that they aren’t doing DLC, and I also think the game is destined to get a meaty XIV crossover. Maybe they could even benefit off Rebirth hype, would time nicely around the holidays since Rebirth is hitting early 2024. I was never one that believed in putting them against eachother. I think in general, interest in one game brings the whole series into mindshare. They’ll help eachother.

Hopefully Sony helps push it too, the game scored around or better than most of their other prestigious exclusives that aren’t Naughty Dog or God of War.
 
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If the game cost, say $100,000,000-$150,000,000 to develop. That isn't the worst thing in the world. We are already sitting at $210,000,000 revenue and to be quite frank, I don't think Square really spent anything advertising it. They pretty much let Sony do it.

The game also seems to have a well defined scope, and development seemed to have gone smoothly. So I don't think it's budget really broke the bank.

Its probably a huge dissapointment internally though. Square's Financials have been rough.
 
The interesting thing about Final Fantasy is that at this point it's in this weird state of flux where the franchise on the one hand is very set in stone for older gamers (you either love it and every entry, hate it, or are a lapsed fan), but for younger players it's not really a known quantity in quite the same way. Like, even for my generation (people born from 2000 onwards) it's really not an essential property at all.

I really think having another 'greatest games' of the generation moment like on PS1 would help the series more. Obviously, Metacritic is far down the list of reasons why these newer entries don't sell better (platform exclusivity / marketing / decisions made about the game itself) but it is one of them I think.
 
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AngryAlchemist said:
The interesting thing about Final Fantasy is that at this point it's in this weird state of flux where the franchise on the one hand is very set in stone for older gamers (you either love it and every entry, hate it, or are a lapsed fan), but for younger players it's not really a known quantity in quite the same way. Like, even for my generation (people born from 2000 onwards) it's really not an essential property at all.

I really think having another 'greatest games' of the generation moment like on PS1 would help the series more. Obviously, Metacritic is far down the list of reasons why these newer entries don't sell better (platform exclusivity / marketing / decisions made about the game itself) but it is one of them I think.
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I think there’s also plenty of FF fans who like a random assortment of the games over the last 30 years though. I liked IV, VI, VII, IX, X, XII, but not III, V or ViII for example. I’m only a lapsed fan from that point on :)
 
These sales are better than what I expected. Not surprised to see they're lower than past games in the series considering it's exclusive to a platform that isn't popular in Japan.
 
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PixelKnight said:
I think there’s also plenty of FF fans who like a random assortment of the games over the last 30 years though. I liked IV, VI, VII, IX, X, XII, but not III, V or ViII for example. I’m only a lapsed fan from that point on :)
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Yeah this is also my experience with the series. The games are so different from each other.

I've always found the series fascinating because there are a lot of people who obviously consider themselves huge Final Fantasy fans and that's cool and all, but I don't think I could ever just be flat-out excited without any reservations at the thought of a new game in the series. I need to see the details first lol.
 
Dcubed said:
So… Persona is now bigger than Final Fantasy.

What a world we live in!
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Eh, I think it could still go the other way. That it's even in the ballpark though has to be a bit of a sore spot for Square, they seem to want FF to grow, and it's ...not.
 
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PixelKnight said:
I think there’s also plenty of FF fans who like a random assortment of the games over the last 30 years though. I liked IV, VI, VII, IX, X, XII, but not III, V or ViII for example. I’m only a lapsed fan from that point on :)
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Not like V should be considered a gaming felony tbh, like not enjoying Super Mario World.
 
Dcubed said:
So… Persona is now bigger than Final Fantasy.

What a world we live in!
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Is it? Persona 5 is sitting at 7.2M sales, which is across both multiple versions and platforms with install bases of 100M+ users over a 6 year span. Good numbers for sure, but not so big that I’d say it’s definitively bigger. Think they’re roughly the same at the moment.
 
Kartina said:
Yeah this was the expected decline. A bit worrisome that it doesn't specify the time in which it sold 3m (ff7re did 3.5 in 3 days while this probably did 3mil in 5/6 days) and of course we don't know the shipped-sales ratio.
The biggest challenge will be with it's legs, I still think a delayed pc release will probably lose them a lot of sales especially if they go with another epic game store exclusive.
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Decline? Worrisome? FFVIIR released when the PS4 had 110 units circulating. PS5 hasn't sold half of that, and XVI is at a premium of $10 more. Comparatively this is a much better showing for XVI if VIIR is your point of reference. This is almost concern troll levels of "worry."
 
Shakaan said:
Those games are sold-through though, not shipped. This isn't a pound for pound comparison.
Also install base for PS5 is ~40 million right now which is more than enough already, software sales don't scale linearly with hardware. It does help, but only so much past a certain threshold. FF games also don't tend to have good legs which means it's a core franchise and the fans are usually there day 1.

Anyway it's within the range i was expecting WW, solid start but not amazing.
But at the end of the day it's still a decline from both XV and VII R.
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In what bizarro world are you living in that FF games don't have legs? Mainline FFs are some of the leggiest games.
 
Lozjam said:
If the game cost, say $100,000,000-$150,000,000 to develop. That isn't the worst thing in the world. We are already sitting at $210,000,000 revenue and to be quite frank, I don't think Square really spent anything advertising it. They pretty much let Sony do it.

The game also seems to have a well defined scope, and development seemed to have gone smoothly. So I don't think it's budget really broke the bank.

Its probably a huge dissapointment internally though. Square's Financials have been rough.
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This is kinda where I'm at. I expected it to do closer to 2.5m - 3m WW. I still think Japan's numbers are going to be a garbage fire, but we'll know very soon.

I've been expecting the worst for this game, and I will say the initial sales performance is respectable, but it's going to be sobering to S-E to some degree. But I also would want to know how much they spent making the game and what the impact was on Sony's hardware sales before really throwing up any sort of "Mission Accomplished" banner.

And obviously, the other big question is "what does S-E takes as lessons from this release?". With three M rated FF games under their belts (Type-0, SoP, and XVI), are they finding the series resonating with the audience they want? Is the move towards action RPG growing the audience? How's the franchise doing in terms of budget vs. revenue relative to smaller projects like Bravely, Harvestella, Octopath, etc?
 
Terraforce said:
In what bizarro world are you living in that FF games don't have legs? Mainline FFs are some of the leggiest games.
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Outside FF15, the biggest sales flop to sell 5 million at launch and then leg out another 5 million copies, which FF game are you suggesting had great legs?
 
shoptroll said:
This is kinda where I'm at. I expected it to do closer to 2.5m - 3m WW. I still think Japan's numbers are going to be a garbage fire, but we'll know very soon.

I've been expecting the worst for this game, and I will say the initial sales performance is respectable, but it's going to be sobering to S-E to some degree. But I also would want to know how much they spent making the game... [snip]
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Tmk it started pre-pro in September 2015, so almost 8 years
 
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shoptroll said:
This is kinda where I'm at. I expected it to do closer to 2.5m - 3m WW. I still think Japan's numbers are going to be a garbage fire, but we'll know very soon.

I've been expecting the worst for this game, and I will say the initial sales performance is respectable, but it's going to be sobering to S-E to some degree. But I also would want to know how much they spent making the game and what the impact was on Sony's hardware sales before really throwing up any sort of "Mission Accomplished" banner.

And obviously, the other big question is "what does S-E takes as lessons from this release?". With three M rated FF games under their belts (Type-0, SoP, and XVI), are they finding the series resonating with the audience they want? Is the move towards action RPG growing the audience? How's the franchise doing in terms of budget vs. revenue relative to smaller projects like Bravely, Harvestella, Octopath, etc?
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That's very interesting to think about. Octopath had an extremely lean team of about 53 people at development core. And that really shouldn't cost that much. If we assume a 3 year development cycle, it must have been just shy of 30,000,000 dollar budget to create. And considering it was published by Nintendo and sold a whopping 3,000,000 units(the same as FFXVI actually). That's a whole lot more profit there. That's probably why we have seen much more smaller scale projects from Square, but at the same time, they are sort of flooding the market too.
 
www.installbaseforum.com

Media Create Sales: Week 25, 2023 (Jun 19 - Jun 25)

Media Create Sales: Week 25, 2023 (Jun 19 - Jun 25) ___ Famitsu Sales: Week 26, 2023 (Jun 19 - Jun 25) 01./00. [PS5] Final Fantasy XVI # (Square Enix) {2023.06.22} (¥9.000) - 336.027 / NEW 02./01. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom # (Nintendo) {2023.05.12} (¥7.200) - 25.155 /...
www.installbaseforum.com www.installbaseforum.com

336.027 physical copies.
 
The switch got a bigger bump from a Nintendo direct than what the ps5 got with the release of a new mainline final fantasy. That's insane.
 
shoptroll said:
That's better than the 300k I was expecting at worst case, but I sorta expected closer to 500k in actuality. I think we need to know what the sell through was on this though.


That's probably the bigger story here actually.
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Switch 2 gets an additional six month delay
 
I really don’t understand the hate for Final Fantasy on this board. This thread is on its way to a thousand posts and it’s about a game that is not/probably will never be on a Nintendo system. Are people still pissed about Square choosing Sony back in the 90’s? No other non-Nintendo game has ever produced as much vitriol as FFXVI on this board. I truly don’t get it.
 
Sturmgeist said:
I really don’t understand the hate for Final Fantasy on this board. This thread is on its way to a thousand posts and it’s about a game that is not/probably will never be on a Nintendo system. Are people still pissed about Square choosing Sony back in the 90’s? No other non-Nintendo game has ever produced as much vitriol as FFXVI on this board. I truly don’t get it.
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I just want to say this is a general gaming board, not a Nintendo board so it makes sense to talk about it. I too agree it is weird that a game that has by all metrics done okay and is garnering good praise/discussion around more enthusiast circles is getting a lot of negative posts about it. I'm playing it now myself and am having a great time, and I'm not really the type to enjoy these AAA action-adventure-narrative monogenre things. This board tends to have a noticeable conservative lean about games(like most gaming forums) and a pretty big capitalistic/consumerist culture that focuses around sales. SE are kind of bad at doing business in general by all outward appearances so they struggle in sales, and they are also allowing their franchises to change or do different things with varying success. Makes sense they'd catch a lot of heat around here when they aren't making traditional games with modest sales results. Add in that little bit of console warz style posting that goes on around here when things skip Switch, and there ya go. It's pretty unsurprising there's a thread amplifying that kind of thing here, but I'm sure there are plenty of people here enjoying it and posting elsewhere.
 
Sturmgeist said:
I really don’t understand the hate for Final Fantasy on this board. This thread is on its way to a thousand posts and it’s about a game that is not/probably will never be on a Nintendo system. Are people still pissed about Square choosing Sony back in the 90’s? No other non-Nintendo game has ever produced as much vitriol as FFXVI on this board. I truly don’t get it.
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Where are you seeing people hate Final Fantasy?
 
BotenAnna said:
I just want to say this is a general gaming board, not a Nintendo board so it makes sense to talk about it. I too agree it is weird that a game that has by all metrics done okay and is garnering good praise/discussion around more enthusiast circles is getting a lot of negative posts about it. I'm playing it now myself and am having a great time, and I'm not really the type to enjoy these AAA action-adventure-narrative monogenre things. This board tends to have a noticeable conservative lean about games(like most gaming forums) and a pretty big capitalistic/consumerist culture that focuses around sales. SE are kind of bad at doing business in general by all outward appearances so they struggle in sales, and they are also allowing their franchises to change or do different things with varying success. Makes sense they'd catch a lot of heat around here when they aren't making traditional games with modest sales results. Add in that little bit of console warz style posting that goes on around here when things skip Switch, and there ya go. It's pretty unsurprising there's a thread amplifying that kind of thing here, but I'm sure there are plenty of people here enjoying it and posting elsewhere.
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This isn't a hard concept to understand

If you look at FF16 sales compared to other ps5 launches, the number are good.

If you look at the FF16 sales compared to other FF titles, it's another notable decline. When the people who made the game have been on the record saying this game was designed to reverse that trend, and then later said "uhh don't worry about week 1 numbers we've got an 18 month sales plan", it's hard not to understand why some of us are looking at the number as concerning.

And the idea that discussing the legacy of FF on a Nintendo board isn't relevant is kinda laughable. Switch literally got a FF celebration game this year (Theaterythm) and a collection of the first 6 games (pixel remasters). Nintendo themselves has also highlighted FF ports to Switch in prior directs. As of 6/29 the FF1-12 (minus the mmo 11) are on Switch along with a version of FF15 (pocket).
 
Sturmgeist said:
I really don’t understand the hate for Final Fantasy on this board. This thread is on its way to a thousand posts and it’s about a game that is not/probably will never be on a Nintendo system. Are people still pissed about Square choosing Sony back in the 90’s? No other non-Nintendo game has ever produced as much vitriol as FFXVI on this board. I truly don’t get it.
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Yoshi-P's racism is all I need to dunk on him and his game
 
Sturmgeist said:
I really don’t understand the hate for Final Fantasy on this board. This thread is on its way to a thousand posts and it’s about a game that is not/probably will never be on a Nintendo system. Are people still pissed about Square choosing Sony back in the 90’s? No other non-Nintendo game has ever produced as much vitriol as FFXVI on this board. I truly don’t get it.
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I think the volume of discussion is a confluence of factors. Some are mad about exclusivity, sure, but others are mad about the ditching of tradition. Like Zelda, there's handwringing about the future of the series. But I think beyond that, as numbers (in terms of scores and sales) have come in, there's a wide range in which to interpret them. That level of disagreement on the meaning of objective facts is bound to generate discussion. I think it's really interesting myself.
For example, is selling 3m physical as a PS5 exclusive in four days really good? Yes. Is it also underwhelming for the series? Yes. Is it in line with the assumed target of "First Party Sony Game"? Yes. But if it now sells like a Final Fantasy game instead, would it have fallen short of that target? Also yes.
Same thing with the scores.


I'm probably an outlier here but I'm interested in 16 because it represents an attempt to evolve a scene or genre that has been stagnant for decades from what I can see. My hope is that the genre leader can blaze a trail for others to follow. It might even have an effect on a series that I really like, namely Xenoblade.
I am equal parts frustrated that it doesn't commit or go far enough, baffled by some of the choices made (character action combat), and taken aback by the people suggesting that Square should just lower their ambitions and shackle themselves to a diminishing core audience.
Even the controversial nature of the game itself is interesting to me. There are people who swear up and down that it no longer resembles Final Fantasy at all, but when I watched the opening cinematic, I couldn't see that as being anything other than Final Fantasy. It looked more recognisably Final Fantasy than the trailers I've seen of 15, even. That's interesting, innit?
Everything about this game is the kind of thing that results in dramatically split opinions, which naturally leads to conversation.
 
catonkatonk said:
I think the volume of discussion is a confluence of factors. Some are mad about exclusivity, sure, but others are mad about the ditching of tradition. Like Zelda, there's handwringing about the future of the series. But I think beyond that, as numbers (in terms of scores and sales) have come in, there's a wide range in which to interpret them. That level of disagreement on the meaning of objective facts is bound to generate discussion. I think it's really interesting myself.
For example, is selling 3m physical as a PS5 exclusive in four days really good? Yes. Is it also underwhelming for the series? Yes. Is it in line with the assumed target of "First Party Sony Game"? Yes. But if it now sells like a Final Fantasy game instead, would it have fallen short of that target? Also yes.
Same thing with the scores.


I'm probably an outlier here but I'm interested in 16 because it represents an attempt to evolve a scene or genre that has been stagnant for decades from what I can see. My hope is that the genre leader can blaze a trail for others to follow. It might even have an effect on a series that I really like, namely Xenoblade.
I am equal parts frustrated that it doesn't commit or go far enough, baffled by some of the choices made (character action combat), and taken aback by the people suggesting that Square should just lower their ambitions and shackle themselves to a diminishing core audience.
Even the controversial nature of the game itself is interesting to me. There are people who swear up and down that it no longer resembles Final Fantasy at all, but when I watched the opening cinematic, I couldn't see that as being anything other than Final Fantasy. It looked more recognisably Final Fantasy than the trailers I've seen of 15, even. That's interesting, innit?
Everything about this game is the kind of thing that results in dramatically split opinions, which naturally leads to conversation.
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Probably the closest to how I feel. I'm not as cynical about this game as I've seen some people on here, but I won't lie—I haven't been "feeling" Final Fantasy in decades at this point. They have a lot to prove, but I'm still always at least interested and welcome evolution and change, even if it doesn't work out.
 
Sturmgeist said:
I really don’t understand the hate for Final Fantasy on this board. This thread is on its way to a thousand posts and it’s about a game that is not/probably will never be on a Nintendo system. Are people still pissed about Square choosing Sony back in the 90’s? No other non-Nintendo game has ever produced as much vitriol as FFXVI on this board. I truly don’t get it.
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Largely the typical reaction in Nintendo fan communities to any Japanese franchise or publisher that skips a Switch release. I'm old enough to remember people salivating at how Monster Hunter World was assuredly going to bomb, and how stupid Capcom was for ignoring Switch in the early years. People have moved on to other targets since Capcom has been so successful in recent years.

There's definitely an undercurrent of of fans believing things deserve to fail if they don't release on the Switch, semi-gloating about it if they do, whining, etc. Of course this also leads to an inordinate amount of negativity and galactic brain takes. FFXVI is just current target.
 
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