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Square Enix CEO Takashi Kiryu - Sales of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Final Fantasy XVI and Foamstars Short of Expectations

LordCBH

Member
Wasn’t this the same company that said they were happy with FF16’s performance after it released?

Side note, wasn’t this the same company who expected the tomb Raider reboot to do like 12 million when anyone with a brain could’ve told them it wouldn’t?
 

Fabieter

Member
Wasn’t this the same company that said they were happy with FF16’s performance after it released?

Side note, wasn’t this the same company who expected the tomb Raider reboot to do like 12 million when anyone with a brain could’ve told them it wouldn’t?

Yea I like them but they also will be disappointed by the sales if they release their games on every platform. That will mean alot higher expectations. Just doing multiplatform won't cut it for them sadly.
 
Forspoken was rewritten and had the involvement of Sweet Baby.

As the other poster mentioned, FF16 is basically Game of Thrones, another Western show.

Foamstars was a failure from its inception

Only FF7 tries something true to its roots, but FF has lost identity over the years, unlike Zelda, and now is paying the price. Besides, to the mainstream Asian audiences, the current-age equivalent to Final Fantasy is Genshin Impact. The FF7 remake saga looks very different.

These games have sold well, but SE expectations aren't realistic. In the new market, FF isn't among the top sellers.

Sweet Baby has nothing to do with the failure of Forspoken, it was either SE or Sony who asked for them to be involved, but Sweet Baby isn't accountable but Square Enix themselves.

FF XVI was showcased as the second-coming of the greatness of the Final Fantasy series, and honestly it ended up being just another bland entry in the series

FF7 sales were driven because of pandemic and nostalgia. IF SE were smart back then they would've rejected any kind of exclusive since FF7 was back then like a +20 years old IP and many of its players have moved to other platforms other than PS, so it was a matter of time to show an exclusivity deal wouldn't make any sense. SE knows most of their fanbase is already on PS so, why locking the rest of the customers on other platforms away from it? not to mention the EGS deal..

AAA budgets like those have to meet high goals, otherwise they can have a really negative impact on the business.
 
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cireza

Member
Forspoken was rewritten and had the involvement of Sweet Baby.

As the other poster mentioned, FF16 is basically Game of Thrones, another Western show.

Foamstars was a failure from its inception
All these games smelled like poop from their first reveal. If anything, Square-Enix should be happy that Sony paid for these.

Now back to making good games. Back to something exciting that actually had people wanting to play it.

Example :

Now that's Final Fantasy. Not some Game of Thrones rip-off.
 
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FF7 sales were driven because of pandemic and nostalgia. IF SE were smart back then they would've rejected any kind of exclusive since FF7 was back then like a +20 years old IP and many of its players have moved to other platforms other than PS, so it was a matter of time to show an exclusivity deal wouldn't make any sense. SE knows most of their fanbase is already on PS so, why locking the rest of the customers on other platforms away from it? not to mention the EGS deal..

FF7 Remake was Sony's idea in the first place. Plus Sony paid a substantial amount.
 

rm082e

Member
I just wanted a faithful remake of FF7. Just pretty up the graphics and maybe clean up some of the confusing plot points a little. I wanted a turn based game.

*sigh*
 
Basically Sony paid Square to do the Remake to try to stimulate PS4 sales in Japan.

Though I understand to some extent that reasoning, let me put it this way. Imagine Sony approached Capcom to develop a remake of Resident Evil 1 (another iconic PS1 IP back in the day which has been ported to every existing platform such as FF VII) exclusively for PS4 "to try to stimulate PS4 sales in Japan", do you think Capcom would've accepted that deal and losing millions of sales for the sake of stimulating PS4 sales in Japan?
 

Sonik

Member
These fucking imbeciles have been calling all their games short of expectations for years now, it's the reason why they sold their entire Western division for fucking scraps and then decided to "invest" those scraps into Forspoken and NFCs

The company is run by fucking idiots there's no hope here, the mismanagement of this company is epic and the only thing that keeps them afloat is that they still somehow retained some talented dev teams. If they were in the West most of the devs would have bailed out by now
 
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ProtoByte

Member
And it's not because of muh PS exclusivity (especially when taking into account that XVI and VIIR wouldn't exist at the production values they do without it) or whatever. It's the games themselves.

Square Enix Japan has to look to western game design and writing instead of just taking the generic WRPG aesthetics.
 
Though I understand to some extent that reasoning, let me put it this way. Imagine Sony approached Capcom to develop a remake of Resident Evil 1 (another iconic PS1 IP back in the day which has been ported to every existing platform such as FF VII) exclusively for PS4 "to try to stimulate PS4 sales in Japan", do you think Capcom would've accepted that deal and losing millions of sales for the sake of stimulating PS4 sales in Japan?

I don't think it gets made without Sony's money.
 

Sephimoth

Member
Shame.

FF7 OG is my fav game but I can't be bothered to even play through Rebirth (I'm up to Gold Saucer). It's not a bad game, and I will 'force' myself to go back to it. But it just feels like fanfic with excessive bloat, like The Hobbit films

I suspect if they'd just made a single FF Remake game, following the OG, got rid of all the fat- MEGAHIT. But they wanted 3 megahits instead, soo...
 
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DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
And it's not because of muh PS exclusivity (especially when taking into account that XVI and VIIR wouldn't exist at the production values they do without it) or whatever. It's the games themselves.

Square Enix Japan has to look to western game design and writing instead of just taking the generic WRPG aesthetics.

Why would we want more Western stuff. This is not correct at all.
 

StereoVsn

Member
And what role you could play in Witcher 3 ? ;d I was also rigid as f but in same time was great rpg, playing role is imo not important in cRPG.
Yeah, I thought FFVII Rebirth was pretty great. The issue was that it’s a sequel that you had to play a previous game and not enough folks picked that up.

They should have done double pack combo for physical version, IMO. I know there was a digital one, but physical copies still sell well especially for JRPGs.

Also no PC day and day release hurt sales, IMO. Not to mention the dumb as shit EGS exclusive for the first game.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
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Guess people can stop trying to downplay all the signs that XVI and Rebirth didn’t meet expectations.
 

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
Well if those games were multiplatform.....you build a fan base for those series. Even if SE sold FF7 Rebirth to 10% of the Xbox install base, it is still 2.5 million copies sold equaling $175 million in sales.
 

Metnut

Member
This was obvious to anyone watching the sales for the games. Best Square can do to try and salvage the thing is

Release DLC for Rebirth simultaneous with the PC release. If you can port to Switch 2 at the same time, go ahead. Charge $49.99 for the game (including the DLC) and charge $59.99 for the bundle with FF7 Remake. Lower PS5 price to $49.99 too once PC comes out.
 

Madflavor

Member
Only Square could take an idea guaranteed to make serious bank, and find a way to fuck it up.
  • Abandon the Xbox and PC audience you were cultivating after XIII and XV and go exclusive with Playstation.
  • Split the game into multiple parts and make people wait 4 years between releases.
  • Sell people a Remake, but then pull the rug from under them and reveal it's actually a Sequel/Remake hybrid with multiverse plot threads.
  • Deciding to remake FFVII now, instead of the 360/PS3 era which was when the iron was hot to strike. The FF fanbase was much bigger back then.
I think Remake and Rebirth are great games despite all of this, but for every Maximillian Dood going "WHAT IS GOING ON CHAT!?!? THIS IS CRAZY!!" there's another fan who's repulsed by all the multiverse bullshit. There's a fan who's waiting for all parts to drop. There's a fan who wishes he could play, but can't cause he doesn't own a PS5. Square have mastered the art of shooting yourself in the foot.
 

OuterLimits

Member
Let's be honest. This series is on life support. It isn't attracting many young players for whatever reason. Once us older farts stop gaming much or are drooling in a nursing home, I don't see FF surviving.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
I can understand the shock about FF 7 Rebirth not selling a trillion dollars, but not 16.

It's trying out completely new things (For the series). New tone (Derivative of Game of Thrones, but again, FOR THE SERIES), and gameplay style that just took what FF games have been building up to in recent years, and took it to its logical conclusion, is just a straight up action game.

That's not going to go well with its core audience, and it didn't, for a lot of them.
As much as I love what FF 16 was going for from the very beginning, I knew it wasn't going to sell a billion copies, for a Final Fantasy game.

Not to mention that it is a flawed game. Quite flawed.

Also, don't go back to the PS1 days, and the games might sell better. Actually release your games on multiple platforms, AT RELEASE. At the very least PC and PlayStation.
I’ve been a FF fanboy since the early 90s and I was totally onboard with the shift to action combat + mature GoT style story.

The problem was that the execution just sucked. As an action game, it sucked because enemies just stand there like training dummies while you cycle through your skills off cooldown chipping away at their health. As a JRPG it sucks because it’s loaded with boring sidequests, boring + lifeless dialog scenes, an empty world with nothing interesting to find, totally pointless crafting system, no interesting choices in character growth/loadout, no choice of party composition , etc etc

Yoshi-P in charge, new mature direction, described as “like Final Fantasy V as an action game”… I was so hyped. It ended up being one of my biggest gaming disappointments ever.
 
Maybe it's time Square revaluate themselves. I think they overestimate their own output in the current state of the industry, and this comes to bite their butts. If they were more humble like Capcom, they'd be praising their current IPs.

However, Square will Square, I guess.
 

Madflavor

Member
I’ve been a FF fanboy since the early 90s and I was totally onboard with the shift to action combat + mature GoT style story.

The problem was that the execution just sucked. As an action game, it sucked because enemies just stand there like training dummies while you cycle through your skills off cooldown chipping away at their health. As a JRPG it sucks because it’s loaded with boring sidequests, boring + lifeless dialog scenes, an empty world with nothing interesting to find, totally pointless crafting system, no interesting choices in character growth/loadout, no choice of party composition , etc etc

Yoshi-P in charge, new mature direction, described as “like Final Fantasy V as an action game”… I was so hyped. It ended up being one of my biggest gaming disappointments ever.

100% this. FFXVI had really strong bones, but the gameplay loop and design was bad. Story was such a let down too. The whole game should've been Clive going on a revenge quest, and fucking shit up across the land. I don't think it's a coincidence that it's a common sentiment the storytelling started to decline in quality once it stopped being Game of Thrones, and devolved into being another "Kill God" story.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
Final Fantasy XVI would have done better if it was actually an RPG. Word of mouth was rightfully horrible and killed the game.

FF7R should have a real turn based mode too. Other games have done both like POE2. Turn based games are more popular than ever and Square is running from it.
 
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I don't think it gets made without Sony's money.

SE would've gotten the money for that project from other investment partners, they didn't need Sony's money. Come one, everyone was waiting for Square to announce the remake, their most beloved IP.

I can only see that as some sort of capital injection to SE financials, and probably the deal also included FF XVI, Forspoken and Foamstars.
 
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Unknown?

Member
Though I understand to some extent that reasoning, let me put it this way. Imagine Sony approached Capcom to develop a remake of Resident Evil 1 (another iconic PS1 IP back in the day which has been ported to every existing platform such as FF VII) exclusively for PS4 "to try to stimulate PS4 sales in Japan", do you think Capcom would've accepted that deal and losing millions of sales for the sake of stimulating PS4 sales in Japan?
Get over it dude.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
100% this. FFXVI had really strong bones, but the gameplay loop and design was bad. Story was such a let down too. The whole game should've been Clive going on a revenge quest, and fucking shit up across the land. I don't think it's a coincidence that it's a common sentiment the storytelling started to decline in quality once it stopped being Game of Thrones, and devolved into being another "Kill God" story.
Agreed, plus for every riveting GoT-style drama scene, there are 10 other scenes where characters just stand there like mannequins fucking yapping on and on about something nobody cares about. I fell asleep multiple times before I dropped it around the 70% mark.

My pet theory is that this game started as some DMC-style spinoff game before they reworked it into a mainline game. You can really tell which parts were made with passion + creativity, and which parts were just added in so they could tick off checkboxes.
 

Fabieter

Member
Depends if they offer good rewards.I think I read one can totally bypass the mini games in this though.

Imo if you like them than it won't feel like bloat to you. I played it for 110 hours and never lost interest. But I love mini games. Its one of reasons I like like a dragon so much.
 
Isn't this bad when they never meet promises made to their shareholders? Or am I missing something and Tomb Raider, Avengers, GOTG, Hitman sold not enough were the bad years and in between we had positive years too?
 
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