Final Fantasy Not Meeting Expectations? Final Fantasy XVI and VII Rebirth Underperformed?

[@Sector6UK]

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[@1kbmahan]

Maybe if square enix probably make single player games besides pushing out 16 different live service mobile games and burning money. The expectations can be met lol. It simply goes down to Squares ridiculous money management as a company if “expectations aren’t met” every time

[@NuRm69]

its sad to see all this negavitiy around a game that, imo, was game of the year. This game was perfect, with the exception that it wasnt concluded, but we all knew it wouldnt be.

[@Sector6UK]

Oh it's still GotY for me, it'll be tough to beat.

[@vigo2669]

I would've bought both games if I could afford a PS5.

[@nadilenebudski]

Their exclusivity deal with Playstation ended, and 16 is out on PC, so that should help kick up sales.

[@Aperson-62]

Coincidentally the lack of consistency comes after the departure of Hironobu Sakaguchi as the producer of the series.

[@jesse1381]

A lot of people don't like these games for very different reasons. This in and of itself is a difficult issue to tackle. People these days are very divided on what they want from Final Fantasy and when they didn't get something they wanted from Remake they hard noped away from Rebirth.

[@richardl.jenkins6091]

Rebirth is currently leading the race for GOTY so I hope these sales expectations don’t hinder development of part 3. For the future of the series I hope they stick with Rebirth’s combat system. Rebirth combat with job classes would be cool. Expedition 33 is looking to have a really good turn based combat system too that Square should take note of

[@omensoffate]

It’s leading because of fanboys let’s not lie. It’s no way goty

[@SnuSnu91]

@@omensoffate If any game deserves GOTY it would be FF7 Rebirth.

[@Melterer]

Part 3 will be fine. They will make a boat load once trilogy is done and it comes to pc. If it wasn't a ps5 exclusive on release wouldn't even be having this conversation.

[@RIELSG]

Rebirth didn't even sell that well

[@screaminjesus]

@@omensoffate It's my favorite game of 2024 so far and I didn't even play the original ff7

[@ChelseaFCPodcast]

Great games! They still must have made a huge profit on the FF7 remakes I haven’t played a new Final Fantasy for years! They are all very similar but 7 is the standout

[@DustinFerriss]

FFVII Rebirth is below expectations because it was a PS5 exclusive and A LOT of people still can't afford a PS5, when the PC port releases the sales will pick up.

[@upon-fe2720]

Same thing with 16 pretty much. If either of these games released on PS4, too - the sales would skyrocket. Rebirth will continue to sell steadily right up until Return comes out

[@dammyoyesanya4656]

FF16 is out on PC and the game is barely even selling on PC cos Square is not even marketing it. I think people and even Square need to accept that Final Fantasy is not the gaming juggernaut it once was.

[@meteordaddy8638]

Problem is that they don’t market the Playstation brand extensively nowadays. I remember tons of events held by Sony in South East Asia around the early 2000s. Right now SEA is dominated by mobile games and Sony won’t even exert an effort to change the story.

[@RedHairShanks-bb3dc]

I'm pretty sure the PC requirements for this game is a lot more expensive than buying a PS5 😂

[@iChannelz88]

I don’t think the sales expectations are too high on the games, it’s just extremely expensive to make games these days and 16 was in development for almost 7 years so they need alot of sales to make the desired profit margin.

[@77wolfblade]

I think square have an issue of promoting some of their smaller projects like Octopath traveller 2 and brave default. Some of them are decent games but I don't hear anyone talking about them and maybe square step into the line of smaller budgets double A so to speak in order to keep the term based community happy. As for the porting issue I wouldn't say porting would take things away I think what square needs to do is either form or buy a porting studio and leave to developers alone and leave the porting to this new studio this would help to give the original developers a bit of a break without worrying about ports. kind of like what Sony did when they bought that porting studio nixxes. Their ports have been pretty good so far. I think square should take a page from that. Let's also take into account when it comes to sequels sometimes they don't do as good as the original not because of the quality but sometimes there are people who just didn't like the original and won't be getting the sequel might be happening in rebirth's case.

[@CJLAKE123]

I would’ve loved to explore FFXVI’s cities & had the quests been in the cities, have a warrant option where you fight guards & have to escape them equivalent to GTA. Something fun. You never get to visit to Rosalith or the Holy Empire in its peak glory.

[@drewtheunspoken3988]

I don't think Square-Enix anticipated the amount of drop-off from Remake to Rebirth. The PS5 has 60 million units currently in consumer hands. Spider-Man 2 managed 10 million units sold. So their expectations probably weren't completely unrealistic. Too high? Definitely, but not unrealistic. Everyone has their own theories as to why sales were low. It's really just a combination of factors. The biggest being PS5 exclusivity. Final Fantasy XV did well being multi-platform. I also think Final Fantasy converting to action games and ditching RPG mechanics is doing damage. Maybe not much. But it adds up. They're trying to appeal to a larger market (and more money) by completely changing the game's identity. This rarely works. I'm thinking of things like Robocop and Die Hard. Franchises that were R-rated action films that went PG-13 to market to a broader audience, losing some of what made them special to begin with. Or, in gaming terms, imagine if the next Call of Duty was made into a cartoony 5v5 hero shooter to appeal to a "younger audience." No one is buying that. For the record, I'm not suggesting that Final Fantasy go back to turn-based combat or stay stuck in the past. A franchise does need to grow and change to stay relevant. What I am suggesting is that Square-Enix needs to tamper their expectations if they're going to cater to a different audience. It's basically a new and different franchise now, despite the naming convention.

[@enjolraslechimiste]

I feel exactly as you do. I find it boring and trite, but a logical necessity to discuss occasionally. I respectfully disagree on the opinion of Rebirth; to me, Chapter 14 was a disaster that heavily wrecks the game for me.

[@threestars2164]

The only way they could have recouped their losses from avengers and forspoken was if ffxvi sold over 74mil copies (lmao). Considering there is only approximately 40mil ps5's at that time Square Enix comes across as being out of touch with reality.

[@chrisdillon8376]

Stop making sense, would ya?

[@micman963]

200m just to develop it. At 2M+ copies sold it would not pay for the development costs alone, not even counting marketing. Enix does not have too high expectations for the time/money they spent on it, it's also ff7 which is the golden goose for them. Part 3 will likely cost more to make due to openworld+highwind+submarine, yet it will see another huge drop-off in sales due to it being a sequel to a sequel, of which many people haven't even finished the 2nd game.

[@garrettstickel1189]

dont see why people keep saying the remake series is trashing the original story.... if you played og ff7 and played remake through rebirth... your literally at the same point storywise. the only real difference is the story is more fleshed out. the Gi are a real part of the world now for example

[@coreymckee4844]

SE expectations are always too high. FF7R was overly ambitious and they simply took too long. Making it 3 parts was a huge mistake too. If the remake was just better graphics and updated gameplay while keeping the story the same and none of that alternate universe crap, then maybe it would be better. FF7R was more of a reimagining than a remake. They could have had the full game release at once but their ambition got the better of them. 🙄

[@cloudyskiesnow]

I definitely feel like FFX was the last great FF before the Remake trilogy, and that FF as a series hasn't been the same since Sakaguchi left. The entire creative direction of the franchise feels schizophrenic and they've been trying to chase Western action RPG trends instead of doing their own thing. I'd be happy if they stick with the hybrid gameplay of Rebirth, but I also think that every aspect of the games has been lacking for a long time. Older FFs are so good because there's a kind of authenticity and heart there, which is partly why Remake works so well--it expands on what was already there--whereas a lot of the newer games feel hollow, like a collection of tropes instead of well-defined characters and a coherent story. 16 was the closest they've gotten to a return to form for me, but the lack of core RPG elements was off-putting, the exploration was non-existent, and I really didn't care about the characters very much. Rebirth is a masterpiece, but I don't consider that a "new" FF.

[@heroicjake3077]

FF7 remake underpreformed out of the gate. It did so poorly overall that Square jumped ship away from Sony. The insanity of that cannot be understated.

[@micman963]

Well Remake's performance didn't stop them from making Rebirth ps5 exclusive, if anything they jumped right into bed with Sony and embraced a much smaller install base. Part 3 likely will be Sony exclusive to their detriment as well. Part 1 was 17th highest selling PS4 in it's lifetime, due to the overwhelming hyphe of waiting 20 years. However the OG FF7 was 2nd highest sold on the Ps1, so it's a noticeable drop off. Once players saw what it was, it lost it's legs though, and only sold 2m more on PS5 + PC (by far biggest install base) combined. Part 3 would have to launch day one on all platforms with tons of ads for it to have a chance at even selling as much as Rebirth has, because It's going to be sequel of a sequel lol

[@rexcyjones9416]

They expected too high due to the concecutive failed projects they had after ff7r's success during the pandemic to carry the recupe, then Sony said " Sorry devs but Scalpers bought all the units and now people don't wanna buy the units anymore due to the price hikes" 😂

[@VAANET]

I honestly wouldnt be mad if they sold costumes to reach goals.

[@michaelhowell2809]

Putting the story in 4 parts will kill the 2nd part. Lol but rebirth was soon good.

[@lajazziamacklin8418]

In SpongeBob voice concerning Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: Oh, no, not again! That's probaby because people want AERITH to LIVE and for the story to remain the SAME like in 1997 when it first released! There are also a lot of people who are nostalgic for it who don't want the original FFVII to change.

[@kevinvanmeurs6554]

Final Fantasy must be Turn Based Combat

[@SpydrByte]

FF was on top of the RPG market with FF6-10... perhaps they should ditch the action RPG elements and go back to traditional rpg game play. I been saying it for a bunch of other games that lost their way. Halo needs to go back to slow arena game play like Halo 3, paper mario needs to go back to action command turn based rpg like TTYD, Fallout should go back to the top down narrative gameplay like FO2. CoD Zombies should go back to round based non-warzone influenced game play like BO3. It's absurd that I have to say this out loud, its almost common sense. The series got popular off game or games that followed a certain way of playing. Changing it and wondering why sales are low is so dumb. Make a game like FFXVI, I enjoyed it, but don't call it a final fantasy when it has no gameplay relation to the original games.

[@MargaritoTrevino]

They need to make their graphics style like BOTW, then take all that extra processing power and make a huge world with a great story. They need to make both action and turn based. They can keep the numbering system for the action games and make a Final fantasy classic series that uses 2.5d and turn base. This keeps both groups happy and might get more people interested in the other series.

[@77wolfblade]

Instead of making it more realistic, they should make it more stylish.

[@wd91]

Always been a huge final fantasy since the original, when i was 5 years old. For me, Ff7r series =9.5/10 ff16 =8/10 ...and id say FF series in general is waay above other competing franchises by ALOT . Old fans who dont like the changes to the gameplay are snowflakes. the change up of systems is exciting! 2 3 9 and 11 are the worst in the series for me by far. (The games where the didint innovate)

[@michaeloconnor5480]

2, 3, and 11 possibly innovated more than any other title at that time. 2 drastically changed things from a successful game in FF1. FF3 added jobs and summons and shit. 11 was a goddamn MMO in a series not known for it at the time. And 9 was a massive "return to form" in the sense of the franchise's routes And successful gameplay and story elements. You picked the main ones where they did new shit, to say they didn't?

[@novachikun]

Nomura and his pals have extremely inflated egos. Just like any "new artist" getting a little bit of creative control, they all think they can eclipse the "boring" original FF7 with their "fresh, new" perspectives. The new kid, Hamaguchi, has even gone so far as to say that the last part of the trilogy could be the "best game ever made". And they think they can do this with flashy new graphics and loud action scenes. But, they have turned off a sizeable portion of FF7 and general Final Fantasy fans. Younger fans love the new approach, because they grew up with Kingdom Hearts. But older fans appreciate the older Final Fantasies, including FF7, BECAUSE they are totally not like Kingdom Hearts. It is no surprise to fans of classic FF why games like FF16 and Rebirth underperformed. Nomura and his team are too egotistical to see how tired and overused the "fresh, new" material they brought into Remake and Rebirth really is.

[@robertharper3114]

Exactly!! I predict ff7r part 3 to sell even less than part 2.

[@ystevenxu]

Nomura and his pals were part of the og development team, the producer is the og director

[@Erikthedood]

You just sound like a jaded tourist.

[@robertharper3114]

@@ystevenxu Yeah, and Sakaguchi isn't there to keep them all on task. That's why these games are all over the place now.... and Nomura WAS the new generation compared to the Guch, and now these younger guys are following in his footsteps instead of the man who should have rightfully been followed this whole time, Sakaguchi!! Man, I wish I could go to that alternative timeline where he never left Square. This last 20 year wouldn't have been such a WASTE!

[@novachikun]

@@ystevenxu Yes, he certainly was. But you know what key member of that original team is missing nowadays? Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the entire Final Fantasy series, and a key member in basically every Final Fantasy up to 9. Sakaguchi was the one managing Kitase, Nomura and Nojima on FF7, because he was by all means the boss of Squaresoft. Sakaguchi was the one who filtered out the shitty ideas (even if they came from himself!) and preserved the good ones because he was a skilled storyteller, a skill that the leftover team members sorely lack, in all honesty.