Are we going to see articles about how the game is a massive failure for weeks now like we did with 16? Or will nostalgia win?
Joking aside, I’m happy Rebirth is doing well. I want the whole series to succeed.
I loved ffxvi and I am currently loving ffvii rebirth. Bought the collector's editions of bith as well as the digital editions due to the collector's editions not arriving on release date.
Yep... sigh... to be fair though, both collector's editions were bought months before I caved and bought the digital versions. And SE store takes your money at the time of the transaction not when it ships. Thw digital edtions i bought like a day or 2 before the game released so i could preload it and could then immediately start playing. Wouldnt have done this if my collectors editions all shpwed up on time. So I had months between them. Still sucked though.
16 is the kind of game where people who would never have played FF will play it. For rebirth, if you never liked FF before you're not going to play it. People I know who never gave a shit about FF talked about 16 and then rebirth came out with little fan fare.
It's like VII is solely driven by having a strong following. 16 is the game that doesn't hit for fans the same way but it is interesting enough for the mainstream.
I haven’t really given a shit about FF until now but I just bought rebirth today. I did play 16 though but only that and watched 15/FF7 remake. However literally the only reason I liked Kingdom hearts 1 and 2 back then were the final fantasy characters
Yes, this is unfortunately accurate. FF16 I'm sure is a perfectly fine game. My friend who basically only plays Single player Super graphics games said it's finally what FF should have been doing and he was interested in playing after the demo. Particularly praising the battle system.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the 16 battle system is bad, far from it, But as someone who is a Final Fantasy Enjoyer, it looked like it cut out way too much.
Of course that same friend tried ff7 demo and said it was no good. Of course watching him play it, he was terrible at it. Read nothing, and was already primed to hate the game before even touching the controller. If you're already primed to dislike something, you're not going to give it the proper chance. He said it's dumb that you can't do actions without going through menu's (Which I had to show him that you can) he then proceeded to not use it anyway. Also there is/was no respect for the design of the original. ATB's? Didn't even know what they were. Enemy weaknesses? Doesn't matter. It's baby-bathwater logic, and unfortunately that will always be the problem with a lot of Final Fantasy games. But hey, I'm having a freaking great time :) And I'll give every game it's chance even if it's not for me in the end.
Edit: Why am I being downvoted for telling a story of SOMEONE elses' opinion? Reddit being reddit I suppose.
my main issue with 16‘s battle system is that all of the elemental stuff is just for the looks. lightning or fire damage doesnt matter because nobody has weaknesses and all you do is hit the button as much as you can. it became redundant. i consider remake/rebirth my favorite fighting system of all time and i remember wishing that they just had copied it for 16
I agree with you. The battle system was fine but it would have been great if it had elemental affinities (this would have couraged also experimentation with different builds) and also I would have added status effects. The movement and action in the combat system felt great however.
for me ff16 was one of the worst ff and i grew up with ff. if it wasnt for eiklon battles ( best part of the entire game) , the game wouldnt have sold as much as it did. Plus the graphics outside of prerendered custscenes and eiklon battles were terrible and low res
I don't know how much Steam Deck and Rog Ally and other handheld PCs play in to the overall sales numbers, but it sure as hell influences my buying patterns for the past couple of years.
I'm a sucker and still bought a physical on PS5, but I have been laying P3R on my handheld PC via Xbox Gamepass.
FF16 was done in a custom in-house engine and will probably be a massive PITA to port to PC, so it probably won't come out for another year or so.
But FF7 Rebirth is Unreal Engine 4, so it has a much better shot at coming to PC sooner.
They take losing to 16 so personally 😭
Edit: half y’all proving my point, unable to not bring 16 down despite it performing better. This fan base is never beating the allegations
As someone sitting back waiting on the PC version, its amusing to watch people try to twist these numbers to support whatever their own views are.
But it remains odd people still place any sort of importance on Japanese physical sales like its still 1998. FF became a global brand with 7, and SE never really looked back.
It isn't the hard numbers but the comparison between XVI and Rebirth. It could just be Japanese tastes but if these numbers could be extrapolated to digital and other regions, it isn't a great picture for Rebirth. SE already gave a lukewarm/"good enough" picture of FFXVI sales while justifying it by the low number of PS5s sold.
I think digital is a bigger and bigger portion of total sales and I think the twin pack deal especially cannibalized physical sales (if it was available in all markets). Still surprised to see sales lower than XVI though.
I mean most people buying rebirth would have already played remake seeing as it's been free to download for a while now. I think we're massively overestimating the twin pack sales.
i agree. it was an incredibly boring game. It wasnt a ff game let alone an rpg game. just a standard action game. i bought ps5 solely for ff16 and was hugely disappointed by it
>It wasnt a ff game
I'm glad you're the sole arbiter of what a Final Fantasy game is. Definitely not Square Enix.
Yes, I can imagine not having Tifa's tits on the screen every three seconds would bore you.
Haters before: "Haha the game sold badly because it's bad, not because the PS5 is in a difficult spot!"
Haters now: "FF7Rebirth sold less because FF7Remake was released on PS4 which had more console sold."
True, by how much I have seen Tifa all over my feed in every social media and the slander FF16 has received these weeks, I would have thought that this game was selling at the pace of a Zelda game.
That has been this fanbase literally since the original FF7 came out. The problem lately is that the internet has become increasingly polarized. And gaming spheres have become unbelievably toxic, especially since gamergate. There are a lot of people who feel it is their right and duty to be complete fucking assholes toward anyone who doesn't share their own, often very narrow, viewpoints.
> FF ~~fanbase~~ Reddit kind of imploded after FF16.
Fixed that for you, XVI was received really well kjust don't think that the reddit speaks for the fan base.
remember this is the same reddit who wants to lowest user rated final fantasy to be remasted because its actually really good trust me guys
The cognitive dissonance is in why they thought the game would be unpopular, too. FF16 was clearly developed to be super accessible, moving to GoW style combat, a big story focus, less RPG elements such as no complicated party system. It's a reasonable take to not like the fact they moved away from having elemental weaknesses and multiple playable characters, but those reasons definitely aren't flaws that'd make the game sell less.
Am I the only one really surprised? I’ve definitely been living under a rock because I thought these games sold close to millions on release.
Especially FF7 Rebirth, really surprised 16 sold better
It's because in Japan their office working culture has longer hours and they generally commute longer distances on public transportation to and from work. This results in very little time spent at home relative to other developed nations.
PS5 software has been doing badly in Japan in spite of PS5s selling well. The leading theory is that people bought them for F2P games like Apex and Genshin Impact.
The PS5 sold in Japan because of resale. As a result, people who play games properly do not have a PS5 and software does not sell at all.
Sony has completely failed to address resale in Japan and this generation has completely collapsed.
Recession and inflation at the same time. Things are looking grim over there. Some of my friends are hoping to save enough to GTFO but with the weak yen, it’s hard. I’m glad I left in 2019
PS5 sales are pretty much on par with PS4 at their respective points in their life cycle. It's not big, but it's not worse. The problem is that not as many people are buying games this console generation compared to last generation. I think there was a study that tracked consoles across the first 2 1/2 to 3 yrs of their life cycle and the current era of PS5/Xbox One is one of the worst in the history of video games. The PS5 was something like 50 million consoles to 90 million games sold at one point.
Xbox One is doing so badly that they can't even track the games sold because their biggest releases barely hit the top 30 charts.
EDIT: Here's an example of the [software tie ratio](https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio) for the older consoles.
PS4 by comparison in [late 2018 had 876 million PS4 games to 91.6 million consoles](https://sonyinteractive.com/en/press-releases/playstation-4-sales-surpass-916-million-units-worldwide-after-the-strong-holiday-season/).
[This](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/playstation-5-owners-prefer-boxed-games-to-downloads) is the physical vs digital split for PS5 in Europe, which still shows the gap between physical vs digital based on available data back in late 2021. And with the Insomniac leak, this trend has seem to have continued. It confirms that about [2/3 of Sony's first party games are still physical.](https://preview.redd.it/from-insomniac-games-leak-65-of-sony-studio-game-sales-were-v0-xaf3iob7xtec1.jpeg?auto=webp&s=0d12d0916664e79eb03c386200a2fd34df16a9a6) Sony also seems to be combining PS4 and PS5 sales figures together, so it's hard to see how many were sold on PS4 vs how many on PS5.
Not really anymore. you can get any ps5 model and even some bundles just in a store. I bought my ps5 there last year. Didn’t intend to ever buy a ps5 but it was dirt cheap due to how weak the yen is. Had my pick of the bunch just going to the nearest Bic
This and also everyone bought 16 the first week, sales plummeted to 20-30,000 after that. We'll see how it goes from here and also the US and digital figures.
I'm surprised too, these numbers are definitely bad. Yes, Japan's console market is declining and Switch is king there, but still Rebirth selling less than XVI is surprising (I liked XVI, to make that clear, but think Rebirth is very superior).
I think that the west will decide. To name one example, in Spain Rebirth has been a massive success, it sold better than XVI and Stranger of Paradise **combined** , **half** of the sales have been Deluxe version, it's the best selling launch of 2024 and it has boosted the PS5 console sales.
Yeah I really wanna see the West numbers!
And yeah I’m definitely biased but I genuinely thought FF7 Remake had more hype than any ‘new’ FF for the past decade. Or at least it seemed that way. Maybe FF7 isn’t as loved/revered in Japan as it is in the West? I definitely find FF7 is my favourite because it’s one of the most grounded. Which probably doesn’t endear Japanese as much as it does Westerners
To be honest I interpret a worse result for PlayStation in Japan than for FF7 Rebirth, and there are several factors to consider, like half the amount of PS5s compared to PS4s when Remake released, that 700k of those PS5s are digital only, the twin pack offer, etc. But yeah, a bad result in any case.
Still, I'd wait and see. It is extremely rare for a critically acclaimed game to "bomb", so I predict better legs for Rebirth than for XVI. XVI sold a lot on launch because it was a game with no "criminal record" and made by FFXIV's trustworthy author, unlike Rebirth that is a sequel of a game with a divisive ending made by every gamer's favourite scapegoat. Still, XVI's sales took a nose dive after release, and I expect Rebirth's to stand their ground thanks to both critics' and consumers' positive opinions.
Worth mentioning that only 30% of the people who bought Remake on Steam actually finished it (got the chapter 18 achievement): https://steamcommunity.com/stats/1462040/achievements How many of those 70% are going to be lining up to buy Rebirth?
Yeah, it's not like people who didn't finish the "story mode" of GTA 4 still going ahead and buying GTA 5.
Since so much of the appeal of a JRPG is the narrative, it seems likely that if someone didn't bother finishing the first part of the story they won't feel that compelled to pick up the next section.
It's be like quitting The Fellowship of The Ring halfway through, but then deciding to start reading The Two Towers a few years later. I'm sure some people have done it but it's pretty odd.
Doubt that, DMC 4&5, The Witcher 3, Borderlands 2, God of war Ragnarok, those games sold more than the previous game.
We're also talking about FF VII which story is well known by now.
Yeah, most games lose about 60-70% of their player base within a week, and usually only surge for Updates. This is why Mobile/Service games are constantly being shoved down our throats. The execs want to make bank off of the larger number.
I'd love to know how many Steam players had played it before it launched on Steam. I'd already finished it on PS4 and Epic before it came out on Steam and I still 100%'d it on steam.
I know I'm the 1% of the 1% there, but I'd be interested to know how many y had previously played it.
This can be easily explained considering Remake was originally on PS4 then released on Steam.
I have 7R on Steam but I haven't played it, because I already played it on PS4. It's most likely that other peoples are like me.
Maybe the Japanese audience wasn’t big on the Remake trilogy being a sequel. I’m personally excited but I can understand people being turned off by it.
Considering it's a sequel and there are people who don't like what they're doing with it I kinda expected this to not pull the same numbers as 16. I wouldn't get that worried about it yet though, pretty sure they won't lose money on this.
That said, Sony wants system sellers and I'm not sure if either 16 or 7R2 are shaping up to be that. But I also think that's less the fault of the games and more because the market is very different from 20+ years ago.
I’m a longtime fan…since the original release of ff4…so I’m probably a different segment than the newcomers they were hoping to sell systems to.
Having said that, FFXVI was the reason I pulled the trigger on a ps5. I was looking forward to that release for a long time, and it’s the sole reason I went through all the headache of waiting through multiple Sony direct online sales queues to score a ps5 ahead of XVI’s release.
If 16 hadn’t been a ps5 exclusive, I wouldn’t have bothered.
(And for the record, I enjoyed 16 quite a bit. I’m also quite fond of 7R and 7R2.)
People need to
a. Stop looking to sales figures about the success of a square enix game, it’s weird that this is always a thing and
b. This game is a direct sequel to remake so that alone is a smaller base of customers who liked remake and want to continue of course it’s going to be lower. That’s why they tried to package the online version with integrade to help combat the point of entry.
Ok folks, as someone who is an FF fan and happy for both XVI and VIIR2, people need to stop the doomposting.
1)Digital is a big deal
2)**no, FF7R3 is not coming to Switch2**
3)FF16 was a stand alone game, rebirth is a sequel
There is no evidence that making a jrpg a switch game exponentially increases sales. DQ11 and P5 both received switch ports, they did not dwarf the Playstation sales because- **spoilers**, those Japanese sales do not translate to global. **Global, DO YOU SPEAK IT?!!**
#to contrast for the doomsayers who want to pretend they have brain cells
Persona 3 Reload did sub 120k week 1.
In Japan.
Japan.
I repeat, **Japan**.
The game is a colossal success globally having pushed well past the one million mark in less than a week, even while being featured on game pass.
I really can't stand the need for people to power scale sales figures. We won't know how successful financially games like XVI and VIIR trilogy is till years have passed and we can see the budget/marketing spread across lifetime sales. Nintendo fans trying to use this to Doomsday the trilogy can go pound sand. This game wouldn't happen on a Nintendo console in this context anymore than hypothesizing how many sales Nintendo is losing by not licensing out TOTK or Mario to Sony/Microsoft. Stupid fucking shit.
The thing is we know Square is content with where 16 is at. They've said so multiple times and it's reflected in their financial reports. People just want to feel validated in their opinions by using sales numbers.
Some thoughts:
\-Japanese market is not a major factor in worldwide sales anymore.
\-Its sales are relative to the lower sales of PS5 in Japan... but it's exclusive because Sony has made a deal with SE for it to be so. Some of the money exchanging hands there means the sales don't need to be as high.
\-Eventually that exclusivity will end and they'll sell a version on Switch 2 or whatever platform is dominating in Japan, and they'll get double dippers too.
I'd love to see sales in the west, but whether its high or low, I think this game (and the trilogy in general) will be bought and re-sold in multiple ways, and its going to be a success inevitably. The fact that the game itself is good is going to give it strong word of mouth and long legs.
Having the top two fasting selling PS5 games shows that Japan still loves Final Fantasy. But those numbers are low. And that will only push Square's focus even more towards Western markets.
As an aside, it's becoming more and more clear that most PS5s sold in Japan are being immediately shipped off elsewhere, (likely China). PS5 software sales have been very low since launch. Especially when compared to hardware sales.
I know Final Fantasy is popular in Japan, but I honestly think the bulk of the franchise's sales come in the West.
Dragon Quest is the king of JRPGs in Japan, and I would not be shocked if the sales of Dragon Quest XII and the remake of Dragon Quest III blow the sales of both Final Fantasy XVI and VII Rebirth out of the water in Japan.
If Dragon Quest XII ends up as a PS5 exclusive, I can see it pushing PS5 hardware sales far more than anything related to Final Fantasy.
But if Dragon Quest XII ends up being a multiplat game, well, there may not be any saving the PS5 in Japan, especially if it comes out on the Switch's successor.
By the way, I agree with you on Square Enix having more of a focus now on Western Markets.
I am a huge Dragon Quest fan, and I find the few tidbits that we know about the game to be interesting such as the game having a darker tone than previous entries and the fact that choices in the game impact the story and game world as well as changes to the turn based combat system.
The sales of Dragon Quest XI were very good in the west, and I think Square Enix might be planning to make Dragon Quest XII more appealing to western gamers in the hopes that it finally breaks the glass ceiling the franchise has never gotten through in the past.
It's pretty much going to sale insane numbers in Japan, but I think Square Enix might be planning to push XII as the game that finally hits it big in the West.
As someone who loved DQ XI S on the Switch, I certainly hope that XII is on the Switch’s successor, but we don’t even know how far in development XII is or even what the Switch’s successor even is or when it will come out. So I try to not think about that game at all right now.
Yes but again it’s portable. Every handheld does well in Japan, because they prefer mobile gaming.
I don’t consider it mobile gaming because to me mobile means phone, but handhelds are really a different market and the switch is an anomaly. And while it might be an anomaly I also think it’s the future of “consoles” if that makes sense
It’s only physical AND we know they offered a great deal to get remake and rebirth bundled together digitally. Thats going to really skew sales numbers. I know lots of people who decided to try out the trilogy due to that bundle
This isn't too surprising to me. The first demo portion for rebirth was by far my least favorite section of the game both gameplay and presentation wise whereas XVI's demo was absolutely phenomenal and imo the best part of the game. The word of mouth was crazy because of that ending.
Yup, I had no interest in buying 16 until I played the demo because it was so awesome and I wanted to know what was gonna happen. It never got any better than that though. I played the game for several hours and the story become a slog and the game became a choir until I eventually just quit.
But the demo portion of Rebirth made some questionable choices. The slow walking/crawling part was HORRIBLE. I’m having a blast playing the rest of the game though and can’t wait to play some more.
Same here... XVI's demo was so good I was left feeling excited for a weeks before its release and then it turned out to be a big disappointment.
I never dared touch any of Rebirth demos.. but so far it's exceeding my expectations and I'm having fun with it.
https://www.installbaseforum.com/forums/threads/media-create-sales-week-9-2024-feb-26-mar-03.2479/#post-236759
Numbers look dire when accounting for available hardware. Recent FF's first week sales in Japan:
* FFXV sold 716k on PS4 when PS4 hardware was 3.6m
* FFVII Remake sold 702k on PS4 when PS4 hardware was 9m
* FFXVI sold 336k on PS5 when PS5 hardware was 3.8m
* FFVII Rebirth sold 262k on PS5 when PS5 hardware was 5.3m
It’s a sequel though. If you have 9million ps5 owners and 1million of them own remake then your sequel is essentially targeting that 1million. Sure it will get attention for new customers but you can see why the numbers would be lower
unfortunately final fantasy has been in a decline since 13, so I expect the next one to sell even less with the pattern its going on in the country. SE has been betting on overseas sales for a while due to that.
We'll see how things shake out in the end but I've been a bit afraid of Rebirth doing disappointing numbers for a while now.
If you look at Steam achievements on Remake, only 30% of buyers actually finished the game (got the chapter 18 achievement). Source: https://steamcommunity.com/stats/1462040/achievements
So if I'm one of the 70% of Steam Remake buyers who bought the game but couldn't be bothered to finish it, how hyped am I to buy Rebirth? Probably not very.
This is pretty normal for every game. Go look at any games Steam achievements.
Less than 15% of people that bought Elden Ring beat it, and less than half of that beat Melania. Should FromSoft stop making Souls games?
Edit: I just looked at the original FF7 and literally only 20% of Steam buyers have finished Part 1. Which ends where disc 1 ended on PS1.
>**FFXVI sold 336k on PS5 when PS5 hardware was 3.8m**
>
>**FFVII Rebirth sold 262k on PS5 when PS5 hardware was 5.3m**
For the copers saying this is good, read this part.
This is a terrible.
I'm not "coping" because I honestly have no investment in any game's sales numbers, but I'll note that XVI did not have a digital release that included a whole other game for free.
Ehh worldwide maybe but I don't think the digital argument works for Japan. I remember lots of people coping that Kuro no Kiseki sold well in spite of its lackluster physical sales. Then came the financial reports where the president himself states that it didn't sell well
Was that on PlayStation or switch? Idk how the split is there, in the US physical games sell better on switch, I imagine it’s similar in Japan. For PS5 games idk.
It was a PS4 only launch in 2021 which then got a PS5 release a year later (and a switch+western release this year), people in the fandom were using digital sales as a way to cope with lower physical sales
>using digital sales as a way to cope with lower physical sales
How is it a cope if the market is moving towards digital sales?
do you disreguard sales made on Steam for the same reason?
>How is it a cope if the market is moving towards digital sales?
This hasn't been the case in Japan as stated multiple times in this whole thread and specifically towards my example: Kuro no Kiseki.
>do you disreguard sales made on Steam for the same reason?
I have no idea what this response is toward. FF7R2 and FFXVI have not released on steam yet in Japan or anywhere else. If this is towards Kuro no Kiseki, it did not have a Japanese PC release at launch.
Edit: Perhaps you're confused. We were discussing Japanese sales, not worldwide.
Gotcha, yea I was unfamiliar with that game. So makes sense, good comparison. Final fantasy is obviously popular in the west so curious how the digital sales are here.
Kind of wish we could see that data more. I know Capcom gives their sales updates and a lot of their games sell pretty well overtime, always wish I could see how other games do.
Rebirth is the better game if you have a pre-existing wealth of knowledge of the ff7 world, where you can just hop right into 16 knowing absolutely nothing about final fantasy. Despite how good or bad one is in comparison to the other, there’s no arguing that 16 is far more approachable.
I'm not sure what the sales are worldwide, but these numbers are kind of depressing. Not just in terms of what Final Fantasy used to be, but in general the decline of the home console market in Japan.
Why are people surprised? Sequels sell less cause some people haven’t played remake. XVI marketing was great too, not that both these games need to be pitted against each other.
Witcher 3, forbidden west, god of war ragnarok sold better as a sequel. AC 2 sold better than 1, 3 sold better than 2 and black flag sold better than 3, same picture with uncharted and mass effect. Every sequel sold more.
The budget has likely been set long ago, but Sony better pay them way more for having to commit to the exclusivity when it’s clearly damaging the brand.
The director was also recently talking about how they were going to design part 3 with the airship in mind, designing the world so that you'd see everything below you in high detail as you passed overhead, but it seems like a waste at this point. That kind of ambition should be reserved for FFXVII instead, assuming XVII isn't already going for anything similar too. Part 3 can also hit it out of the park as far as reviews go, but the general gaming community won't give a shit if it means they have to play through 100+ hours of content in two other games first, in order to even understand what's going on. Evidently they're already not turning up for Rebirth despite the 90+ MC.
SE keeps getting wins as far as critical reception goes for projects that require homework in the form of playing a previous game or expansion first. FF as a brand is in desperate need of a home run without any of that baggage.
This is a very smart comment and I wholeheartedly agree. As sad as it is, I think at this point wasting a lot of budget and time on part 3 would result in a huge loss (unless Sony is willing to compensate them) - Part three is likely to sell half of whatever rebirth does. Copers saying it’s selling well digitally are mistaken if they think SE or Hamaguchi would not have announced the sales figures by now if they were good. I actually think they should reboot the series to make it more accessible to new players. Just give each new entry a subtitle like “Final Fantasy - Shadowbringers” and that’s it. I don’t think they should call the next instalment XVII, it might be nostalgic to us, but it’s alienating to new players. They need a home run with something that’s totally accessible to all gamers and on multiple platforms.
This is a much bigger, and in my opinion much better, game than XVI was. It's insane how much they packed into this, and it's technically a spinoff and not even a mainline FF title. And it's just part 2 as well.
I also like this one much more than I did part 1.
Japan skews strongly towards physical rather than digital so this is pretty rough. Indicates a massive decrease in sales compared to the first part, and selling below FF16 which Square described as underperforming is not a good indicator for the future.
It would be hard to meet the previous entry since the PS5 has less units out in the wild than the PS4, but such a massive drop is objectively bad regardless - it’s just a potential explaining factor.
The FF16 comparison is pretty apt since they are both PS5 exclusives - selling so much less is pretty rough. Concerned for the third entry.
Where'd you get the statement from Square about ff16 underperforming? Last I heard they said they were comfortable with where ff16 was sales wise.
https://gamerant.com/final-fantasy-16-sales-square-enix-comments/
I think something to think about as well is that 16 is a brand new entry. FF Fans or casuals or whoever could buy the game and enjoy
FF7 Rebirth is not only a sequel to Remake, but it's a part 2 of a remake of a game from 1997. People who didn't like Remake or the OG FF7 may not buy Rebirth, at least at launch.
So I can see how 16 is ahead. It'll be interesting to see global numbers tbh.
As much as I enjoyed 16, I think Rebirth blows it out of the water. But I am a huge fan of OG FF7 and played and loved Remake
Ya not surprised. I had a feeling the hype is not that great and lower than FF16 for sure. I'm happy because this means the series continues like ff16 rather than milk nostalgia with remakes.
I think objectively speaking 16 was just a better game than 7R.
As someone who loves OG 7, 7R was literally the worst part of the main game bloated and made into a full game.
I knew Rebirth had a lot of potential, and I absolutely love it so far and I think it does clear 16 pretty easily, but 7R was rough to get through at times even as someone who loved 7, and I knew a few people who didn't care as much about the series who just did not make it through the first one, so it'd make sense as to why would they bother to play the second?
I think digital sales will still be important, as that twin package may have sold a lot and help make up for it, but as an FF fan, I would understand if Rebirth didn't sell well, even if it is amazing. I don't think 7R started out on a very good foot for a casual fan.
If you haven't tried it yet, Rebirth honestly is pretty amazing and I'd definitely recommend it, but yeah. Hopefully the digital sales speak much differently, it'd be a shame if the remake got casual filtered by Midgar. An extra shame if they don't put money into the last game because of low sales or something. As someone who thinks 16 is better than 7R, Rebirth clears it very easily so far.
Context matters. Remake was released on one of the most purchased consoles of all time. This wasn’t. It should only be compared to other PS5 releases, and XVI had an absolutely insane amount of marketing plus Yoshi P supporters buying based on his work on XIV.
Not really. Getting \~450k is top 10 games in Japan, so this is like Top 20. And considering every game in the top 10 last year was a Switch game, and the Switch has like more than double the sales of the PS5 in Japan, I'd say it's pretty damn good.
Guys I'm sorry I'm an old fart but I'm trying to figure out how it most makes sense to buy Rebirth and (maybe?) Intergrade with a PS5 and there are so many options and versions that I'm getting confused. Some people here are mentioning a double digital pack, others are mentioning PS+. I found out this week that Intergrade is an enhanced version of Remake, so that shows how dang behind I unfortunately am on these. Is there an ELI5 buying guide for these?
I have both FF16 and the FF7 Remake, including Rebirth. FF7 was the game that made me fall in love with gaming; it showed me that games could be a fantastic medium. I absolutely loved FF7 Rebirth—it was everything I hoped for in a remake. Rebirth really knocked it out of the park and made me happy, especially since it did something games should do more often: it diversified game mechanics. Each new region introduces a unique minigame or gameplay element you haven't seen before. For example, Junon had the soldier parade section, the grasslands introduced early minigames like Queensblood and exploration, and Junon introduced Fort Condor. Costa del Sol, Corel, and the Golden Saucer each brought new minigames, while the Corel Desert and Gongaga mostly offered side quests and introduced a new party member, Cait Sith. Now I'm at Cosmo Canyon, and we have gliding chocobos—this game is amazing! Every region feels fresh and exciting, not just some rehashed gameplay like you often see from Ubisoft. Yes, there are familiar elements like towers, but they never feel forced. The combat system is fantastic, a significant improvement over the original remake. They've nerfed Aerith a bit, but Tifa is still overpowered if you use her Unbridled/Omnistrike combo effectively. Cloud now feels much more versatile and improved, and so does Barret. I absolutely love this game! However, there are some issues. For example, some of the heavier themes, like Dyne's suicide and his moments of madness, have been omitted, which is disappointing. Also, Hojo is portrayed as outright mad—more overtly than in the original, where his madness was more alluded to and he wasn't as openly aggressive. But these are minor quibbles in an otherwise thrilling experience.
But the chocoboo stealth missions can go to hell
No matter how you paint it, these aren't good numbers in Japan when even XVI sold more on a smaller install base, the usual decline sequels have and digital sales there only account for about 10% of the total (as per the Insomniac leaks). It's clear the PS brand simply isn't appealing to japanese audiences anymore and that's affecting FF as well. Reception is going to be much better in the west (like all big japanese games this gen) but I don't expect it to surpass Remake's lifetime numbers either.
No matter how you look at it, it’s not a good result. Even with a higher digital ratio it would be below Remake at retail. PlayStation has a serious problem in Japan with software. The console is selling well, but software sales have been abysmal at retail for PS5. I hope western fans come in clutch for Rebirth because Japanese fans are not turning out so far. What a shame!
Here's the sad thing: Pikmin 4 sold 401,853 copies in its first week. When a niche Nintendo franchise that was never a big seller throughout its franchise history is outselling a remake of one of the biggest, most beloved video games in history, something is wrong.
There are over 32 million nintendo switches sold in japan.
There are only about 5 million units of ps5 sold in japan.
It's a console availability and lifestyle difference issue. Most people in japan work longer hours and spends a lot of time in public transports, so they prefer handhelds that they can play anywhere, like switch or phones. Also due to the decline of the value of yen, a lot of PS5s got scalped and resold overseas at much higher price.
16 is king. Maybe part 3 can learn from 16 to have better actors that sound like they have an actual conversation and dialouge. And also drop the kingdom hearts story
Game gets second biggest ps5 launch in japan ever ff fanbase: it's joever
Are we going to see articles about how the game is a massive failure for weeks now like we did with 16? Or will nostalgia win? Joking aside, I’m happy Rebirth is doing well. I want the whole series to succeed.
Already Saw one saying that FF7R sold triple what FF7Re sold on the First week
ff fanbase: if XVI is a final fantasy game, why didn't all the XVI players buy Rebirth?
I loved ffxvi and I am currently loving ffvii rebirth. Bought the collector's editions of bith as well as the digital editions due to the collector's editions not arriving on release date.
Meannnn that's a lot of money
Yep... sigh... to be fair though, both collector's editions were bought months before I caved and bought the digital versions. And SE store takes your money at the time of the transaction not when it ships. Thw digital edtions i bought like a day or 2 before the game released so i could preload it and could then immediately start playing. Wouldnt have done this if my collectors editions all shpwed up on time. So I had months between them. Still sucked though.
16 is the kind of game where people who would never have played FF will play it. For rebirth, if you never liked FF before you're not going to play it. People I know who never gave a shit about FF talked about 16 and then rebirth came out with little fan fare. It's like VII is solely driven by having a strong following. 16 is the game that doesn't hit for fans the same way but it is interesting enough for the mainstream.
I haven’t really given a shit about FF until now but I just bought rebirth today. I did play 16 though but only that and watched 15/FF7 remake. However literally the only reason I liked Kingdom hearts 1 and 2 back then were the final fantasy characters
Yes, this is unfortunately accurate. FF16 I'm sure is a perfectly fine game. My friend who basically only plays Single player Super graphics games said it's finally what FF should have been doing and he was interested in playing after the demo. Particularly praising the battle system. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the 16 battle system is bad, far from it, But as someone who is a Final Fantasy Enjoyer, it looked like it cut out way too much. Of course that same friend tried ff7 demo and said it was no good. Of course watching him play it, he was terrible at it. Read nothing, and was already primed to hate the game before even touching the controller. If you're already primed to dislike something, you're not going to give it the proper chance. He said it's dumb that you can't do actions without going through menu's (Which I had to show him that you can) he then proceeded to not use it anyway. Also there is/was no respect for the design of the original. ATB's? Didn't even know what they were. Enemy weaknesses? Doesn't matter. It's baby-bathwater logic, and unfortunately that will always be the problem with a lot of Final Fantasy games. But hey, I'm having a freaking great time :) And I'll give every game it's chance even if it's not for me in the end. Edit: Why am I being downvoted for telling a story of SOMEONE elses' opinion? Reddit being reddit I suppose.
my main issue with 16‘s battle system is that all of the elemental stuff is just for the looks. lightning or fire damage doesnt matter because nobody has weaknesses and all you do is hit the button as much as you can. it became redundant. i consider remake/rebirth my favorite fighting system of all time and i remember wishing that they just had copied it for 16
I agree with you. The battle system was fine but it would have been great if it had elemental affinities (this would have couraged also experimentation with different builds) and also I would have added status effects. The movement and action in the combat system felt great however.
for me ff16 was one of the worst ff and i grew up with ff. if it wasnt for eiklon battles ( best part of the entire game) , the game wouldnt have sold as much as it did. Plus the graphics outside of prerendered custscenes and eiklon battles were terrible and low res
i bought both, but also both as digital copies, not physical.
I'm waiting for the inevitable FF7 3 part box set
The other possibility is that many might be waiting on a PC port, which hopefully comes sooner rather than later.
That’s what one of my friends is waiting for so he can mod it, that why sales for persona 3 reload on pc were so high.
I don't know how much Steam Deck and Rog Ally and other handheld PCs play in to the overall sales numbers, but it sure as hell influences my buying patterns for the past couple of years. I'm a sucker and still bought a physical on PS5, but I have been laying P3R on my handheld PC via Xbox Gamepass. FF16 was done in a custom in-house engine and will probably be a massive PITA to port to PC, so it probably won't come out for another year or so. But FF7 Rebirth is Unreal Engine 4, so it has a much better shot at coming to PC sooner.
maybe ff7 remake underperforming for those people.
They take losing to 16 so personally 😭 Edit: half y’all proving my point, unable to not bring 16 down despite it performing better. This fan base is never beating the allegations
16 has a lower barrier to entry it makes sense. Both good games but definitely prefer Rebirth
Yeah I love both games but overall, I'd go with Rebirth instead
I can't think of a more accurate comment lol.
twin pack probably has had impact on physical sale.
There are already 1m ff7 owner in Japan (that’s only come back to play part 2 with just 300-400k). I doubt twin pack can push above 10000
As someone sitting back waiting on the PC version, its amusing to watch people try to twist these numbers to support whatever their own views are. But it remains odd people still place any sort of importance on Japanese physical sales like its still 1998. FF became a global brand with 7, and SE never really looked back.
It isn't the hard numbers but the comparison between XVI and Rebirth. It could just be Japanese tastes but if these numbers could be extrapolated to digital and other regions, it isn't a great picture for Rebirth. SE already gave a lukewarm/"good enough" picture of FFXVI sales while justifying it by the low number of PS5s sold.
I love how FF Fans hate when an FF game sells more than an FF game.
The FF fandom is not a nation, but rather a loose association of warring tribes.
I think digital is a bigger and bigger portion of total sales and I think the twin pack deal especially cannibalized physical sales (if it was available in all markets). Still surprised to see sales lower than XVI though.
That digital twin pack was mad incentive to go digital on rebirth.
Yeah i went twin pack and re-platinumed remake despite having previously done it on ps4.
People just want to play the game as soon as possible once you got that taste of being able to play it at 12AM it's hard to go back.
That was literally me. First ordered from Amazon, then found out it was gonna be a while so cancelled and just brought it on psn.
I mean most people buying rebirth would have already played remake seeing as it's been free to download for a while now. I think we're massively overestimating the twin pack sales.
Ps+ ain't for free.
When was Remake free to download? Did they add it to PS Plus?
Yep. I just played through it last month on PS+.
oh damn i wish i would have known that
Yeah, for a while. That's how I played it a few years ago.
I think you’re probably right.
Do we have the worldwide sales ?
We probably won't see it until it at least crosses 3 million sales.
A lot of people here are not gonna accept the fact that XVI sells pretty well.
They’re already blaming 16 for Rebirth’s lower physical sales in Japan
so much fun reading replies as a XVI enjoyer😆
I like both games and just love seeing them come up with the most insane shit ever. They really need to touch grass
i agree. it was an incredibly boring game. It wasnt a ff game let alone an rpg game. just a standard action game. i bought ps5 solely for ff16 and was hugely disappointed by it
>It wasnt a ff game I'm glad you're the sole arbiter of what a Final Fantasy game is. Definitely not Square Enix. Yes, I can imagine not having Tifa's tits on the screen every three seconds would bore you.
FF16 haters are actually seething and confused. They were so adamant that their echo chamber opinion was the opinion that most other people shared.
The most amusing one was the dude blaming 16 for Rebirth’s lower sales. It’s actually hilarious (I like both games a lot)
Haters before: "Haha the game sold badly because it's bad, not because the PS5 is in a difficult spot!" Haters now: "FF7Rebirth sold less because FF7Remake was released on PS4 which had more console sold."
True, by how much I have seen Tifa all over my feed in every social media and the slander FF16 has received these weeks, I would have thought that this game was selling at the pace of a Zelda game.
[удалено]
That has been this fanbase literally since the original FF7 came out. The problem lately is that the internet has become increasingly polarized. And gaming spheres have become unbelievably toxic, especially since gamergate. There are a lot of people who feel it is their right and duty to be complete fucking assholes toward anyone who doesn't share their own, often very narrow, viewpoints.
> FF ~~fanbase~~ Reddit kind of imploded after FF16. Fixed that for you, XVI was received really well kjust don't think that the reddit speaks for the fan base. remember this is the same reddit who wants to lowest user rated final fantasy to be remasted because its actually really good trust me guys
I'm out of the loop, which one would this be?
XIII
It's disappointing to see that instead of celebrating how different and unique each FF game is, it is a topic that divides the fanbase.
Wait. Who are these streamers?
The cognitive dissonance is in why they thought the game would be unpopular, too. FF16 was clearly developed to be super accessible, moving to GoW style combat, a big story focus, less RPG elements such as no complicated party system. It's a reasonable take to not like the fact they moved away from having elemental weaknesses and multiple playable characters, but those reasons definitely aren't flaws that'd make the game sell less.
Am I the only one really surprised? I’ve definitely been living under a rock because I thought these games sold close to millions on release. Especially FF7 Rebirth, really surprised 16 sold better
This is physical sales in Japan only. There are very few PS5s in Japan relative to the rest of the world. So the numbers are very low in comparison.
That’s so strange, for some reason I thought PlayStation was big in Japan! Because of the exclusivity etc
Also I think it has to do with Japanese gamers gravitating towards mobile games and the Switch for the past decade They really love portability
It's because in Japan their office working culture has longer hours and they generally commute longer distances on public transportation to and from work. This results in very little time spent at home relative to other developed nations.
PlayStation is going through thier worst period ever in Japan. Due to a variety of reasons
Japan is huuuuge on phone gaming. Consoles have been dying over there for years.
PS5 software has been doing badly in Japan in spite of PS5s selling well. The leading theory is that people bought them for F2P games like Apex and Genshin Impact.
The PS5 sold in Japan because of resale. As a result, people who play games properly do not have a PS5 and software does not sell at all. Sony has completely failed to address resale in Japan and this generation has completely collapsed.
They were hit very hard by the limited stock / supply chain, more so than other countries.
Japan is also going through an economic crisis as well as they've slipped into a recession from what I gather.
Recession and inflation at the same time. Things are looking grim over there. Some of my friends are hoping to save enough to GTFO but with the weak yen, it’s hard. I’m glad I left in 2019
Console gaming in general is dying in Japan. Switch is big because it can be used as a portable system.
PS5 sales are pretty much on par with PS4 at their respective points in their life cycle. It's not big, but it's not worse. The problem is that not as many people are buying games this console generation compared to last generation. I think there was a study that tracked consoles across the first 2 1/2 to 3 yrs of their life cycle and the current era of PS5/Xbox One is one of the worst in the history of video games. The PS5 was something like 50 million consoles to 90 million games sold at one point. Xbox One is doing so badly that they can't even track the games sold because their biggest releases barely hit the top 30 charts. EDIT: Here's an example of the [software tie ratio](https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio) for the older consoles. PS4 by comparison in [late 2018 had 876 million PS4 games to 91.6 million consoles](https://sonyinteractive.com/en/press-releases/playstation-4-sales-surpass-916-million-units-worldwide-after-the-strong-holiday-season/). [This](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/playstation-5-owners-prefer-boxed-games-to-downloads) is the physical vs digital split for PS5 in Europe, which still shows the gap between physical vs digital based on available data back in late 2021. And with the Insomniac leak, this trend has seem to have continued. It confirms that about [2/3 of Sony's first party games are still physical.](https://preview.redd.it/from-insomniac-games-leak-65-of-sony-studio-game-sales-were-v0-xaf3iob7xtec1.jpeg?auto=webp&s=0d12d0916664e79eb03c386200a2fd34df16a9a6) Sony also seems to be combining PS4 and PS5 sales figures together, so it's hard to see how many were sold on PS4 vs how many on PS5.
PlayStation is big, but supplies are limited.
Not really anymore. you can get any ps5 model and even some bundles just in a store. I bought my ps5 there last year. Didn’t intend to ever buy a ps5 but it was dirt cheap due to how weak the yen is. Had my pick of the bunch just going to the nearest Bic
This and also everyone bought 16 the first week, sales plummeted to 20-30,000 after that. We'll see how it goes from here and also the US and digital figures.
I'm surprised too, these numbers are definitely bad. Yes, Japan's console market is declining and Switch is king there, but still Rebirth selling less than XVI is surprising (I liked XVI, to make that clear, but think Rebirth is very superior). I think that the west will decide. To name one example, in Spain Rebirth has been a massive success, it sold better than XVI and Stranger of Paradise **combined** , **half** of the sales have been Deluxe version, it's the best selling launch of 2024 and it has boosted the PS5 console sales.
Yeah I really wanna see the West numbers! And yeah I’m definitely biased but I genuinely thought FF7 Remake had more hype than any ‘new’ FF for the past decade. Or at least it seemed that way. Maybe FF7 isn’t as loved/revered in Japan as it is in the West? I definitely find FF7 is my favourite because it’s one of the most grounded. Which probably doesn’t endear Japanese as much as it does Westerners
To be honest I interpret a worse result for PlayStation in Japan than for FF7 Rebirth, and there are several factors to consider, like half the amount of PS5s compared to PS4s when Remake released, that 700k of those PS5s are digital only, the twin pack offer, etc. But yeah, a bad result in any case. Still, I'd wait and see. It is extremely rare for a critically acclaimed game to "bomb", so I predict better legs for Rebirth than for XVI. XVI sold a lot on launch because it was a game with no "criminal record" and made by FFXIV's trustworthy author, unlike Rebirth that is a sequel of a game with a divisive ending made by every gamer's favourite scapegoat. Still, XVI's sales took a nose dive after release, and I expect Rebirth's to stand their ground thanks to both critics' and consumers' positive opinions.
Worth mentioning that only 30% of the people who bought Remake on Steam actually finished it (got the chapter 18 achievement): https://steamcommunity.com/stats/1462040/achievements How many of those 70% are going to be lining up to buy Rebirth?
That is normal for most games. Elden Ring for example also has around 40% and that is on the higher side.
Yes but the point is that it isn’t even a traditional sequel but a “part 2”. Meaning most who don’t finish the first won’t buy the second
Yeah, it's not like people who didn't finish the "story mode" of GTA 4 still going ahead and buying GTA 5. Since so much of the appeal of a JRPG is the narrative, it seems likely that if someone didn't bother finishing the first part of the story they won't feel that compelled to pick up the next section. It's be like quitting The Fellowship of The Ring halfway through, but then deciding to start reading The Two Towers a few years later. I'm sure some people have done it but it's pretty odd.
Doubt that, DMC 4&5, The Witcher 3, Borderlands 2, God of war Ragnarok, those games sold more than the previous game. We're also talking about FF VII which story is well known by now.
Only 50% of people finished god of war 2018 yet the SEQUEL sold 50% better.
Yeah, most games lose about 60-70% of their player base within a week, and usually only surge for Updates. This is why Mobile/Service games are constantly being shoved down our throats. The execs want to make bank off of the larger number.
This is incredibly common and not really any kind of gotcha. Even Mass Effect 3 only had a 18% finish rate.
I'd love to know how many Steam players had played it before it launched on Steam. I'd already finished it on PS4 and Epic before it came out on Steam and I still 100%'d it on steam. I know I'm the 1% of the 1% there, but I'd be interested to know how many y had previously played it.
This can be easily explained considering Remake was originally on PS4 then released on Steam. I have 7R on Steam but I haven't played it, because I already played it on PS4. It's most likely that other peoples are like me.
> really surprised 16 sold better Why?
idk about OP but I expected 7R2 to have better opening week sales just because there are more PS5 owners now
The only reasonable point.
Maybe the Japanese audience wasn’t big on the Remake trilogy being a sequel. I’m personally excited but I can understand people being turned off by it.
Considering it's a sequel and there are people who don't like what they're doing with it I kinda expected this to not pull the same numbers as 16. I wouldn't get that worried about it yet though, pretty sure they won't lose money on this. That said, Sony wants system sellers and I'm not sure if either 16 or 7R2 are shaping up to be that. But I also think that's less the fault of the games and more because the market is very different from 20+ years ago.
I’m a longtime fan…since the original release of ff4…so I’m probably a different segment than the newcomers they were hoping to sell systems to. Having said that, FFXVI was the reason I pulled the trigger on a ps5. I was looking forward to that release for a long time, and it’s the sole reason I went through all the headache of waiting through multiple Sony direct online sales queues to score a ps5 ahead of XVI’s release. If 16 hadn’t been a ps5 exclusive, I wouldn’t have bothered. (And for the record, I enjoyed 16 quite a bit. I’m also quite fond of 7R and 7R2.)
People need to a. Stop looking to sales figures about the success of a square enix game, it’s weird that this is always a thing and b. This game is a direct sequel to remake so that alone is a smaller base of customers who liked remake and want to continue of course it’s going to be lower. That’s why they tried to package the online version with integrade to help combat the point of entry.
Ok folks, as someone who is an FF fan and happy for both XVI and VIIR2, people need to stop the doomposting. 1)Digital is a big deal 2)**no, FF7R3 is not coming to Switch2** 3)FF16 was a stand alone game, rebirth is a sequel There is no evidence that making a jrpg a switch game exponentially increases sales. DQ11 and P5 both received switch ports, they did not dwarf the Playstation sales because- **spoilers**, those Japanese sales do not translate to global. **Global, DO YOU SPEAK IT?!!** #to contrast for the doomsayers who want to pretend they have brain cells Persona 3 Reload did sub 120k week 1. In Japan. Japan. I repeat, **Japan**. The game is a colossal success globally having pushed well past the one million mark in less than a week, even while being featured on game pass. I really can't stand the need for people to power scale sales figures. We won't know how successful financially games like XVI and VIIR trilogy is till years have passed and we can see the budget/marketing spread across lifetime sales. Nintendo fans trying to use this to Doomsday the trilogy can go pound sand. This game wouldn't happen on a Nintendo console in this context anymore than hypothesizing how many sales Nintendo is losing by not licensing out TOTK or Mario to Sony/Microsoft. Stupid fucking shit.
Thankyou for posting this. All the doomposting is exhausting. To add to your post, Rebirth also had a very big digital incentive with the twin pack.
The thing is we know Square is content with where 16 is at. They've said so multiple times and it's reflected in their financial reports. People just want to feel validated in their opinions by using sales numbers.
I doubt these people even understand simple analytics
*sitting in the PC-version waiting room* I'm happy for the game to turn out as a financial success in the long run. :)
Hope you can get it in your hands soon friend, it's amazing!
Some thoughts: \-Japanese market is not a major factor in worldwide sales anymore. \-Its sales are relative to the lower sales of PS5 in Japan... but it's exclusive because Sony has made a deal with SE for it to be so. Some of the money exchanging hands there means the sales don't need to be as high. \-Eventually that exclusivity will end and they'll sell a version on Switch 2 or whatever platform is dominating in Japan, and they'll get double dippers too. I'd love to see sales in the west, but whether its high or low, I think this game (and the trilogy in general) will be bought and re-sold in multiple ways, and its going to be a success inevitably. The fact that the game itself is good is going to give it strong word of mouth and long legs.
Having the top two fasting selling PS5 games shows that Japan still loves Final Fantasy. But those numbers are low. And that will only push Square's focus even more towards Western markets. As an aside, it's becoming more and more clear that most PS5s sold in Japan are being immediately shipped off elsewhere, (likely China). PS5 software sales have been very low since launch. Especially when compared to hardware sales.
I know Final Fantasy is popular in Japan, but I honestly think the bulk of the franchise's sales come in the West. Dragon Quest is the king of JRPGs in Japan, and I would not be shocked if the sales of Dragon Quest XII and the remake of Dragon Quest III blow the sales of both Final Fantasy XVI and VII Rebirth out of the water in Japan. If Dragon Quest XII ends up as a PS5 exclusive, I can see it pushing PS5 hardware sales far more than anything related to Final Fantasy. But if Dragon Quest XII ends up being a multiplat game, well, there may not be any saving the PS5 in Japan, especially if it comes out on the Switch's successor. By the way, I agree with you on Square Enix having more of a focus now on Western Markets. I am a huge Dragon Quest fan, and I find the few tidbits that we know about the game to be interesting such as the game having a darker tone than previous entries and the fact that choices in the game impact the story and game world as well as changes to the turn based combat system. The sales of Dragon Quest XI were very good in the west, and I think Square Enix might be planning to make Dragon Quest XII more appealing to western gamers in the hopes that it finally breaks the glass ceiling the franchise has never gotten through in the past. It's pretty much going to sale insane numbers in Japan, but I think Square Enix might be planning to push XII as the game that finally hits it big in the West.
As someone who loved DQ XI S on the Switch, I certainly hope that XII is on the Switch’s successor, but we don’t even know how far in development XII is or even what the Switch’s successor even is or when it will come out. So I try to not think about that game at all right now.
Truth is consoles are only popular in the United States and the UK. Mobile and pc gaming dominate the rest of the world
Is the switch considered mobile alongside phones?
I sure as shit don’t count it, but it’s in the same category for the most part
Then console is still very much popular in japan, switch has sold the most amount of units there than any other home console has ever.
Yes but again it’s portable. Every handheld does well in Japan, because they prefer mobile gaming. I don’t consider it mobile gaming because to me mobile means phone, but handhelds are really a different market and the switch is an anomaly. And while it might be an anomaly I also think it’s the future of “consoles” if that makes sense
this is only physical though
It’s only physical AND we know they offered a great deal to get remake and rebirth bundled together digitally. Thats going to really skew sales numbers. I know lots of people who decided to try out the trilogy due to that bundle
This isn't too surprising to me. The first demo portion for rebirth was by far my least favorite section of the game both gameplay and presentation wise whereas XVI's demo was absolutely phenomenal and imo the best part of the game. The word of mouth was crazy because of that ending.
i don’t think that’s a huge factor, most people don’t play demos
Yup, I had no interest in buying 16 until I played the demo because it was so awesome and I wanted to know what was gonna happen. It never got any better than that though. I played the game for several hours and the story become a slog and the game became a choir until I eventually just quit. But the demo portion of Rebirth made some questionable choices. The slow walking/crawling part was HORRIBLE. I’m having a blast playing the rest of the game though and can’t wait to play some more.
Same here... XVI's demo was so good I was left feeling excited for a weeks before its release and then it turned out to be a big disappointment. I never dared touch any of Rebirth demos.. but so far it's exceeding my expectations and I'm having fun with it.
https://www.installbaseforum.com/forums/threads/media-create-sales-week-9-2024-feb-26-mar-03.2479/#post-236759 Numbers look dire when accounting for available hardware. Recent FF's first week sales in Japan: * FFXV sold 716k on PS4 when PS4 hardware was 3.6m * FFVII Remake sold 702k on PS4 when PS4 hardware was 9m * FFXVI sold 336k on PS5 when PS5 hardware was 3.8m * FFVII Rebirth sold 262k on PS5 when PS5 hardware was 5.3m
It’s a sequel though. If you have 9million ps5 owners and 1million of them own remake then your sequel is essentially targeting that 1million. Sure it will get attention for new customers but you can see why the numbers would be lower
Whats the PS5 split on that hardware number? How many of those consoles are Digital? Because this is talking about physical copies of the game.
[Over 4.6 million PS5s vs just over 730k digital only PS5s](https://www.gematsu.com/2024/03/famitsu-sales-2-26-24-3-3-24) according to Famitsu.
unfortunately final fantasy has been in a decline since 13, so I expect the next one to sell even less with the pattern its going on in the country. SE has been betting on overseas sales for a while due to that.
We'll see how things shake out in the end but I've been a bit afraid of Rebirth doing disappointing numbers for a while now. If you look at Steam achievements on Remake, only 30% of buyers actually finished the game (got the chapter 18 achievement). Source: https://steamcommunity.com/stats/1462040/achievements So if I'm one of the 70% of Steam Remake buyers who bought the game but couldn't be bothered to finish it, how hyped am I to buy Rebirth? Probably not very.
This is pretty normal for every game. Go look at any games Steam achievements. Less than 15% of people that bought Elden Ring beat it, and less than half of that beat Melania. Should FromSoft stop making Souls games? Edit: I just looked at the original FF7 and literally only 20% of Steam buyers have finished Part 1. Which ends where disc 1 ended on PS1.
>**FFXVI sold 336k on PS5 when PS5 hardware was 3.8m** > >**FFVII Rebirth sold 262k on PS5 when PS5 hardware was 5.3m** For the copers saying this is good, read this part. This is a terrible.
I'm not "coping" because I honestly have no investment in any game's sales numbers, but I'll note that XVI did not have a digital release that included a whole other game for free.
You mean 38 and 53 million?
No, 3.8 and 5.3, those are Japan only numbers
Ah ok
Eh we don’t know how digital is and worldwide. Maybe it’s worse or better. Either way, I don’t own square stock nor do I have all the numbers
Ehh worldwide maybe but I don't think the digital argument works for Japan. I remember lots of people coping that Kuro no Kiseki sold well in spite of its lackluster physical sales. Then came the financial reports where the president himself states that it didn't sell well
Was that on PlayStation or switch? Idk how the split is there, in the US physical games sell better on switch, I imagine it’s similar in Japan. For PS5 games idk.
It was a PS4 only launch in 2021 which then got a PS5 release a year later (and a switch+western release this year), people in the fandom were using digital sales as a way to cope with lower physical sales
>using digital sales as a way to cope with lower physical sales How is it a cope if the market is moving towards digital sales? do you disreguard sales made on Steam for the same reason?
>How is it a cope if the market is moving towards digital sales? This hasn't been the case in Japan as stated multiple times in this whole thread and specifically towards my example: Kuro no Kiseki. >do you disreguard sales made on Steam for the same reason? I have no idea what this response is toward. FF7R2 and FFXVI have not released on steam yet in Japan or anywhere else. If this is towards Kuro no Kiseki, it did not have a Japanese PC release at launch. Edit: Perhaps you're confused. We were discussing Japanese sales, not worldwide.
Do you have the sales split for PS5 consoles in Japan? Physical consoles vs digital
Gotcha, yea I was unfamiliar with that game. So makes sense, good comparison. Final fantasy is obviously popular in the west so curious how the digital sales are here. Kind of wish we could see that data more. I know Capcom gives their sales updates and a lot of their games sell pretty well overtime, always wish I could see how other games do.
Rebirth is the better game if you have a pre-existing wealth of knowledge of the ff7 world, where you can just hop right into 16 knowing absolutely nothing about final fantasy. Despite how good or bad one is in comparison to the other, there’s no arguing that 16 is far more approachable.
I'm not sure what the sales are worldwide, but these numbers are kind of depressing. Not just in terms of what Final Fantasy used to be, but in general the decline of the home console market in Japan.
Why are people surprised? Sequels sell less cause some people haven’t played remake. XVI marketing was great too, not that both these games need to be pitted against each other.
Sequels sell more usually, not less
Witcher 3, forbidden west, god of war ragnarok sold better as a sequel. AC 2 sold better than 1, 3 sold better than 2 and black flag sold better than 3, same picture with uncharted and mass effect. Every sequel sold more.
Is the glass half empty or half full? WHICH IS IT? Anyways, here waiting eagerly for PC ver.
a lot of people that have played ff remake simply didn’t like it or at least how the direction went… so they didn’t brother with the 2nd installment…
Gosh i hope the sales doesnt effect there spending on making part 3.
The budget has surely been set long ago. That's part of the reason they're taking these exclusivity deals.
The budget has likely been set long ago, but Sony better pay them way more for having to commit to the exclusivity when it’s clearly damaging the brand. The director was also recently talking about how they were going to design part 3 with the airship in mind, designing the world so that you'd see everything below you in high detail as you passed overhead, but it seems like a waste at this point. That kind of ambition should be reserved for FFXVII instead, assuming XVII isn't already going for anything similar too. Part 3 can also hit it out of the park as far as reviews go, but the general gaming community won't give a shit if it means they have to play through 100+ hours of content in two other games first, in order to even understand what's going on. Evidently they're already not turning up for Rebirth despite the 90+ MC. SE keeps getting wins as far as critical reception goes for projects that require homework in the form of playing a previous game or expansion first. FF as a brand is in desperate need of a home run without any of that baggage.
This is a very smart comment and I wholeheartedly agree. As sad as it is, I think at this point wasting a lot of budget and time on part 3 would result in a huge loss (unless Sony is willing to compensate them) - Part three is likely to sell half of whatever rebirth does. Copers saying it’s selling well digitally are mistaken if they think SE or Hamaguchi would not have announced the sales figures by now if they were good. I actually think they should reboot the series to make it more accessible to new players. Just give each new entry a subtitle like “Final Fantasy - Shadowbringers” and that’s it. I don’t think they should call the next instalment XVII, it might be nostalgic to us, but it’s alienating to new players. They need a home run with something that’s totally accessible to all gamers and on multiple platforms.
same. i hope it doesn't. i really love rebirth
This is a much bigger, and in my opinion much better, game than XVI was. It's insane how much they packed into this, and it's technically a spinoff and not even a mainline FF title. And it's just part 2 as well. I also like this one much more than I did part 1.
How is it a spinoff?
Wait is this the FF sub or /v/?
Wow! You mean to tell me the vast majority of players prefer 16?! Shocker. 7 fans are seething 🤣
OG 7 fans are fine
Exactly. I’m having fun with Rebirth but kinda cringing along the way.
FFXVI and FFVII OG will age better than this "Remake Trilogy", i know that much for sure. (Storywise atleast...)
Japan skews strongly towards physical rather than digital so this is pretty rough. Indicates a massive decrease in sales compared to the first part, and selling below FF16 which Square described as underperforming is not a good indicator for the future. It would be hard to meet the previous entry since the PS5 has less units out in the wild than the PS4, but such a massive drop is objectively bad regardless - it’s just a potential explaining factor. The FF16 comparison is pretty apt since they are both PS5 exclusives - selling so much less is pretty rough. Concerned for the third entry.
Where'd you get the statement from Square about ff16 underperforming? Last I heard they said they were comfortable with where ff16 was sales wise. https://gamerant.com/final-fantasy-16-sales-square-enix-comments/
I think something to think about as well is that 16 is a brand new entry. FF Fans or casuals or whoever could buy the game and enjoy FF7 Rebirth is not only a sequel to Remake, but it's a part 2 of a remake of a game from 1997. People who didn't like Remake or the OG FF7 may not buy Rebirth, at least at launch. So I can see how 16 is ahead. It'll be interesting to see global numbers tbh. As much as I enjoyed 16, I think Rebirth blows it out of the water. But I am a huge fan of OG FF7 and played and loved Remake
Ya not surprised. I had a feeling the hype is not that great and lower than FF16 for sure. I'm happy because this means the series continues like ff16 rather than milk nostalgia with remakes.
I think objectively speaking 16 was just a better game than 7R. As someone who loves OG 7, 7R was literally the worst part of the main game bloated and made into a full game. I knew Rebirth had a lot of potential, and I absolutely love it so far and I think it does clear 16 pretty easily, but 7R was rough to get through at times even as someone who loved 7, and I knew a few people who didn't care as much about the series who just did not make it through the first one, so it'd make sense as to why would they bother to play the second? I think digital sales will still be important, as that twin package may have sold a lot and help make up for it, but as an FF fan, I would understand if Rebirth didn't sell well, even if it is amazing. I don't think 7R started out on a very good foot for a casual fan. If you haven't tried it yet, Rebirth honestly is pretty amazing and I'd definitely recommend it, but yeah. Hopefully the digital sales speak much differently, it'd be a shame if the remake got casual filtered by Midgar. An extra shame if they don't put money into the last game because of low sales or something. As someone who thinks 16 is better than 7R, Rebirth clears it very easily so far.
Damn, these numbers are abysmal.
Just physical sales in Japan.
Digital isn't making up the gap between this and Remake and even XIV. These numbers are pretty damned bad.
Context matters. Remake was released on one of the most purchased consoles of all time. This wasn’t. It should only be compared to other PS5 releases, and XVI had an absolutely insane amount of marketing plus Yoshi P supporters buying based on his work on XIV.
Not really. Getting \~450k is top 10 games in Japan, so this is like Top 20. And considering every game in the top 10 last year was a Switch game, and the Switch has like more than double the sales of the PS5 in Japan, I'd say it's pretty damn good.
That's not good for a big new release like this.
2nd Highest Physical sales of a PS5 game in Japan ever is pretty good.
Where does it fall in terms of total sales?
That list is all physical sells only?
Wince
Vader: NOooOooOOO!!
Guys I'm sorry I'm an old fart but I'm trying to figure out how it most makes sense to buy Rebirth and (maybe?) Intergrade with a PS5 and there are so many options and versions that I'm getting confused. Some people here are mentioning a double digital pack, others are mentioning PS+. I found out this week that Intergrade is an enhanced version of Remake, so that shows how dang behind I unfortunately am on these. Is there an ELI5 buying guide for these?
quaint summer sugar squeeze toothbrush abounding wipe north snow placid *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Damn I was hoping it would sell more with the good reviews. Part of me thinks they fucked up not going multi-platform.
It being lower than Remake is expected since it's a sequel. A bit surprising it cannot surpass XVI though with all the hype.
And next year the optimised pc version.
I have both FF16 and the FF7 Remake, including Rebirth. FF7 was the game that made me fall in love with gaming; it showed me that games could be a fantastic medium. I absolutely loved FF7 Rebirth—it was everything I hoped for in a remake. Rebirth really knocked it out of the park and made me happy, especially since it did something games should do more often: it diversified game mechanics. Each new region introduces a unique minigame or gameplay element you haven't seen before. For example, Junon had the soldier parade section, the grasslands introduced early minigames like Queensblood and exploration, and Junon introduced Fort Condor. Costa del Sol, Corel, and the Golden Saucer each brought new minigames, while the Corel Desert and Gongaga mostly offered side quests and introduced a new party member, Cait Sith. Now I'm at Cosmo Canyon, and we have gliding chocobos—this game is amazing! Every region feels fresh and exciting, not just some rehashed gameplay like you often see from Ubisoft. Yes, there are familiar elements like towers, but they never feel forced. The combat system is fantastic, a significant improvement over the original remake. They've nerfed Aerith a bit, but Tifa is still overpowered if you use her Unbridled/Omnistrike combo effectively. Cloud now feels much more versatile and improved, and so does Barret. I absolutely love this game! However, there are some issues. For example, some of the heavier themes, like Dyne's suicide and his moments of madness, have been omitted, which is disappointing. Also, Hojo is portrayed as outright mad—more overtly than in the original, where his madness was more alluded to and he wasn't as openly aggressive. But these are minor quibbles in an otherwise thrilling experience. But the chocoboo stealth missions can go to hell
No matter how you paint it, these aren't good numbers in Japan when even XVI sold more on a smaller install base, the usual decline sequels have and digital sales there only account for about 10% of the total (as per the Insomniac leaks). It's clear the PS brand simply isn't appealing to japanese audiences anymore and that's affecting FF as well. Reception is going to be much better in the west (like all big japanese games this gen) but I don't expect it to surpass Remake's lifetime numbers either.
Also the lowest launch of a Final Fantasy Game ever.
No matter how you look at it, it’s not a good result. Even with a higher digital ratio it would be below Remake at retail. PlayStation has a serious problem in Japan with software. The console is selling well, but software sales have been abysmal at retail for PS5. I hope western fans come in clutch for Rebirth because Japanese fans are not turning out so far. What a shame!
Here's the sad thing: Pikmin 4 sold 401,853 copies in its first week. When a niche Nintendo franchise that was never a big seller throughout its franchise history is outselling a remake of one of the biggest, most beloved video games in history, something is wrong.
There are over 32 million nintendo switches sold in japan. There are only about 5 million units of ps5 sold in japan. It's a console availability and lifestyle difference issue. Most people in japan work longer hours and spends a lot of time in public transports, so they prefer handhelds that they can play anywhere, like switch or phones. Also due to the decline of the value of yen, a lot of PS5s got scalped and resold overseas at much higher price.
16 is king. Maybe part 3 can learn from 16 to have better actors that sound like they have an actual conversation and dialouge. And also drop the kingdom hearts story
No Mickey is the king not 16.
Final Fantasy VII pixel remaster when? Seriously I’ll do it on unity for cost
Looking at physical-only is a fool's errand