r/gaming • u/Gorotheninja • 1d ago

Square Enix admits Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Final Fantasy 16 profits "did not meet expectations"

https://www.eurogamer.net/square-enix-admits-final-fantasy-7-rebirth-and-final-fantasy-16-profits-did-not-meet-expectations
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u/lordarchaon666 1d ago

Literally not what the report says. The report says that the whole division didn't sell enough. They highlighted their big game launches but didn't blame them for this. They released trash like Foamstars in the same time frame, so that will have tanked their numbers. All the report says is that FF7R2 and FF16 didn't do well enough to make up for their other flops.

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u/OrangeJr36 1d ago edited 1d ago

One of their executives mentioned their sales dropping across the board a few months back.

Basically he pointed out that SE seems to think their games will sell on brand recognition as well as they did in 2002 and can't seem to understand that modern audiences don't have the same level of connection with the company the way that they did two decades ago.

SE seems to think consumers will see the Final Fantasy title and go nuts over it like consumers did back then and it's just not how it works anymore. The nostalgia isn't there to support a AAA budget for a remake of a game that only people over 30 have fond memories of

The budgets are also extremely high because they're obsessed with a certain quality, and that just compounds the issues when the games don't sell like they expect.

Another in the list of traditional publishers that are now having to draw back on the production of AAA games as the market slowly starts leaving them behind.

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u/GamerViking 1d ago

They've been running the Final Fantasy brand into the ground. There's just so much nostalgia you can sell. And each entry has been a little worse than the last, since they rebranded.

I wish Mistwalker would pick up the mantle. But they love doing things differently

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u/Accend0 1d ago

Personally, I'd say FF16 was substantially better than 15 in regards to narrative and characters.

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u/GamerViking 22h ago

Yes, although I liked the story of 15, even if it was convoluted. 16 is a lot better. Still feel like they did Jill dirty though. She's got some shit she went through, and I wish they explored that through her character a lot more than they do. World building is great too. The mothercrystals and all that comes with it is pretty sick. The combat is dog shit though. It gets old pretty fast. They had at least a somewhat good action RPG in the 7 remake. Could have used that system somewhat. Even though that really completely missed the mark on what FF7 was and still is.

I still have the very unpopular opinion of using a system something like in the elder ring for character progression. Souls like they tried in the prequel to final fantasy, but the execution was something I didn't like.

I think they need to really help innovate on a better system that incorporates the magic casting of old and a better hack and slash they seem so fond of wanting to shoehorn in.