Rave reviews often help to drive the sale of newly released games, but that appears not to be the case with Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Despite the former scoring an average of 87 on Metacritic, Square Enix said they didn’t meet their sales expectations.
The publisher linked the below-expectation sales to the game’s launch as a timed exclusive on PlayStation. Consequently, Square Enix plans to shift its strategy to publishing on multiple platforms.
“Despite the release of Foamstars and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth in Q4, initial sales were not as strong as expected,” Square Enix said.
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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was release in February, few months before the investors briefing which happened in May. It was also a PS5 exclusive. Perhaps, this justifies Xbox boss, Phil Spencer’s argument that console exclusivity is unhealthy for the industry.
It is easy to argue that both games would have performed better commercially if they were released on multiple platforms including Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Since the beginning of this year, Xbox has shifted its strategy which has seen first-party titles launch on rival platforms.
Also, PlayStation is gradually shifting its stance on platform exclusivity with some of its titles now launching on PC day-one (e.g. Helldivers 2), rather than coming as a port years after the initial launch.
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Final Fantasy 16 is now released on PC. At the time of writing, according to VGInsights, Final Fantasy 16 has sold 18,360 units on Steam, a day after it launched on PC—which is promising.
“In the case of HD games, we will create a global environment that allows more customers to enjoy our major franchises and AAA titles, including from our back catalog,” Square Enix said somewhere in the briefing.
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