Final Fantasy XVI
While a month ago, Square Enix said that Final Fantasy XVI sales were “extremely strong,” after selling 3 million copies of the PS5 exclusive in a week, that momentum appears to have…trailed off significantly.
As of Square Enix’s latest earnings report, while net sales increased, operating profit dropped 79% from ¥14.4 billion to ¥3.0 billion. Now, during a post-earnings call to analysts, as reported by Bloomberg, Final Fantasy XVI is likely to blame for much of this, citing “slow adoption” of the PS5, with previously constricted sales of the console due to supply shortages, even if FF’s attach rate to PS5 itself is good. The other issue is that Final Fantasy XVI cost a whole lot of money to make, which is what’s hammering operating income.
There are a number of stories you can extract from this. While Sony and Square Enix’s relationship has been strong for ages, and Final Fantasy has a storied history with PlayStation, it now seems it was not the best call to make FFXVI a PS5 exclusive. And truly, a PS5 exclusive, not just a brand or console exclusive. Final Fantasy XVI did not release a lower spec version for PS4. It did not launch on PC at the same time, though a PC version should be coming later. And of course it didn’t launch on Xbox Series X or S as a result of this deal. But then you end up with a single platform whose growth was slowed by supply shortages, even if overall, the PS5 is a success.
The other issue could be the game itself. While it was generally well-received, some players didn’t like the action-oriented turn from the series, and if you wanted some recent evidence that there’s still a market for turn-based, team-based RPGs of old, look no further than the absolutely wild success of Baldur’s Gate 3, which has now cracked Steam’s all-time concurrent player top 10 with its hardcore traditional roots in the genre.
Rarely a quarter goes by without Square Enix lamenting the sales of some game or another for failing to meet their often too-high expectations. But while in the past that’s been Tomb Raider or Marvel’s Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy, for this to happen with a massive, mainline Final Fantasy game is not good.
Square Enix already seems to have realized that PS5-only releases may not be the best idea in the future. They recently announced a large-scale partnership with Xbox to bring games to that platform, though obviously that won’t be exclusive. PlayStation, Xbox and hopefully PC releases should help solve problems like this FFXVI issue, but that may be a long term project.
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