Did Ff16 Flop?

genuinely surprised you didn't run away from this thread.

i guess that's what stockholm syndrome is all about though

Why would I run away? After slapping the ***out of little Godfry all day yesterday?

Godfry owning himself again, talking about Bloodborne sales.

Released March 2015
Took 6 months to hit 2 million sales

You are from Canada, so I expected you to have learned to read English cause even the link that you provided is not negatively speaking about Bloodborne performance.

Furthermore, here is a report from the same source you provided that states that for Sony and From, Bloodborne exceeded expectations:


"We had expectations to do well. We looked at the Souls series as a frame of reference, and we thought we could do better than that. We did—and then some. Relative to some of our sister territories, we were being quite ambitious, but even that proved to be conservative

You have yet to confess that you got OP Moonveil build early, lmao!

https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/mustafa-mahmoud/square-enix-confirms-that-ffxvi-did-in-fact-meet-sales-expectations/

“It was in line with our expectations. To maximize our sales of ‘FF16' over an 18-month period, we intend to roll out downloadable content & the PC version when the timing is optimal.”

Nynja, you provide a link that ends with the impression that ff16 sales were poor? Gotta put those two marbles to work, man. Lol


A quote from the article you shared, without even reading it;

"One of Square Enix’s biggest games of 2023 was Final Fantasy XVI. The action RPG launched exclusively for PS5 to a wave of initial success – though it was later claimed that the game did not meet its sales expectations. Fortunately, sales seem to have picked up since then, with the publisher stating that FFXVI’s performance has been “in line with our expectations.”

It's fantastic for very specific group of people who is likely not in the mainstream.

For the entire promotion period all the messages that I received from this game was "Tifa in swim suit" "100 hours of content" "more intricate rpg battle system than remake(as if remake isn't intricate enough already)" "anime style acting" "direct sequel". So if I am a normie not into any of these above I wouldn't buy it.

Basically they target people really really into traditional jrpg, anime AND played the remake. On a console(PS5) that is dominated by action game players.

It's fine to target a niche target audience tbh, Yakuza 8 did that and they are very happy with their 1m initial sales. SE expected Rebirth to sell way more than that so they are going to disappoint. Maybe they should have cut down the budget and sales expectations then aim for 1-3m for their console jrpg products: that's a more realistic initial sales figures for a console only jrpg these days.

Both 16 and Rebirth are good games and have been well received by critics and players alike (Rebirth being the highest scoring FF since 12).

We really don't know the exact reasons why these games haven't sold as well as hoped but I'm sure lacklustre marketing and PS5 exclusivity did not help. The twin pack where you get Remake free with Rebirth was hardly advertised before release.

It looks like 16 will hit SE's expectations with the PC included (a lot of CBU3 stans are PC players and also the game's graphics will look even more incredible with better hardware) but it seems a little more dire for Rebirth, even with a PC version.

You know why. I would bet almost everyone that defended 16 was already either a fan of ff14 or an admirer of Yoshida. It comes across as a bit of a cult of personality. It's human nature to be this way so it's not a failing or anything, they're just predisposed to like or defend it from people saying it's crap if they're already on the love train.

I want someone that didn't like 14 or loved Yoshida to tell me they really liked 16.

I think a problem Square Enix has is that ff14 players are very loud on twitter, and to a CEO it can appear they are much larger than they actually are. I think they bought into the hype and it just wasn't what they thought it was.

Yoshida can't really sell games, his appeal is pretty small.

If the appeal of Yoshida is so small why is it when I ask anyone who directed 16 they either don't know, have to look it up or say it's Yoshida yet most know Yoshida is involved in some capacity. If he didn't front the marketing the game, would have likely sold more poorly.

Final Fantasy in general has a cult following and isn't as big a brand as like CoD.

11 is a game that has a cult following, especially these days with people defending the game due to sunk cost fallacy.

while not necessarily agreeing with Radial's theory (it's interesting nevertheless), he mentioned "appeal" but you somehow interpreted it to be "fame". They're not the exact same thing.

The game would have sold less without his involvement. He is a good salesman, as has been shown with the last 10 years of FFXIV, with his marketing of a pretty average MMO and making it the second most popular in the world and the only FF game to recently resonate with Japanese fans.

There's always going to be a cult of personality with these well-known director types. It's the same with Nomura, it's the same with someone like Kojima.

FF14 is far more popular in the west than in Japan and infact he gets a lot of hate there, which is also why he leaned into pandering to the west so hard with 16. Almost to the point of outright disrespecting Japanese players in interviews.

https://www.ign.com/articles/final-fantasy-16-producer-naoki-yoshida-is-tired-of-trolls-complaining

The thing I found odd is that ff14 players defended the game so hard, when it was in their own self interest for it to do poorly. Surely they want him chained to ff14 and not off making more single player games.

You got proof that 14 is far more popular in the west? Because from what I see the server pops are quite similar and that is with Japan having a much smaller population in the country.

14 also gets a lot of love in Japan as well as hate, just like in the west lol. They held fanfest in a stadium in Japan and it was packed.

14 is so hated in Japan that they even have a Cafe themed specifically for the game which has been open for years.

I'm not disputing this. He's currently the most successful director & producer SE has with an FF title under his belt, and his turning around of FFXIV from the commercial failure it was into the moneymaker it is now is well-known.

But Radial claimed that this was mostly only relevant to his established fanbase (most of them FFXIV fans), and your answer:
didn't really address his claim. I'm actually curious about the magnitude of his appeal for non-XIV players or even newcomers to the series.


Curious if this is really true because I wasn't expecting such positive reception from JP fans

Most FFXIV fans are on PC, 16 is not on PC so I don't quite understand the reasoning behind it just being 14 fans that bought and liked 16.

Outside of SE doing their own surveys we will never now the split of newcomers to the series or non-14 players so it's impossible to say either way for sure.


Was talking about 14 and we have proof of the popularity of 14 in Japan.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/03/japan_voted_on_final_fantasys_best_games_and_characters_-_do_you_agree_with_the_ranking

A comparative poll between FFs doesn't mean much, because it's inherently time-biased. Anyone who hasn't heard of FF at all isn't participating, but of those participating, there's going to be an inherent bias among recently released games [because more people will have played them]. It shows that 14 did better than 15 and 7r, not much else. And, considering there was specific mention of characters and 7's cloud won.. it's feasible they didn't even include 7r in it.

I completely disagree because nostalgia is a massive part of the FF franchise and the first 10 games are held on a pedestal much higher than the quality of the games actually are.

Japan has a massively ageing population so that also discounts your point.

You disagree with the concept that some of the listeners will be in the younger age bracket and have played newer FFs without playing older FFs..? Nobody is voting for a game they haven't played.

Considering the demographics of Japan and that it was NHK that did the poll then yes most of the people who answered the poll are not going to be young.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan

Okay, so you're claiming an anime-focused broadcast segment doing a random poll is proof that XIV was a massive hit in Japan. Further, because Japan consists of old people, the viewership of an anime-focused broadcast segment won't have young people that have only experienced newer games. I'm not really sure I buy the logic, but you're entitled to it, I guess.

Oh, and it didn't have ff7r in it either, like I speculated.

All western nations have the exact same problems, we just have MASS immigration to hide it.

That aside, much of the appeal of these "weeb" games is that they are popular in Japan (which is why people fixate on famitsu physical sales so much). If they stop being popular in Japan then they lose some appeal in the west too.

So by saying Japan doesn't matter as much to them so openly in interviews, they are indirectly also hurting western sales.

It's like Square Enix are stupid or something that they don't know this.

You're not coming with any proof to state otherwise.

Back up your arguments.

My logic comes from statical reasoning as I am showing with surveys and population statistics, yours comes from your hatred of 14 which is why you don't have anything to back your point up.

Showing demographics of a nation on the whole isn't 'proof' of anything in regards to a specific show's viewership. It is common sense that people who watch anime will be younger than the general demographics of their country. It is also common sense that most people in their early 20s will not have played games that released before they were born and went out of style while they were in diapers. It is fact that the poll didn't include FF7R, so if you take a look, the only modern options are FF14 and FF15.

Frankly, I don't feel a need to convince you, which is why I stated that you are entitled to your opinions. You're obviously unwilling to budge on anything relating to FFXIV or Yoshida. I think anyone who isn't married to the issue can see what I'm saying, though.

https://www.nhk.or.jp/anime/ff/ranking/

There's a breakdown of what age groups voted on this website. The majority (nearly 70%) of votes were cast by people who are 30 or above.

Any more proof you need or can we move on?

It's broken down by game too, and 41.9% of FFXIV's voters were too young to have played the games that beat it. Not really selling your point, champ. Opposite is true on 6/7, with younger people drastically underrepresented. So, back to my first comment, younger people aren't going to vote for a game they were too young to play.

So the majority of voters were old enough?

You got proof that younger people have never played the older games either?

You're the guy not selling anything lol.

Younger people are not really represented for any game. FF is a series for older people.

More younger people voted on 12, why is that not up there?

More older people voted in total so their opinion holds more weight in the poll.

FF14: 38.2% of voters were 20-29, 3.7% of voters were <19.
FF7: 17.3% of voters were 20-29, 3.6% of voters were <19.
FF6: 14.1% of voters were 20-29, 2.4% of voters were <19.

People don't vote for games they haven't played. The poll isn't showing that people who have played all the FFs prefer 14, it's showing that a considerable amount of younger people who have not tried the older games are biasing the data. Even with that in mind, the classics outpolled 14. This is not that complicated.

How is this disproving that it's an age-biased question? I can't put it any more clearly: Nobody is voting for a game they haven't played.

Thus, you're surveying older folks based on all FFs (if they're still engaged with anime and FF they will have tried the newer games). But, you're only surveying younger folks on recent FFs. 12 is more recent, so more young people have played it. Not rocket science, here.

Omg...

There are more older people who voted in total. This means their vote holds more weight. If it's just younger people voting for 14 it would be lower down the list like 12 is.

You are right this is simple.