Current Events > Square Enix Loses Nearly $2 Billion in Value Since Final Fantasy 16

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ricemills posted...

Um no? They still have to cut a commission to the store.

Yeah whatever platform it's on (PSN, NN, MS, Steam, etc.) will take a chunk of the profit. Even if you get it digitally from their store (with one notable exception for the non Steam PC version of FFXIV) you still redeem it on a marketplace who gets a cut.

FFXVI didn't flop.

It's more that it's not enough for a company that hasn't proven it can reliably release a hit to investors. It's not a good enough flagship game going up against their competition like Elden Ring, Tears of the Kingdom, Hogwarts Legacy, Baldur's Gate 3 etc.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/8/6/AACT2jAAE1sG.jpg

They have dropped below Konami since this chart I believe

Yeah Elden Ring sold 20 million copies and was made by a smaller studio with a smaller budget. It's like Hollywood films. You can get a huge money making indie movie at 100 million box office but that 100 million could be a massive flop for a big budget film from a major studio.

ssjevot posted...

Yeah Elden Ring sold 20 million copies and was made by a smaller studio with a smaller budget. It's like Hollywood films. You can get a huge money making indie movie at 100 million box office but that 100 million could be a massive flop for a big budget film from a major studio.

Perfect point here, but I think a lot of game devs in the AAA sphere are suffering from the old "too many cooks spoil the soup" saying.

See budgets and teams go up in size, and sales go down.

Big budget games can do very well. Like you can look at a publisher like PlayStation and their sales have increased significantly as a big budget prestige developer.

But for Final Fantasy specifically you have a series where the budget and development time is increasing but the sales are overall still the same as they were back in the 90s. It doesn't look great.

ViewtifulGrave posted...

3 million is a flop?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/7/6/AAU2gcAAE1r8.jpg

Kinda, yeah. Nier Automata hit that much casually.

In Japan it had worse sales in than XV, wasn't it? Like around half of it in first week.

Ricemills posted...

In Japan it had worse sales in than XV, wasn't it? Like around half of it in first week.

yep

Gritty posted...

Good

final fantasy sucks

worst ip of all time

Worse than Custers Revenge?

what the fuck are they doing over there?

I think the biggest mistake they have made so far is selling all those ips inclusing Tomb Raider for $300 million. Tomb Raider alone could have been a billion seller for them

Ricemills posted...

In Japan it had worse sales in than XV, wasn't it? Like around half of it in first week.

Not really a fair comparison. XV was multiplat and had insane hype around it.

Vyrulisse posted...

Not really a fair comparison. XV was multiplat and had insane hype around it.

Yeah I don't think many Xbox copies were sold in Japan. It's absolutely a fair business evaluation.

Slayer_22 posted...

Kinda, yeah. Nier Automata hit that much casually.

In no world is 3 mil a flop.

dave_is_slick posted...

In no world is 3 mil a flop.

Its a flop if you spent more making it than you made from selling it. That can certainly happen with 3 million sales. Whether it did in this case we dont know.

dave_is_slick posted...

In no world is 3 mil a flop.

It's a flop when compared to everything else lol

Vyrulisse posted...

Not really a fair comparison. XV was multiplat and had insane hype around it.

Both of those factors exist solely due to Square-Enix

I mean, it's objectively successful, it's just not successful enough to dig them out of a year worth of bad decisions and terrible high-budget games

granted, I don't think it's possible for anything to be that successful, at this point, but that's never stopped clickbait before