Three ‘Final Fantasy’ games have earned less than Square Enix expected
Three Final Fantasy Games Under Perform Financially
Bloomberg reported in a financial call that company president Takashi Kiryu recently stated that ‘Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’, ‘Final Fantasy 16’, and ‘Foamstars’ have all come up short of what was expected of them in terms of expected sales which has led to a setback in terms of the business’s overall income.
The developer has revealed that after ‘Final Fantasy 16’ had three million launch sales when it was released in June 2023. Although subsequent numbers have not been revealed, Bloomberg has stated that the sales have slowed down since the launch.
‘Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’ had experienced an even worse setback as it failed to even meet the initial sales figures that the company expected of it. The official numbers for the game have so far not been disclosed.
It is also a similar situation for ‘Foamstars’ which has also not had its sales numbers announced by the company. However, Bloomberg revealed that the business confirmed it had not met its expected figures.
However, Square Enix has stated that it is confident ‘Final Fantasy 16’ can reach its target over the course of 18 months as Bloomberg also revealed that the company said the sales of the other two games “aren’t necessarily bad”.
Bloomberg reporter Takashi Mochizuki posted on X:
"Square Enix said:
-FF16 sales fell short of expectations. Initial momentum was in line with expectations, but the games failed to reach FY goal as its momentum slowed. No updates from sales number last announced at 3 million
-FF7 Rebirth sales fell short of expectations. Initial momentum didn't reach an internal target. No sales number to share
-Foamstars fell short of expectations. Initial momentum didn't reach an internal target. No sales number to share
-Remains confident FF16 can achieve its goal over the original 18-month sales plan. Also, sales of Rebirth and Foamstars aren't necessarily bad.
-Reorganized development team into five console teams, one smartphone game team
-Has been relied too much on an individual's creativity. Will promote sharing game making how-how among teams and will seek best balance of individual creativity and organizational discipline
-DQ12 remains under development.
Investors react:
-sell shares heavily, stocks fell to the day's trading limit
-concerns are pipelines have become too empty, no big titles that can lift up the company's top line over the next couple of years”
In order to remedy this lack of recent success, the company have stated that 'Final Fantasy 16' and 'Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth' will now be available on "Nintendo platforms, PlayStation, Xbox, and PCs" after the two titles were initially released as exclusive to PlayStation 5.