Final Fantasy XVI Failed to Meet Square Enix’s Expectations After All

A few weeks after Square Enix said that sales for Final Fantasy XVI were ‘extremely strong‘, the publisher has now backtracked that statement and said its latest action-RPG failed to meet its expectations after all. The game managed to sell an impressive 3 million copies in just one week despite only being available on PS5 but even that wasn’t enough for Square Enix.

According to Bloomberg sources, Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu reportedly stated in a post-earnings call that Final Fantasy XVI‘s initial sales “did not meet the high end of the company’s expectations.” Bloomberg also noted that he allegedly blamed the “slow adoption of the PS5” as the reason for its poor sales performance. It’s an odd statement to make considering that the PS5 is outselling the Xbox Series X/S in addition to only being slightly behind the adoption rate of the PS4 in the same time frame.

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Final Fantasy XVI also currently holds the record for the fastest-selling PS5 exclusive, though that will likely be toppled by Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 later this year. It’s unclear what Square Enix’s sales expectations were, especially since the game was only limited to PS5 players on release.

For comparison, Final Fantasy XV launched in 2016 on PS4 and Xbox One and sold 5 million copies in one week, which was only possible because it was a multi-platform release. To add a bit more fuel to the fire, Final Fantasy VII Remake sold 3.5 million copies in 10 days when it launched back in 2020 (exclusively for PS4 at the time) when the PS4’s install base was over 106 million.

During the earnings call, Square Enix also noted that revenue had increased around 14% year-on-year but profits had dropped around 65%.

That said, Square Enix being disappointed with sales has become something of a meme in the gaming community. Players jokingly questioned if the publisher wanted to sell 7.8 billion copies – the Earth’s population – and even then, the company might still be disappointed that aliens didn’t buy the games too. Either way, Final Fantasy XVI‘s sales are impressive and most fans seem to think so.

Final Fantasy XVI is currently available for PS5.

Source: Bloomberg

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Editor-in-Chief of Nexus Hub, writer at GLITCHED. Former writer at The Gaming Report and All Otaku Online. RPG addict that has wonderful nightmares of Bloodborne 2.

2 Comments

  • Reply
    Azura 8 August 2023

    Considering SquareEnix’s carelessness in transforming a saga of games from Jrpg to Action game, I’m not surprised by the failure of Final Fantasy 16

    A suitable sales failure for a game that is not only a bad action game, flat, empty, repetitive and without any challenge, but also fails to be a Final Fantasy, since it has no RPG component, and instead becomes boast of copying action games like DMC and God of War, failing miserably.

    Conclusions: FF16 is another bad game that shouldn’t have been made.
    And that only clarifies how SquareEnix no longer cares what a Final Fantasy is, as it thinks that by sticking the name everywhere it thinks it will be successful, but people and fans are smarter than SquareEnix. And if he doesn’t go back to making JRPG games then he won’t go back to seeing oldies either

  • Reply
    Azura 8 August 2023

    Since SquareEnix is carelessness in transforming a saga of games from Jrpg to Action game, I’m not surprised by the failure of Final Fantasy 16

    A suitable sales failure for a game that is not only a bad action game, flat, empty, repetitive and without any challenge, but also fails to be a Final Fantasy, since it has no RPG component, and instead becomes boast of copying action games like DMC and God of War, failing miserably.

    Conclusions: FF16 is another bad game that shouldn’t have been made.
    And that only clarifies how SquareEnix no longer cares what a Final Fantasy is, as it thinks that by sticking the name everywhere it thinks it will be successful, but people and fans are smarter than SquareEnix. And if he doesn’t go back to making JRPG games then he won’t go back to seeing oldies either

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