According to the analyst, the sales of Final Fantasy 16 do not match the expectations of Square Enix
Final Fantasy 16 entered the market just a few weeks ago, but sales indicators of the latest game continue to cause disagreement. 3 million copies were sold in the first week, which is an impressive indicator for the PS5 user base.
However, many fans claim that such a large -scale franchise as Final Fantasy should demonstrate higher results, and this could have happened if Square Enix released the game on other platforms such as PC and Xbox.
Although Square Enix, apparently, is satisfied with the sales of the game, the new report states that the game giant hoped for the higher results of the Final Fantasy 16.
Why this is important: the creation of games is becoming more and more expensive, which leads to an increase in risks for each new AAA project. This leads to the fact that large releases are under high pressure.
Square ENIX – there are several points: 1) FF16 dispersed 3 million. copies, but the company hoped for more than 2) the company completely wrote off the cost of the FF16 in the 1st quarter, so future sales are continuous profit 3) the company wrote down/spent the means for the games that were in development because it was reoriented on AAA.
The message came from David Gibson, senior analyst MST Financial. He is known for his reports on various issues of the gaming industry, and his last report concerns the popular JRPG franchise.
According to the report, Square Enix already expected that sales of the game would be about 3 million. copies. These are quite realistic expectations, given that the PS5 recently overcame the mark of 40 million. sales. Thus, almost 8% of console users have already purchased a game at the start of sales. However, Square Enix counted on higher indicators to ensure the profit of an expensive aaa project.
Although the game giant did not comment on this message, the previous data show that it does not look completely far -fetched. Recently, Square Enix has faced serious problems: in this quarter, operating profit fell by almost 80%.
After the launch of the Final Fantasy 16, a sharp decrease in retail sales in the Japanese market was also observed. On the other hand, Square Enix has previously publicly commented on sales, claiming that so far they have been extremely high.
Nevertheless, David Gibson claims that future sales will go to increase the profit of Final Fantasy 16, since Square Enix has already paid off the budget due to the first sales. This allows us to talk about the high potential of the upcoming release for PC.
The game is already in development for this platform and, most likely, will appear in 2024.