Board 8 > Rumorzone: FF7 Rebirth selling half as well as Remake

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1778751429919854691
https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1778776766913401160

Looks like a combination of PS5 exclusive + direct story sequel + not everyone satisfied with Remake + coming out around other big JRPGs.

It being on PS5 is why I didn't play it

I know a looooot of people who are just waiting for the PC release.

Im waiting for the PC version.

Also, Rebirth came out soon after the pandemic began. It wasn't Animal Crossing: New Horizons-caliber timing, but it was just two or three weeks later. That should probably be considered here -- Rebirth came out at a uniquely good time for game sales.

Also waiting on the PC version, which thankfully should come out way faster than the first one did. (And with less double/triple exclusivity bullshit to boot!)

Single platform ATM

No pandemic boost

Relesed during an RPG flood rather than an RPG doubt

No Erica Lindbeck

Creepy Moogles

All of these are equally contributing factors.

It's the same reason X-2 and 13-2 had terrible sales compared to their predecessor. Direct sequel where you have to play the first first = poor sales for an FF game.

MikeTavish posted...

I know a looooot of people who are just waiting for the PC release.

The PC version of Remake had pretty pathetic sales. Can't be that many. Besides, this is comparing PS4-only sales to PS5-only sales, since it's launch window for both.

PS4 surely had a bigger install base at the time though, wouldn't it?

KamikazePotato posted...

+ not everyone satisfied with Remake

you dont say

I'd like to know how Rebirth sales are comparing to FF16 sales tbh. Probably still lower cuz sequel factor, but still.

Last I saw Rebirth was at about 2/3 of what 16 did in the same time frame.

TOO MANY MINIGAMES

frown

This isnt even a rumourzone, you can work it out through sales stats compared to Dragons Dogma 2. Looks like sales are in the ~2.5 million area.

There are a lot of contributing factors to this. First of all the exclusivity deal was a huge mistake. This should have been on everything and day and date on PC. Even Xbox would have helped, as much as people go but these games only sell a small fraction on Xbox, FFXV sold about 20% of its copies on Xbox and it would definitely be nice to have that extra. These last few games also are the first major Final Fantasies to not release on the leading system at the time (when XIII Wii sold more than PS3 and 360 total but fewer after XIIIs release). In Japan software sales are higher on PC than PS5 and even the install base seems to be catching up. Playstation is a smaller fraction of the market than its almost ever been, you cant support a huge release exclusively on there.

Also to that point, Remake was Epic Game Store exclusive which probably significantly affected its PC sales. Its silly but put it on Steam.

Thats not all though, there are games that have sold better only on PS5. I do think the ties to VII make it a more limited appeal as its not bringing in as many new players as an original title, you can also see this reflected in Remake being down from XV.

Most importantly though the Final Fantasy brand is just in a dire place. XVIs sales werent great either though they were better than this. It has been a long decline really going back over a decade (XV was a spike upwards thanks to PC+Xbox but not in Japan) and in that time it was just poorly received game after poorly received game. Now theyre releasing good games again but not enough people are playing them. What can I say, the series never recovered from XIII!

Its a shame because I would really love a similar project for VI over two games but I dont think that is going to happen now.

X-2 probably really started the downward trend. XI was a disaster at launch if I recall, XII was a mixed bag along with the XIII trilogy and even XV seemed to be fairly disliked from what Ive seen online at least.

FF also has like 0 market penetration among younger audiences I've noticed. It's unfortunately become a boomer series.

XVI is a better comparison than Remake (Covid + different install bases distort comparisons between 2020 PS4 with 2024 PS5 releases), not that that's good either. I really don't think splitting a single game up into multiple releases is a great idea in general - who wants to spend $80 to play the middle of a story? I mean, I'm happy they've done it as a big FFVII fan, but I would never have thought it was great business sense.

Worth noting the Japanese market for these games has fallen off a cliff even since XV (Rebirth and XVI are the highest/fastest selling PS5 games but in the low 100ks, whereas XV was over 1M, and obviously X, XIII etc. were in that ballpark). I have to imagine they will try releasing it on the Switch 2 and PC to try to rebuild the home audience. The game's the best (non-MMO) thing they've done for the franchise in the west in well over 20 years, but they need it on PC ASAP.

That said, Spider-Man 2 has blown past 10M as a PS5 exclusive, so the right single player game can still go very big as a console exclusive. God of War Ragnarok did similar/greater numbers (albeit across PS4/PS5). FF just ain't in that league any longer.

The historical comparison is pretty ugly when you factor in the amount of growth that has happened in gaming since. Software sales are much higher than they used to be but FF has actually declined and quite heavily at that. When VII was new it was the second highest selling game on the Playstation at ten million copies, only narrowly behind Gran Turismo. Third of the whole generation behind that and Super Mario 64. Now we have Rebirth looking like its going to have to crawl past the original SNES release of VI which didnt even have a proper worldwide release. All when some franchises are selling 3x what they used to.

KamikazePotato posted...

FF also has like 0 market penetration among younger audiences I've noticed. It's unfortunately become a boomer series.

More or less this. Final Fantasy doesn't really have any newer fans compared to previously listed games. Most people who are playing it now are the same people who played it on PS1.

KamikazePotato posted...

FF also has like 0 market penetration among younger audiences I've noticed. It's unfortunately become a boomer series.

Yeah, when I talk to college-age kids about FF, they're like "WTF? There were RPGs before Skyrim?"

Younger audiences are also predominantly on PC and Switch (and mobile of course). Playstation and Xbox have had very little success with the younger generations recently. Which I think is largely down to both pricing those things too high and basically abandoning family friendly games.

To which point Disney absolutely made the right decision by mandating that Kingdom Hearts III be on Xbox. It actually did really well there!

The action rpg thing has run its course.

pjbasis posted...

The action rpg thing has run its course.

Uh oh someone go tell FROM

those are survival horror games actually

Morrowind came out and was the warning sign Final Fantasy needed to figure things out fast or be left in the dust.

Then Oblivion happened years before Final Fantasy figured anything out.

Then Skyrim happened and Final Fantasy still hadn't figured anything out.

XIV-excluded, of course.

XIV also still has the younger crowd, too.

Really the whole franchise is only still relevant because of XIV lol.

Dawntrail is probably going to have a bunch of IX shit in it, and more people under the age of 30 will have their primary IX exposure from there than actual FFIX.

this is probably true Id reckon

not that I would know but imagine if I did - I would thus say yeah this is probable

I wonder how much the reception to 16 is hurting Rebirth sales? The playerbase in general didn't seem to care for 16 at all.

LightningStrikes posted...

In Japan software sales are higher on PC than PS5 and even the install base seems to be catching up.

This is not true for multiplatform releases and never has been. More people in general are playing PC games (since it's a broader audience, with people playing casual games and such), but AAA games like Elden Ring sell way more on PS5 than PC in Japan.

I think it is just the PS5 base and the fact that some people still think its hard to get

XVI was the fastest selling PS5 game at the time of its release and it is considered underwhelming

Spider-Man 2 sold over 10 million and it is just about breaking even

might just be to tough to go with exclusivity unless Sony is paying well to keep it that way

It's not one thing. I think those in here who have mentioned several factors are likely on the ball here, right? It's several things. It's exclusivity, sure. Particularly in Japan, you don't not put these games on Switch and/or PC these days, you just don't do that. Rebirth's sales are terrible over there, but they're also some of the very best that any PS5 game has delivered.

There's so much else that others in this topic have hit upon, though. Kind of a perfect storm. Frankly, this number could have been worse!

You cant make games like this for Switch without making significant downgrades to make it work either though. Switch is like 8 years old now and something that looks as good as Rebirth wouldve needed massive cuts and basically a brand new version to even be playable on the device. Probably wouldve cost a lot of money to make it work.

swordz9 posted...

You cant make games like this for Switch without making significant downgrades to make it work either though. Switch is like 8 years old now and something that looks as good as Rebirth wouldve needed massive cuts and basically a brand new version to even be playable on the device. Probably wouldve cost a lot of money to make it work.

You're not wrong, of course. This is, nevertheless, going to hit you hard when your game isn't on there or PC in Japan in 2024.

I'm going to predict that even the Switch 2 wouldn't be able to play Rebirth without needing an entirely new version of the game. Minimal internal settings in Rebirth will probably be too much for it.

Yeah, maybe once Switch successor is out things will see some ports. Right now the Switch is just so outdated the sacrifices and time/money needed to make them work aint really worth it

A lot of people are probably waiting for the triple pack. Also does this include the twin pack sales? Because those two were counted separately as far as I'm aware.

LiquidOshawott posted...

I think it is just the PS5 base and the fact that some people still think its hard to get

XVI was the fastest selling PS5 game at the time of its release and it is considered underwhelming

Spider-Man 2 sold over 10 million and it is just about breaking even

1. The PS5 base is similar to the PS4 base at the point in its life cycle.
2. XVI and XV came out around the same points in the PS4/PS5 life cycle and XV sold way more on PS4 only. XVI's just a less popular game.
3. SM2 broke even when it was around 7 million.

I don't really think exclusivity or install base are the factors here. God of War Ragnarok came out for PS4/PS5 half a year before FFXVI came out and still sold 85% of its copies on PS5.
Ifrit posted...

A lot of people are probably waiting for the triple pack. Also does this include the twin pack sales? Because those two were counted separately as far as I'm aware.

Twin pack sales are counted separately.

Tbh, a lot of people who bought the first one were legitimately expecting an actual remake of a game they loved as a child. Like the folks who aren't as plugged in as us, and bought a console just for it.

I imagine a lot of them came away being pretty disappointed that it was such a small part of the overall story and it actually wasn't a remake, and they weren't willing to buy the next one as a result.

Honestly FF7 Remake has been everything I've wanted from it. I still haven't finished Rebirth, but I have had 0 disappointments so far.

Ifrit posted...

Honestly FF7 Remake has been everything I've wanted from it. I still haven't finished Rebirth, but I have had 0 disappointments so far.

The outlet that I reviewed Rebirth on doesnt assign scores. But its a strong 9 from me. Terrific game.

MacArrowny posted...

Twin pack sales are counted separately.

What, really? The twin pack cost the same on PSN at launch. I got it just to free Intergrade from PS+ dependency.

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Morrowind came out and was the warning sign Final Fantasy needed to figure things out fast or be left in the dust.

Then Oblivion happened years before Final Fantasy figured anything out.

Then Skyrim happened and Final Fantasy still hadn't figured anything out.

XIV-excluded, of course.

I mean I like Elder Scrolls but Im pretty sure Bethseda doesnt have a monopoly on good RPG ideas.

I legitimately cannot understand the "we just want a faithful remake that's the whole game at once" crowd

It'd be one thing if it was three 20 hour games that they made you pay $70 each for, but you're really getting three extremely high quality complete experiences.

Anyway, everyone who hasn't bought this should definitely buy it if they have a PS5 because it's honestly the best gaming experience I've had in a long while.

I'll be the counter option and say it was "fine" and if you can wait to grab it on sale I think you'll be happier overall.

UltimaterializerX posted...

We just wanted 7 with better graphics and QOL upgrades, like the pixel remasters of 1-6. Thats it.

Speak for yourself

colliding posted...

I legitimately cannot understand the "we just want a faithful remake that's the whole game at once" crowd

It'd be one thing if it was three 20 hour games that they made you pay $70 each for, but you're really getting three extremely high quality complete experiences.

Anyway, everyone who hasn't bought this should definitely buy it if they have a PS5 because it's honestly the best gaming experience I've had in a long while.

Seriously, have the people who say this even looked at the estimated length of Remake and Rebirth? Especially compared to the original FFVII?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/1f45a22f.jpg

Unless they severely cut-down on Part 3's content, the completely package is gonna be very lengthy.

Anecdotally, a lot of people have commented on my FF7 Rebirth press event hoodie in public (neat) but at least a third have told me they are waiting for all three games to be out before they start, ha.

Not saying it's an issue I have (though I do take issue with the reason Rebirth is long), but being long isn't always a good thing. Most RPGs should be shorter than they are.

I do miss the days when a long RPG was 40 hours

But Remake and Rebirth are still great