I didn’t anticipate Closing Fantasy XVI to be one of many 12 months’s greatest lightning rods for gaming controversy however right here we’re. The Sq. Enix action-RPG hasn’t even been out a full month, and followers are already dropping it over how properly the sport could have offered. It’s already crossed 3 million copies shipped worldwide (good!) however offered much less properly in Japan and has already fallen off a cliff in its second week (unhealthy!). Now gamers are parsing PlayStation 5 set up bases and firing again at company analysts to defend the dignity and hype of one of the beloved gaming franchises ever.
Right here is a few vital context. Closing Fantasy XVI is the primary new entry within the collection in seven years and comes as some longtime followers are determined for an enormous “W.” After a decade plus of middling sequels that by no means fairly rose to the narrative and cultural affect of the height SNES and PlayStation years, they need one thing of a comeback exterior of remakes (Closing Fantasy VII) and MMOs (Closing Fantasy XIV). On the identical time, Closing Fantasy XVI eschews among the extra standard trappings individuals affiliate with the franchise like turn-based battles and convoluted improve programs. On prime of that, grim fantasy hit Recreation of Thrones is among the inspirations, and you’ll really feel that continuously all through the 45-hour recreation.
This primordial soup of gamer emotions has made a lot of the discourse across the recreation utterly unhinged. Is Closing Fantasy XVI good or unhealthy? Is it actually a Closing Fantasy recreation? What even is a Closing Fantasy recreation? Any criticism—like across the recreation world’s erasure of individuals of colour or its underwritten feminine characters—has been handled by among the most fanatical devotees, in basic Closing Fantasy villain style, like an assault on god itself. And now followers are riled up concerning the greatest gamer debate of all of them: how properly is the sport promoting?
Prepare for some math. Sq. revealed on June 28 that the sport shipped 3 million copies in its first week. That doesn’t absolutely equate to precise gross sales, nevertheless it was a robust quantity nonetheless for a third-party PS5 unique. Nonetheless, there have been troubling indicators. The sport debuted at primary within the UK, however bodily gross sales dropped by 78 % the next week. Information out of Japan advised the same story. Famitsu reported 336,027 bodily copies offered within the recreation’s first week, and solely 37,763 the second, an 88 % drop.
However the worst information gave the impression to be within the comparisons to earlier Closing Fantasy video games in Japan. Although each video games confronted comparable second week drop-offs, Closing Fantasy XV offered 716,649 bodily copies to begin in 2016 and Closing Fantasy VII Remake offered 702,853 bodily copies firstly in 2020. Closing Fantasy XV additionally shipped 5 million copies globally its first day, in comparison with 3 million for the most recent recreation. This culminated in a Bloomberg Japan report on July 6 calling out the obvious gaps. It even included a damning quote from Toyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda calling it a “robust consequence,” blaming it partially on pre-release advertising that made the sport seem to be one thing indifferent from the collection’ historical past.
Final Fantasy XVI defenders, nonetheless, are fast to level out mitigating factors. The PS4 set up base was over 50 million items on the time of Closing Fantasy XV’s launch, whereas the PS5 had offered solely 40 million items as of April. The Japan gross sales knowledge additionally doesn’t observe digital copies, which now make up a majority of most recreation gross sales. Within the UK, the launch cut up for Closing Fantasy XVI was 56 % digital to 44 % bodily, pointing to many hidden gross sales that simply aren’t captured within the present bodily knowledge. Closing Fantasy XV additionally launched on Xbox as properly, whereas Closing Fantasy XVI is PS5 solely (although in hardly any Xboxes offered in Japan, making that roughly irrelevant for the info there).
Even when Closing Fantasy XVI’s numbers are robust total, they aren’t fairly blowing anybody away. As a substitute, they’re including gasoline again onto the ever-burning fireplace over Closing Fantasy’s core id and continued existence, particularly round attempting to cater to a broader viewers versus doubling down on RPG nerds. “Some say FF16‘s weak gross sales are as a consequence of components out of Sq. Enix’s management,” tweeted Bloomberg reporter Takashi Mochizuki. “No, it wasn’t. It was Sq. Enix that determined to launch the sport on PS5 solely, on June 22, at $69.99. Nobody else’s.”
RPG Web site proprietor Alex Donaldson was extra cautious. “Primarily based on the everyday digital share of titles in Japan this era that we /do/ learn about, until FF16 has unusually massive digital numbers, it’ll nonetheless be about 20% behind 15,” he tweeted. “And that’s not the tip of the world, innit—however is attention-grabbing to have a look at to think about the long run.”
All the angst across the recreation’s gross sales started even earlier than it was launched, with a report that Sq. Enix was apprehensive about unhealthy pre-order numbers and producer Naoki Yoshida touting an “18-month plan” to extend the sport’s gross sales utilizing neighborhood engagement and word-of-mouth. The sport finally coming to PC, and probably Xbox Sequence X/S, would seemingly be one other a part of that post-launch development technique. All of which is why Yoshida reportedly wasn’t that involved about gross sales in the course of the recreation’s first week. Even when tremendous followers are. True to kind, they wish to see quantity go up—or work out excuses for why it’s not.
We’ll get a greater thought of how the sport’s truly promoting as extra gross sales knowledge is launched within the coming months. Till then, followers can chill and simply take pleasure in the truth that the sport itself, for all its issues, shortcomings, and divisive departures, continues to be fairly superb.