General Gaming Imran Khan: Square Enix "slightly panicking" over Final Fantasy XVI pre-orders, tracking below Final Fantasy XV

[Bacon]

6 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

I actually don't really like DQ since I find it to be way too intentionally generic with bad, simplistic combat, but that's besides the point!

Same. Never got the appeal. Also, Toriyama-style =

[Xbob42]

4 minutes ago, Bacon said:

I wish more devs would make old-school versions of IPs alongside the new ones. Worked for Zelda when OoT came out. I feel like Bravely Default was a success and that was basically FF all things considered. Never beat it cuz I got filtered by the repeating boss, but it was good until then. Loved how you could just turn off random encounters and then grind at a hot post at your leisure.

 

I remember grinding them turnip dudes for hours.

It's such a shame that so many dropped off during the repeating section, but that's also totally understandable, I nearly did as well. Big bet they took there, but I at least think it paid off super fucking well by the time credits roll. Wish they could've found a more engaging way to do it though. Game gets real damn good.

[stepee]

7 minutes ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

How To Squeenix in Four Easy Steps:

 

1. Make Final Fantasy action-based to appeal to non-FF fans.

2. Notice that non-FF fans still don't give a shit about FF.

3. Also notice that FF fans are now no longer FF fans.

4. Wonder why new FF doesn't sell as well.

 

Idk if this is right. FF15 might not be super popular on message boards but it looks like it’s the best selling Final Fantasy (and Square periord outside of when they owned tomb raider) game besides Final Fantasy 7. And FF14 is hugely successful. And FFR was a huge hit as well. Maybe this game bombs but I’m not seeing a pattern up until now.

 

Final Fantasy XV becomes Square's Fourth Best Selling Game | WePC

WWW.WEPC.COM

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Final Fantasy XV has gone against all the odds and became the fourth best-selling game in Square Enix's catalog, selling over 10 million copies since it

 

[Bacon]

Just now, stepee said:

 

Idk if this is right. FF15 might not be super popular on message boards but it looks like it’s the best selling Final Fantasy (and Square periord outside of when they owned tomb raider) game besides Final Fantasy 7. And FF15 is hugely successful. And FFR was a huge hit as well. Maybe this game bombs but I’m not seeing a pattern up until now.

But I wonder if the sales reflect how well-liked the game is by the majority. There have been games that sold really well only for them to not have been liked well enough so the sales didn't transfer over to the next game in the series. It's why I wonder if there are people who aren't getting 16 because of that.

[Xbob42]

8 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

Idk if this is right. FF15 might not be super popular on message boards but it looks like it’s the best selling Final Fantasy (and Square periord outside of when they owned tomb raider) game besides Final Fantasy 7. And FF14 is hugely successful. And FFR was a huge hit as well. Maybe this game bombs but I’m not seeing a pattern up until now.

15 is like 3-4 million behind 7 which came out when there was like 10% of the game playing population we currently have. I dunno, I feel like these numbers should be WAY up there. I feel like big games in general tend to sell far more than games did back in the day simply because of the exponential growth of the market. Taken in that context, FFXV selling "really well" isn't terribly surprising, but relative to how other game series growth has generally been uplifted over the years, it feels... not very impressive? Like what if it's only that successful, such as it were, because of the growth of the gaming population?

There's a lot of variables beyond the number of units sold, which is probably why Square seems to be worried about XVI. Like, FF7 made a lot of people fans of Final Fantasy... did XV do the same? I feel like it turned me off of the series because of how just unfun and half-baked it was. Seems like something that would require a lot of surveys and more in-depth data to comment on with more than surface level guesses.

 

Even things like the anticipation of how long these games take to come out now. Was a massive 7 years between 13 and 15 (14 "doesn't count" for many fans) and it's been another 7 since then.

Getting slightly off topic, but remember how Square was disappointed with Tomb Raider's numbers and kept blaming their western branches for their shortfalls? Tomb Raider sold 14.5 million fucking copies... I dunno what the current numbers are but that's over 1 million more than the latest data I could find for FF7, Square's best selling game. 

[Bacon]

Well, in good news, they finally sold out of CE pre-orders. The CE hadn't even sold out months after its announcement.

[Xbob42]

Just now, Bacon said:

Well, in good news, they finally sold out of CE pre-orders. The CE hadn't even sold out months after its announcement.

Damn. FF14 CEs sell out in like minutes, don't they? I remember my Endwalker CE was worth like a thousand bucks on ebay for quite a long time.

[stepee]

21 minutes ago, Bacon said:

But I wonder if the sales reflect how well-liked the game is by the majority. There have been games that sold really well only for them to not have been liked well enough so the sales didn't transfer over to the next game in the series. It's why I wonder if there are people who aren't getting 16 because of that.

 

Idk how ff16 will do but I just mean the biggest evidence that square has been out of touch with what people want is feels 

[Bacon]

2 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Damn. FF14 CEs sell out in like minutes, don't they? I remember my Endwalker CE was worth like a thousand bucks on ebay for quite a long time.

Yep. I'm sure it's been a bit since they have been sold out but I recall mentioning that it still wasn't sold a few months ago. But the point still stands. XVI's CE did not sell out when it was announced.

[Xbob42]

4 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

Idk how ff16 will do but I just mean the biggest evidence that square has been out of touch with what people want is feels 

Feels and slightly panicking over low pre-orders! And a decade of missteps they're only just recovering from... maybe! (Also we didn't even take into account FFXV's long ass development time and weird anime or movie tie-ins that I know weren't free to produce!)

[Xbob42]

Meanwhile Pokemon Scarlet and Violet over here looking like bootleg N64 Pokemon games still selling 22 million copies with their basic bitch turn-based combat that's barely evolved since the 90s. Wild world we live in!

[Bacon]

13 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Damn. FF14 CEs sell out in like minutes, don't they? I remember my Endwalker CE was worth like a thousand bucks on ebay for quite a long time.

After a quick google, it didn't sell out until April and you could pre-order it since 12.12.22

[Xbob42]

5 minutes ago, Bacon said:

After a quick google, it didn't sell out until April and you could pre-order it since 12.12.22

Daaaamn.

[Keyser_Soze]

43 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

 

Final Fantasy XV becomes Square's Fourth Best Selling Game | WePC

WWW.WEPC.COM

---

Final Fantasy XV has gone against all the odds and became the fourth best-selling game in Square Enix's catalog, selling over 10 million copies since it

 

 

Steam sales putting in work.

[Xbob42]

Man, I'd love to see a breakdown of popular games by not just total numbers, but how many were sold at X price. 40 million copies could suddenly be a lot less impressive for Just Cause 7 if there was a 95% off sale.

[Bacon]

The CE does fucking suck tho. Like, actual dog shit. Tho I guess EW's wasn't much better. It does have a plushy which is a huge selling point lol. Plus, the statue is of the Derplander and the iconic paladin ability.

 

You also get way better digital items considering it's an MMO.

[Xbob42]

As a lifelong simp of the Paladin aesthetic in games, especially MMOs, that was probably the first and only CE I'll buy in a long, long time. There's never any fucking Paladin stuff for the games I play!

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

8 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Man, I'd love to see a breakdown of popular games by not just total numbers, but how many were sold at X price. 40 million copies could suddenly be a lot less impressive for Just Cause 7 if there was a 95% off sale.

 

I just said the identical thing in the recent Witcher unit sales volume thread!

 

Give me unit sales volume by revenue per unit stratification, damnit!

[Bacon]

Also, do PS+ DLs count as part of the 10M? Gamepass too if it was on that.

[Keyser_Soze]

Putting things in perspective 10 million over 6 years. Ok.

Zelda selling 10 million over 3 days. Holy shit!

[Xbob42]

Just now, Keyser_Soze said:

Putting things in perspective 10 million over 6 years. Ok.

Zelda selling 10 million over 3 days. Holy shit!

Especially impressive since on the surface it's super similar to BotW! Crazy that it outsold the pre-BotW best-selling Zelda title's lifetime sales in just days.

[best3444]

I'm doing my part in buying 16. 

[Bacon]

The areas already seem way too big for a "non-open world" game. DA:I wasn't exactly open-world either but it basically was. As much as I would hate it, if XVI was marketed as open world it would probably do better pre-orders. I disliked DA:I's approach even more and XVI seems to be mimicking that which is really just about the worst choice that could be made.

[Xbob42]

Damn! Knew I forgot to bring up something! On the topic of FFXV the fact that they actually canceled the final DLCs that actually wrapped up the story and filled the last plot holes or, I guess more accurately, gaps in the player's knowledge was extremely damning. I can't imagine they canceled it because the game was such a huge hit. Even then, I still remember the cancelation announcement being pretty shocking. This wasn't some minor DLC for funsies, it was actually a pretty big deal! Or at least it should have been.

  

1 minute ago, Bacon said:

The areas already seem way too big for a "non-open world" game. DA:I wasn't exactly open-world either but it basically was. As much as I would hate it, if XVI was marketed as open world it would probably do better pre-orders. I disliked DA:I's approach even more and XVI seems to be mimicking that which is really just about the worst choice that could be made.

 

Yoshi-P said players hate empty open worlds, so that's why they're designing empty non-open worlds!

(Just bullshitting around as I have no idea how empty or open they are!)

[Bacon]

12 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

(Just bullshitting around as I have no idea how empty or open they are!)

There was a webm going around of Clive just running into the desert and there was nothing but the environment. It was a hard watch.

 

It's not exactly this part but it still seems kinda empty...

 

EDIT:

THIS is the meme'd on part exacty

 

[best3444]

FF16 will be phenomenal and sell great. You guys can go to sleep happy now. 

[Bacon]

I mean, it really isn't anything out of the ordinary. But as someone who has come to dislike large vast areas of nothing, it just makes me sad.

 

The same shit happened in FFXV too. I remember just running from the gas station into the "wild" and

[best3444]

3 minutes ago, Bacon said:

I mean, it really isn't anything out of the ordinary. But as someone who has come to dislike large vast areas of nothing, it just makes me sad.

 

The same shit happened in FFXV too. I remember just running from the gas station into the "wild" and

 

Play Zelda instead 

[Bacon]

2 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

Play Zelda instead 

 

5 minutes ago, Bacon said:

 

[Bacon]

COPE

 

Still excited for the story but lol

[Xbob42]

Almost everything on that list I would cite as a negative and a reason Square would be worried about the numbers, lol.

[thedarkstark]

Haters:

 

 

Seriously if you think it's going to suck so much why are you wasting your time talking about a bad game? If it sucks everyone will find out in like 2 weeks, and nobody is going to give you a cookie for "calling it." Like it's actually kind of getting a bit sad. 

[Keyser_Soze]

I like to go by the Jeff Grubb metric of success. Luigi's Mansion 3 sold 13 million copies. If you game makes that number it's a successful game. 

[Bacon]

31 minutes ago, thedarkstark said:

Haters:

 

 

Seriously if you think it's going to suck so much why are you wasting your time talking about a bad game? If it sucks everyone will find out in like 2 weeks, and nobody is going to give you a cookie for "calling it." Like it's actually kind of getting a bit sad. 

No one is saying the game is going to suck. At least not yet. This is a thread about SE being worried about low pre-orders and that is what most of the discussion is about. Most of what is being talked about are the possible reasons why FF16 isn't pre-ordering well. I mean, I'm shitting on the more open-world aspects but I've been doing that from the start. I'm still excited because of the team behind it. Pre-orders mean nothing other than the publisher's failure to sell a product before release. Just because they aren't doing a good job of that doesn't mean anything about the quality of the game. Right now, Yoshi-P and the team do seem to have some level of confidence about the game's quality, but whether or not that is real confidence or a front is something I'll find out for myself. I did say that they seem desperate to sell the game, but that was due to the genre change rather than anything else. I've had the game has been pre-ordered for a while, since like march or april, and I am looking forward to getting my hands on it.

 

If there is a hater it is @Keyser_Soze , and most of the "hate" that I think you perceive from the rest of us is actually towards SE rather than the game because SE does dumb shit.

 

Also, I've said this quite a few times, the more negative I am now, the better. It means I'll be less negative when the game comes out. When the changes to WAR were coming out for Endwalker I was pretty negative about it elsewhere, but when I got my hands on it enjoyed most of the new additions. While not pre-release, I was negative towards DOOM Eternal at the start and then it became my GOTY and I view it as basically perfect for what it is trying to be. Furthermore, I'm wont to shit on the things I like. I kinda hate bringing it up all the time, but ELEX might be one of my favorite games and I only rated it a 5/10!

 

I did hate on the FF16 CE and DQ's main artist tho.

[Biggie]

1 hour ago, Bacon said:

No one is saying the game is going to suck. 

I am