In the last two years, fans of Final Fantasy enjoyed two big game releases.
According to IGN, Square Enix revealed that Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth didn’t sell as well as they hoped. This was disclosed during a financial meeting in May, but the news was shared with the public just today. The company didn’t share exact sales numbers or how much they missed their targets by.
Takashi Kiryu, the president of Square Enix, hinted that the disappointing sales might be due to “cannibalization between our own titles.” Final Fantasy 16 came out in June 2023, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was released eight months later in February 2024. Both games were launched within the same fiscal year, which ended in March 2024.
Another issue might be that both games were only available on PlayStation 5. Final Fantasy 16 just became available on PC this week, but Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is still a PlayStation exclusive.
People are wondering what went wrong because fans and critics seemed to like both games. Without the sales figures, it’s tough to say how big the problem really is. Kiryu mentioned that they will be “curating our pipeline over the next three years” to stop this from happening again. He also said they would keep working to make Square Enix more profitable.
Sometimes, we just don’t know why things don’t go as planned.
It’s clear there’s no simple fix here, especially since the games got good reviews. The company will need to figure out their next steps carefully.
