Famitsu Sales: Week 10, [3/4-3/10]. Unicorn Overlord #1 with 3 skus in top 10. Rebirth #2

[Evilnemesis8]

They also didnt do a bundle, which i found extremely odd. A bundle could at least guarantee like 50k sales.

Very unlikely to push those numbers.

FFXVI Rebirth PS5 hardware Sales(Bundle/SE Edition)
Launch Week: 85.385
Previous Week: 51.251

That bump would be even smaller with Rebirth.

 

[Yurinka]

I simply cannot understand how people are not buying Rebirth.

People are buying it, we saw it in the top positions of many countries.

 

[Dabaus]

Really good post from a Resetera user:

"I don't really think Rebirth underperforming XVI is surprising. XVI was selling to a market of everyone who has a PS5, Rebirth is selling to everyone who has a PS5 AND who has played Remake. No amount of word of mouth was going to get significant numbers of people to play Rebirth without having played part one, or to sit down and play 40 hours of Remake that they've been happy to ignore the past four years to get to part two. Rebirth beating XVI would've required a significant number of PS5-owning Remake fans who refused to buy XVI, and XVI selling to essentially no one who had previously been uninterested in 7.

US sales are the big open question. I think it's pretty clear they weren't enough to beat XVI to 3 million globally, or else there would've been an announcement, and they haven't been enough to get to 4 million total yet, or there would've been an announcement. But that still leaves room for it to have slightly beat XVI in the US, or to be down by much smaller margins than in Japan which would make the games much closer to equal globally. In that case, two games doing in the same franchise doing roughly similar less than a year apart, this is all really nothing except another story about non-Nintendo, non-mobile games shrinking in Japan. If the US is down by similar numbers to Japan, then that's bad, and I think evidence both that the franchise is weaker than people thought, and that maybe XVI actually did more to sell outside their base then it's gotten credit for thus far."

Famitsu sales (3/4/24 – 3/10/24) Sales

I don’t really think Rebirth underperforming XVI is surprising. XVI was selling to a market of everyone who has a PS5, Rebirth is selling to everyone who has a PS5 AND who has played Remake. No amount of word of mouth was going to get significant numbers of people to play Rebirth without having...

www.resetera.com

 

[ethomaz]

+---------------------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------+
|     Physical Sales        | Release Date |   1st Week   |   2nd Week   |    %    |
+---------------------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------+
| Final Fantasy XIII        |    12/17/09  |    1.501.964 |      188.511 |    -87% |
| Final Fantasy XV          |    11/29/16  |      690.471 |       79.792 |    -88% |
| Final Fantasy XVI         |    06/22/23  |      336.027 |       37.763 |    -89% |
| Final Fantasy VII Remake  |    04/10/20  |      702.853 |       70.652 |    -90% |
| Final Fantasy VII Rebirth |    02/29/24  |      262.656 |       24.482 |    -91% |
+---------------------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------+

FF XIII & XV (MediaCreate numbers)
FF XVI, FF VII Remake & Rebirth (Famitsu numbers)

The narrative that there is no decline in the franchise like some strong defensed in last thread was true /s

BTW Square Enix PR not come out yet...

 

[Jim Ryan]

Actually a decent split from the PlayStation perspective.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Really good post from a Resetera user:

Which is why I'm more and more thinking that the trilogy concept might've been a tad too much, but they're locked in now.
Anyway, they should be aggressive with discounts on PS/PC for FF7R Part 1 moving forward to boost up the sales and convert more people to Part 2 and help boost up the sales of Part 3 further down the line.

 

[Evilms]

The narrative that there is no decline in the franchise like some strong defensed in last thread was true /s

BTW Square Enix PR not come out yet...

The problem in Japan is that they only buy Nintendo now and it has to be on a portable console otherwise it doesn't sell very well, you only have to look at the top 25 games of all time to realise that this is an audience that's turned more towards portable consoles.

Top 25 Japan All Time

1.[NSW] Animal Crossing: New Horizons - 11.20m
2.[GB] Pokémon Red/Green - 8.22m
3.[NSW] Pokemon Scarlet/Violet - 8.04m
4.[NSW] Mario Kart 8 Dekuxe 7.95m
5.[NSW] Super Smash Bros Ultimate - 7.48m
6.[GB] Pokémon Gold/Silver 7.17m
7.[NSW] Splatoon 3 - 6.99m
8.[NES] Super Mario Bros. - 6.81m
9.[NDS] New Super Mario Bros. - 6.49m
10.[NSW] Pokémon Sword/Shield - 6.00m
11.[3DS] Animal Crossing: New Leaf - 5.95
12.[NDS] Pokémon Diamond/Pearl - 5.85m
13.[NDS] Pokémon Black/White - 5.54m
14.[GBA] Pokémon Ruby/Saphire - 5.40m
15.[NDS] Animal Crossing: Wild World - 5.35m
16.[PSP] Monster Hunter Freedom 3 - 5.30m
17.[NSW] Splatoon 2 - 5.26m
18.[NDS] Brain Age 2 - 5.10m
19.[NSW] Minecraft - 4.70m
20.[Wii] New Super Mario Bros. Wii - 4.67m
21.[NSW] Monster Hunter Rise 4.60m
22.[3DS] Pokémon X/Y - 4.56m
23.[NDS] Dragon Quest IX - 4.40m
24.[PSP] Monster Hunter Freedom Unite - 4.25m
25.[GB] Tetris - 4.24m


Only 2 games on home console. Japan it has become a very special market.

And it's not just FF, even other games from third-party publishers (whether Square, Capcom, Namco ...) are doing their big sales in the West now.

 

[Dabaus]

It seems there is a certain segment that want a narrative out there that this game failed or something.

 

[Evilms]

 

[arvfab]

If the PS Portal supply situation were a lot better in the region, though, I think that'd probably help with sales of big games like Rebirth, since you can now take your gaming session with you on the go. Sneak in a half-hour here and there during breaks, while in commute, etc.

Thid would enforce the fact, that in Japan maybe the digital split is higher and we won't see it in these charts.

 

[Umar]

 

[Cool hand luke]

Porting rebirth to other platforms would either not be possible or not help its performance in Japan - it's the sad reality of the market.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Porting rebirth to other platforms would either not be possible or not help its performance in Japan - it's the sad reality of the market.

Tht definitely would be a waste of obviously it's anything other than Switch which I'm sure wouldn't even be possible lol

 

[Dabaus]

+---------------------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------+
|     Physical Sales        | Release Date |   1st Week   |   2nd Week   |    %    |
+---------------------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------+
| Final Fantasy XIII        |    12/17/09  |    1.501.964 |      188.511 |    -87% |
| Final Fantasy XV          |    11/29/16  |      690.471 |       79.792 |    -88% |
| Final Fantasy XVI         |    06/22/23  |      336.027 |       37.763 |    -89% |
| Final Fantasy VII Remake  |    04/10/20  |      702.853 |       70.652 |    -90% |
| Final Fantasy VII Rebirth |    02/29/24  |      262.656 |       24.482 |    -91% |
+---------------------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------+

FF XIII & XV (MediaCreate numbers)
FF XVI, FF VII Remake & Rebirth (Famitsu numbers)

Seeing those ff13 sales make me nostalgic for it. I didnt care for it when it came out, in fact i hated it, but i feel like a remaster with a few intermissions explaining the story and lingo could go along way in making people give it a second chance.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Thid would enforce the fact, that in Japan maybe the digital split is higher and we won't see it in these charts.

Maybe. I just think if PS Portal were more readily available and maybe if the price for it and/or PS5 were more affordable in that market, you'd get an uptick in sales for games like Rebirth be it physical or digital.

Because with the Portal, people would be less restricted to gaming sessions in their home or apartment, when they probably spend very little time at home due to school and/or work. Plus from what little I know, work-from-home has largely ended in Japan a long while ago.

That has been a recurring problem for a long time now, with the form factor also being an issue.
But I feel like this is the generation where it all adds up, Switch success, higher console prices, throw in the PC Growth post-COVID and it's a potent mix.



I feel like even a higher F2P ratio as well would struggle to explain the abysmal software attach rate.
I also don't think PS+ has a much bigger adoption rate in Japan, in fact I would think it would be the opposite based on spending habits in other subscription services. Obviously we can't know(unless there's a slide somewhere in that Insomniac leak that talks about PS+ adoption rate by region).

We also see that software releases are BARELY moving the console sales in Japan, the link between hardware moving and software releases is the weakest its ever been, just a puzzling situation all around.

Personally I don't think PC factors much into the sales for a game like Final Fantasy. When the Japanese figures for Infinite Wealth came out and then SEGA gave global sales update, I was able to figure that a good chunk of the Japanese sales for the game at the time were on PlayStation platforms. PC was second but not a "close" second, and Xbox dead-last.

So with games like FF I'd expect splits would have been very similar if not even more PS-leaning. When people talk about PC's growth in markets like Japan I think that's only really happening at large scale for GAAS, F2P and legacy ports of older releases. For new 3P AA and AAA non-GAAS/F2P games, console is dominating the lions share of sales both physically and digitally.

But aside that, yeah there is a serious attach rate issue with PS5 games in Japan and I think it could also be as simple as, many hardcore/core enthusiast PS fans in Japan are mainly using their PS5s as media streaming devices or running through a backlog of PS4 releases at higher performance options. A mix of that, and some using their systems mainly for games like Geshin Impact, and a (small-ish) number of units maybe being exported and resold in other nearby regions, would explain the attach rates.

And also, if you're not a Nintendo IP and not on the Switch, your game just doesn't seem like it's going to light up the sales charts in Japan that much or for that long, unless you're on mobile. But this isn't even about those types of games, rather core-orientated console ones.

 

[anonpuffs]

The poor sales of FF7R are devastating... i can only huff hopium that more people discover the game and buy it down the line

 

[Gamernyc78]

The poor sales of FF7R are devastating... i can only huff hopium that more people discover the game and buy it down the line

I'm dying to know what the budget was for this game.

 

[VillaiN]

Im certain sony financed development in some form and helped with devs. Or they got check on 50M and dont care that much about records and whatnot. Everything they earn s good. Switch cant run game. Pc sales re irrelevant just like xbox. So porting s would not help that much. Pc ll bring in some additional sales.

But japan market s really strange.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Im certain sony financed development in some form and helped with devs. Or they got check on 50M and dont care that much about records and whatnot. Everything they earn s good. Switch cant run game. Pc sales re irrelevant just like xbox. So porting s would not help that much. Pc ll bring in some additional sales.

But japan market s really strange.

Very diff market indeed.

 

[Evilms]