Square Enix CEO: Final Fantasy 16 sales did not meet high expectations

[John Elden Ring]

Final Fantasy 16 sales did not meet high expectations, says Square Enix president

Sales of Final Fantasy 16 did not meet Square Enix's high expectations, said president Takashi Kiryu.

www.eurogamer.net

Sales of Final Fantasy 16 did not meet Square Enix's high expectations, said president Takashi Kiryu.

Last week the company's latest earnings report was released and while net sales increased, operating profit dropped 79 percent from ¥14.4bn to just ¥3.0bn.

During a post-earnings call to analysts, Kiryu said the high end of the company's expectations were not met and the slow adoption of the PlayStation 5 was a limiting factor, Bloomberg reports.

• Square Enix will now take steps to boost sales of the game now that hardware supply is less constricted and the console userbase continues to expand.
• The company's net sales for HD games had increased, thanks to the launch of Final Fantasy 16 and the Pixel Remasters, although operating income was down due to the cost of development.
• For MMOs, net sales decreased compared to the previous year. However, this is due to the success of Final Fantasy 14's Endwalker expansion last year; this year will be a lull in sales ahead of next year's Dawntrail expansion.
• As a result of the low profit numbers, stock has fallen as much as 15 percent in Tokyo, with shares trading at around ¥5,620 - their lowest since May last year.

 

[PriorPancake]

Yeah as I said it did reach their minimum expectations and sold well but they probably hoped for a lot more.

 

[ethomaz]

There are bit of confusion I guess.

I some more sources and what SE said is that they are fine with the game reaching the lower-end of their expectation but that they wanted to reach the high-end... they blamed PS5 userbase and all but forget the FFXV launched in a similar PS4 userbase and did over 1 million at launch plus where they lose more sales (Japan) PS5 even had a bigger userbase than PS4 when FFXV launched making their blame very suspicious.
Plus the 3 million shipment had break even (I already expected this game was in the > $150 million budget but seems like it was closer to $200 million).
They now want to make profit with the game (they want more sales)... that is normal to any company.

The initial sales is a sensible drop from FFXV (even if you count only the PS4 version with > 4 million first shipment).

Analysts didn't like the message and together with results of the company the shares dropped 15%.

 

[Johnic]

They really need to make up their mind.

 

[ethomaz]

They really need to make up their mind.

It looks like the same message the difference is that in the PR last week they could just says the goods and now in the earnings they had to be more open about it.

 

[historia]

Mochizuki reports though

 

[Eternal_Wings]

Debunked

 

[Puff]

 

[Johnic]

I don't know anymore.

 

[historia]

Debunked

Did one of Sony employees stole this guy wife or something.

 

[Airbus]

Can we ban this takashi guy talk here that guy been notorious for spreading fud and misinformation

Or at least someone can comes to his house and shot his dick and face off so he wont be coming back again thanks

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

We know it didn't. People trying to cope otherwise is just funny. It's time to accept that FFXVI is not that good; in fact, it's barely good in some regards and very bad in others. Let this be a lesson, and may SE fix their internal bullshit (though I don't think it can).


Edit:
I must also say that if this game had been released on Xbox, it wouldn't have made a difference at all. In fact, it could have been worse (at least from a PR perspective). The PlayStation fanbase wouldn't have had this strong desire to defend, overhype, or overpraise the game

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

Sorry, I don't have time to sink into a big game like this because we are moving to a new house and my current hobby project is to revamp a vintage Sansui integrated amp paired with Big Ventury speakers from the 1970s.

 

[Killer_Sakoman]

We know it didn't. People trying to cope otherwise is just funny. It's time to accept that FFXVI is not that good; in fact, it's barely good in some regards and very bad in others. Let this be a lesson, and may SE fix their internal bullshit (though I don't think it can).


Edit:
I must also say that if this game had been released on Xbox, it wouldn't have made a difference at all. In fact, it could have been worse (at least from a PR perspective). The PlayStation fanbase wouldn't have had this strong desire to defend, overhype, or overpraise the game

The game is good and sold very well and met SE expectations. The Japanese xbot is reporting fake information and the "source of the information" exposed him.

 

[Killer_Sakoman]

Did one of Sony employees stole this guy wife or something.

Jimbo unloaded his old marinated cream on her face.

 

[BloodMod]

FFXVI has already been confirmed by SE to have net if not passed expectations.

OP has requested to close this thread since both the so-called original source as well as the journalist making this article have made dubious unproven claims.