What went so wrong?
>>734070038Go woke go broke
>game of thrones like westernized FF>remake with time janny fuckery no one asked forSE is so stupid they should've gone bankrupt back in 2000
>>734070038square enix watching literally every other japanese developer make great decisions, games and money
>>734070038You should know by now since you make this thread every day.
>>734070038XVI had a celebratory sales announcement of 3 million, six days after launch. It at least was successful. Even if it was wildly successful, it was at least profitable, and did well especially considering it had less than half of the budget of just one of the Remake titles. Rebirth has never had a sales announcement at all, and by all third party sources sold worse than XVI did despite having over twice the budget and despite being part of the long awaited Remake of the most iconic JRPG of all time, Final Fantasy VII. The real question is how did Final Fantasy VII fall from grace so hard?
>>734070038Shitty games = shitty sales
>>734070038FFXVI cost less than 80 millions to make, pretty sure that it turned a profit even with the lackluster sales. Complain all you want about yoship he knows how to manage a budget unlike the other retards at SquareEnix.
>>734070723>FFXVI cost less than 80 millions to makeIt was actually less than 60 million. XVI had less than half the budget of the Remake titles, which have both individually had a budget of over 120 million.
I only just finished remake a few days ago. I really dont understand the love people have for that game, padding, on rails, constrained are words I'd use to describe it. It felt insulting the amount of times you're about to walk through a door and they sidetrack you for 10-15 minutes to fill out the game.
>>734071172Great news. Every single one of your complaints has been completely remedied in Rebirth.
>>734070038>Metaflop thread up>Immediately a FFXVI/Rebirth thread appearsVery organic behavior
>>734071687You know it really well since you made the Metaphor thread.
>>734071687>>734071753I think it's funny that there's still some sort of feud between Rebirth and Metaphor, and that it only exists because Rebirth fans keep starting fights they can't win.
>>734070038FF16 is so close to DMC that they should just let Ryota Suzuki do whatever he wants.
>>734070038Because each FF tries their hardest to innovate in some way. The problem is that innovation doesn't necessarily mean improvement, gameplay has been going backwards since FFXIII
Failed company and franchise.
>>734072912They made their money back, they just did not make as much as expected. Remember how they were complaining about the Tomb Raider sales because 5 millions units sold was somehow below their expectations?
>>734070038Shit game made by shit company that hasn't made anything remotely original since the PS2.
>>734070038I can't speak for 16 but as soon as they said they would be splitting up the release of 7 into what was it, 4 games, I totally lost all interest.
>>734070569>disregard old audience>old audience doesn't buyIt's that simple.
>>734070038Depending on the country setting absurdly high sales expectations then failing to meet them allows you to claim it as a loss which makes you and/or shareholders more money in the long run as you pocket sales money and tax cuts.Not that I don't think Square is struggling but I think this is just a money saving tactic to cover all of their other fuck-ups as opposed to actual shit sales on the part of both games.
>>734070038ff has been slop for decades
>>734071687 Everything on /v/ is “very organic behavior” the second two threads mention the same game within a 10 minute window.You’re acting like there’s some deep state cabal coordinating Metaphor discourse when it’s literally just:>Big JRPG releases in the same year >Same publisher circle >Same award categories >Same terminally online autists refreshing sales charts Of course people are going to crosspost salt between them. Half this board runs on console warring and the other half runs on spreadsheet warring.If anything the funniest part is how defensive Rebirth fans got the second Metaphor actually stuck the landing. Nobody cared until it started winning shit.But yeah bro, totally a psyop. Atlus agents embedded in /v/ as we speak.
>>734070723>ffxvi cost less than 80 millionFake news from the 3di report with zero verifiable sources. FFXVI cost over 250million with a 7 year development cycle
>>734070038They spent too much money and relied on a console that only sells gun, ball, and gacha.
>>734070038Turns out making trash games will have that effect.
>>734073138this. maybe they need to go tell their vultures to tone the greed down a bit
>>734074786I see they just openly lie about the "1st release in franchise."
>>734074786lol, japanese devs making an over 150 million game is unheard of because they are so poor. You need to stop being so detached from reality.
>>734070038Basically these two projects needed to be one project called Final Fantasy XVI. XVI has the soul of an FF game and all the framework... except that it's not a fucking RPG! Everything about this game is great except for the actual game. Meanwhile Remake is 100% an RPG with great and unique feeling RPG mechanics, but the setting is some horrible bastardization of FF7. All the added content is utterly wasted because at the end of the day it's just more taking you away from the original people care about. If you took both of these halves of a game and put them together, you'd have a good Final Fantasy game.
Final Fantasy is a dead IP. You'd be surprised by how irrelevant it is in Japan and that the only interest in it comes from Americans exclusively.
>>734070038>AYOO CLOUD
>>734070038And now they're stuck making a third. Square Enix built the railroad to a cliff and decided to drive that train.
damn maybe trying to chase trends in an established series was a bad idea huh
>>734070038Turns out trying to milk your beloved game for three entries WHILE changing the story and adding stupid ghost multiverse shit to it was a really dumb move.
>>734070038>6-10 are critically acclaimed, beloved by fans and massively successful>never do anything like that again
>>734078697Nobody left at squeenix can write a story worth a shit anymore, except for whoever wrote shadowbringers/endwalker but they also apparently got rid of that person since dawntrail was total poop.
>>734070038Braindrain at SE
>>734070038Nothing.>AUTOMATON recently asked director Naoki Hamaguchi, who gave some reassuring insights. >“The second entry, FFVII Rebirth, has been doing very well on both PS5 and PC. I know some fans have expressed concerns, but please rest assured, we’ll be able to deliver a proper, high-quality third installment.”
>>734070038Squaresoft merged with Enix
>>734070038FF7 Remake effectively killed my interest in everything they might do with rest of the remakes. Even without the Time Jannies, almost none of the new stuff they added in was any good.
>>734078697FF15 sold 10 million.
It's a crappy set of games made by a shadow of a company that was once good two decades ago
>>734070038FF is a franchise past its glory.
Square thought that FF7 was more popular than it was and decided that fucking up the plot was a good idea.
>>734070038jacks game has better action, is more faithful to the squaresoft FF games, and a more compelling story about modern angry people fighting fantasy creatures and square sent it off to die with lack of budget so it runs like shit and EGS exclusive deal so nobody with a PC that could run it actually bought it. square is staffed by morons
>>734081172God, i need SoP2. I would even pay for it and that is something i rarely do when it comes to video games.
>>734081172Being a contrarian isn't a personality.
>>734070038XVI, objectively, made a profit. We know exactly how much it cost to make, and we know it sold at least 3 million copies. Rebirth tanked. Did they even announce anything pertaining to its sales?
>>734082329meanwhile in reality
>>734082329>Rebirth tanked.Meanwhile in reality
>>734083221>no official numbersMeanwhile in reality
>>734070038>>734080503obsessed
Why did Joshua write his brother cucking Hugo in the book he wrote?
>>734070038We already know it's because of the Playstation 5 timed exclusivity biting them in the ass. Meanwhile all of their non-exclusive/nintendo-exclusive releases sold gangbusters because those other audiences actually buy Square Enix games, and it seems to be the only reason why Square Enix didn't outright fold from how much money they've been losing from sucking Sony's cock for so long.
>>734082329>Rebirth tanked. Did they even announce anything pertaining to its sales?Objectively true. And no, if 2 years they have never said anything about the sales other than saying they were disappointing in an earnings report. There are like 10 games that all got sales updates or sales announcements from Square Enix since Rebirth has released, but they have never celebrated Rebirth's sales, because it sold more poorly than XVI while costing a little more than twice as much to make.
>>734084069that was a fever dream that Ultima created to manipulate Hugo.
>>734083882Every day until you hate a Japanese developer as much as he does.
>>734079695How many at full price? I got my copy with all DLCs for 15$.
>>7340705697’s legacy has been slowly dismantled since Advent Children/Dirge of Cerberus came out.
obsessed
>>734084464>How many at full price?Enough for it to be successful.
>>734070038Grownup graphics with childlike storylines and the same pathetic japanese tropes. They're scared to make a leap into truly adult entertainment - something that would generate the kind of thoughtful discussion as (and this is the closest it's gotten) Death Stranding or Baldur's Gate 3.I would recommend they study the Lord of the Rings movies to understand how good and evil can be portrayed without adding what they usually see as "essential" elements: 1. the nihilist enemy who doesn't have a reason to exist2. the stupid sidekicks who they think 'brighten' the game but instead create lasting and genuine annoyance.3. the batshit stupid 4th-wall-breaking moogles or whatever they substitute them with.4. the "you'd have to be an idiot to go along with this" miniplots and side quests. Will the absence of these make a game boring? No, you just need really good - like award-fucking-winning - writing. And Square needs to invest in that.
Yoshipiss was rotting Squeenix from the inside. Until they fire him it will continue to get mogged by indies like E33.
>>734085453XIV is the most profitable Final Fantasy game of all time, and XVI was also profitable. Rebirth is not profitable. Nomura and his time jannies are the thing that needs to go, if anything. Imagine fumbling the veritable layup that was the Final Fantasy VII Remake.
>>734085453It just hit me that pretty much all Yoshida hate is a 1:1 lateral transition from the old Nomura hate. Bawww Kingdom Hearts is ruining everything at Square, bawww FF's legacy is ruined under him, what is Nomura doing, he's so washed up. Bawww FFXIV is ruining everything at Square, bawww FF's legacy is ruined under him, what is Yoshida doing, he's so washed up.
>>734086159I don't think anyone cares about Nomura keeping Kingdom Hearts in Kingdom Hearts. The issue is that he turned Final Fantasy VII into Kingdom Hearts also.
>>734086226It always was Kingdom Hearts because it's still Final Fantasy, game runs on vibes for 90% of its runtime and makes up new rules for the Lifestream as it goes along
>>734086463>It always was Kingdom Hearts...
>>734070569They need to payback their Blackrock loans. Which they spent on paying their DEI staffs
>final fantasy 16lmao, how many shitty jrpg one company can make
>>734086716Just don't reply if you aren't gonna play ball, we're talking about a game whose plot is largely a retread of Final Fantasy 6's
>>734070038>FF16 takes the series identity out the back and shoots it in gameplay and visuals, didn't care enough to look at the story>FF7 demakes add weird janny shit and CONSTANT fan wankery flashback "ooooh remember this?????" moments, absolutely destroys Sephiroth as a character and they blew OWA on the first fucking game.I dunno, maybe buying more NFTs and selling more franchises would help?
Can't wait for yoship to make xvii. He is the only capable devs at squeenix unlike that retard tabata
>>734087110>He is the only capable devs at squeenixThere's also Yoko Taro, but Square Enix keeps canceling his projects (probably due to the new ethics committee that was added after Automata) and he's working on Evangelion now.
>>734086117Real Final Fantasy games are not MMOs. Sorry bud. Also, XVI flopped so badly it threw the company into the red by literal billions.
>>734087459XVI was profitable, hence the sales announcement. It had less than half the budget of Rebirth while selling more copies. Rebirth is the one that flopped. XVI didn't sell spectacularly, but it was profitable. Rebirth isn't and might never be. You got your games mixed up.
>>734087459lol, you guys just invent such ridiculous fanfiction.
>>734087560>>734083067Billions
>>734087742Anon, stocks go up, and they also go down. Rebirth had a worse drop, actually, but it's the stock value, and it has nothing to do with how profitable the game itself was. XVI was profitable by day 6. Rebirth still isn't profitable.
>>734070038Anal Fantasy was never good
>>734070038literally everything that could did, SE is filled with retards
>>734070038Everything.
>>734070569FFVII is the Star Wars of video games.
>>734087975True. The Remake really is like the Disney Star Wars.
>>734087830This is why it's dangerous to play armchair stock-broker with game companies: stock purchasers are retards and a company's perceived value dropping or raising has little or nothing to do with how they're actually doingSee also Nintendo stock plummeting after they announced they wouldn't be abandoning normal video games for Pokemon Go and mobile
>>734087965i guess their turn based games are failing as well
>>734088030>This is why it's dangerous to play armchair stock-broker with game companiesWell, it's dangerous for mindbroken retarded shitposters to play armchair stockbroker with game companies. I actually am a licensed stockbroker. Case in point, this guy >>734087965 >>734088085This is clearly a stock split, he's just too retarded to know. >Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. executed a 3-for-1 stock split effective October 1, 2025. Shareholders of record as of September 30, 2025, received three shares for every one share held, aiming to improve liquidity and lower the minimum investment unit. The move did not change the overall value of the company. Though it does seem like the stock also dropped after the split, the drop is almost entirely the 3-to-1 split.
>>734083067>loses $2 billion in market valueThis is what happens when the brand and image of your flagship franchise gets destroyed by a terrible release
>>734088030>See also Nintendo stock plummeting after they announced they wouldn't be abandoning normal video games for Pokemon Go and mobileAnd as for this, it's almost always "buy the rumor, sell the news". You see it all the time. People will drive the price up immediately before an earnings report, and even when the earnings report is good, the stock will usually drop afterwards. It's only when the earnings report is OUTRAGEOUSLY good and announces something unprecedented that it really ever goes up after an earnings report.
>>734088273No it's what happens when you cancel multiple games that were in development.
>>734088587That's just XVkun or one of his worshipers. That's not a real person with a functioning brain.
Final Fantasy is adrift. Square's focus on cutting edge visuals and new fighting systems every game is coming back to bite them. This was fine in the late 90's and early 00's because development costs were much less. These days they can't re-invent the wheel every time because it takes 5 years just for a project to go into full production. Games costs hundreds of millions of dollars, they can't take huge gambles each time. Most other companies find a formula that works and slowly iterate on it. Persona games are very similar, even Metaphor plays very much like a Persona game when it comes down to it.
>>734070038>What went so wrong?FF16 being yet another grossly unfinished FF.FF7R gang-raping the original story just for teh lulz.It's not rocket science.
>>734088851How is XVI unfinished?
>>734086804Get a life you conspiracy theorist
>>734088906It's not.
>>734083067This is great news
>>734070038>xvi has shitty combat>the remake is a poorly disguised sequel
>>734070569>half of the budget of just one of the Remake titles.Final fantasy is so dead when the remake trilogy is over
>>734089158NS2 version will save them.
>>734089158The fact that Rebirth flopped so badly while having essentially the same budget that Remake had really makes me wonder if they scaled back the budget for Part 3, or if it was already so far into production by the time Rebirth flopped that they're just gonna full send it and have all 3 titles with a ~$120m USD budget each. Because if they don't and Part 3 comes out and its noticeably less polished or it like entirely reused assets or something, that is not gonna look good at all. Plus, Part 3 is supposedly going to be multi-plat at launch, and that shit ain't exactly free.
>>734070038>RE9 is selling out on Switch 2No Switch 2 version at launch
>>734089210No, despite the lies from /v/, tendiegods are idorts. They have already played Rebirth and decided it's shit. Needs to be day 1 like what Capcom's doing. The minute Nintendo dropped PS4 Pro level hardware, Capcom started porting games and making day 1 releases immediately.
>>734089210Trust the planTwo more weeks
>>7340705693m is not wildly successful. Xenoblade games, nintendo exclusive rpgs for a AA developer, sell between 1.5 and 2.5 million. Final fantasy as a major publisher's flagship multiplat needs to be an entire order of magnitude higher than that.
>>734091118in relation the the game's budget it's fine
>>734070569I dont understand why would they give more budget to their remakes than their brand new mainline entry?
>>734088906>How is XVI unfinished?How about having no playable party?How about having no elemental weaknesses?How about having no status ailments?How about ALL main cities being either completely unaccessible(like Tenebrae all over again), or battlefields you can only visit once (like Insomnia all-over again) and never again?How about having no proper worldmap/overworld nor proper airship?How about an entire country being unaccessible (except in paid DLC)?How about having waited EIGHT MOTHERFUCKING YEARS for this?
>>734091198Remake is lead by a bunch of retards who can't manage money. XVI was lead by the staff who saved XIV after a disastrous launch.
>>734091245Just because it doesn't have things you like doesn't mean it's unfinished.
>>734091245Any proof that any of those were planned then cancelled?
>>734091245If anything XVI should have been streamline even more. It's too long for no good reason.
>>734074786Keywords studios was literally hired by Square Enix to work on FFXVI
>What went so wrong?
>>734091245>How about having no playable party?>How about having no elemental weaknesses?>How about having no status ailments?>How about ALL main cities being either completely unaccessible(like Tenebrae all over again), or battlefields you can only visit once (like Insomnia all-over again) and never again?>How about having no proper worldmap/overworld nor proper airship?>How about an entire country being unaccessible (except in paid DLC)?YoshiP is a hack retard who did all these things on purpose.
>>734091118>3m is not wildly successful.Correct. I see now that I left out "not". I meant to say even if it was *not* wildly successful. You can generally tell that this is what I meant via context clues, but it's my mistake nonetheless. The 3m is, however, profitable (i.e. successful)>Final fantasy as a major publisher's flagship multiplat needs to be an entire order of magnitude higher than that.XVI was a PS5 exclusive. >>734091198Final Fantasy VII is a massive IP, and the VII Remake might be the most long awaited Remake of all time. Unfortunately, it didn't actually go that way. What actually happened is that originally the VII Remake was outsourced, but Nier Automata (and XIV) were having such success that they were able to bring the development more in-house rather than delegating it solely to outsourced studios with some developer oversight, which is what was happening originally.
>>734091356>Any proof that any of those were planned then cancelled?No, he just listed the things he dislikes about it. The only thing that has even a crumb of credibility is they said that if XVI sold enough copies, they would consider making Jill and Cid playable. Obviously, it didn't sell 10m copies or whatever, so this didn't happen.
I think they expect this series to sell like 10 million. But instead it sells like 5 to 7 million. FF used to benefit from the being the HOLY SHIT GRAPHICS game. Like the type of guy who plays multiplats would pick it up cause it had great presentation and an interesting story. But notice how the series started to fall off in relevance as others franchises got better storytelling/graphics. And it's gameplay is great but not like top top top tier. 8/10. So it's not going to be that huge hit as in the past. I don't think these games are bad. it's just what made FF broadly appealing can't be replicated. This franchise has its fans, millenials. SE has to figure out whether they want to change drastically what FF is again or be fine with selling 5 million or so tops.
>>734070038Haven't they said this for literally every game they've released in the past 15 years?
>>734093334No. The 2DHD Remakes, Octopath (i.e. Team Asano), and Nier (specifically Automata) are actually exceeding their expectations. And XIV as well exceeded their expectations with Shadowbringers and Endwalker (due partly to Asmongold's audience and WoW being shit). Everything else though, yeah.
>>734087247Taro has always been a freelancer.
>>734093495Even if that's true, everything that I said is also true.
>>734070569For me I decided to go nonbuynary for FF7R games after the censored Tifa's chest and I saw the moogle design.I just won't give them money if they're going to do that shit.I bought FFXV used for $6 and got 60 hours of fun out of it though.
>>734070038>Spend billions, trillions even, on a mid gameIt's a mystery...
>mainline FF game>only has one characterWas it just too expensive? Where did the money go?
>>734070038Can anybody explain to me why is Enix cucking Square out of making any JRPGs ever again?Since the merger:>Final Fantasy was turned into Action RPG/MMO hybrid>Parasite Eve was turned into third-person shooter>Xenogears was turned into action RPG>Every other Squaresoft IP was made dormentMeanwhile, they had no problem with Dragon Quest remaining as a turn-based JRPG even to this day.What is the Enix's problem?
>>734096261Square(or somebody on the FF team) always wanted to evolve FF to be an action game ever since FFX. They also have this mentality that a turn based game doesn't look attractive enough for a AAA game so they don't make them turn based.
>>734096261So, as I'm sure even zoomers are aware, Squaresoft and Enix used to be competitors in the JRPG space and even the action/adventure space. Final Fantasy has also been trending towards action ever since the advent of ATB with Final Fantasy IV; that was always the compromise between action and turn-based. When Squaresoft and Enix merged, Final Fantasy started being even more action, with games like XII basically being an offline version of XI, and then XIII being probably as close to action as you can get while still being "ATB". They seem to have fully made the switch to Final Fantasy being action with XV and then XVI, and even the VII Remake is an action game, though people generally give that game a pass either because they just give Final Fantasy VII a pass because it has Cloud in it or because that is a more progressive transition between Action and ATB simply because it has the real-time-with-pause aspect. So the "issue" people have with Final Fantasy being Action now isn't specifically because it's Action, but rather because it's an iteration of Action combat that they do not personally enjoy. Anyway, it seems to me that Square Enix has decided that they don't need two competing turn-based JRPG series, and since Dragon Quest has always been just the same exact game over and over again, with the most innovation being the recruitment of monsters into the party, I think Square Enix has decided that Dragon Quest is the flagship turn-based RPG series, and since Final Fantasy was always trending towards Action or hybrid Action combat, they decided to turn Final Fantasy into the flagship action RPG series. Square Enix still makes turn-based games, they're just usually lower budget titles, like the Team Asano games or things like Yoko Taro's card game (which is really just an RPG with the aesthetics of a card game) or one-off glorified tech demos like Dungeon Encounters or whatever that was.
