#sorry for taking your post and running with it shanna it just awakened some deep emotions in me

[bluerosesburnblue]

The thing is, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth isn't even the problem. It's going to sell well when they stop kneecapping it. The numbers look bad now, but that's entirely because right now it's a PS5 exclusive. It looks bad in comparison to Remake, but Remake released on PS4, a much easier console to get. I'm sure that Rebirth will start making up the numbers once it has a PC release because that's what people who lack a PS5, including some who owned a PS4 for Remake, are going to be getting it on

And that's ultimately the crux of Square's issues: bad decisions that don't pay attention to the market. FF7 Rebirth and FF16 are both suffering from PS5 exclusivity right now. PC usage for games is extremely popular, partly because it tends to sidestep the console exclusivity issue unless a company does something like this and hard delays the PC release just to keep it fully exclusive longer. Despite the fact that console exclusivity helps no one (except maybe the console sellers) in terms of sales because a lot of people who would otherwise play the game don't have the spare cash lying around to spend on a new console for whatever they're interested in, so they have to wait until it comes out on something they CAN play. Especially true of the PS5, which is expensive as hell and was prone to shortages after release. Which means that for all of their complaining, Square has a ton of unrealized gains on their IPs just because the PC releases that were promised aren't even out yet, and plenty of people are just waiting until they are

But the more they delay, the greater risk of those people who would have bought it on another console have of getting the story spoiled, or losing hype, or getting into something else, or just plain old deciding that they don't care anymore. And that'll be true of any game they release, regardless of whether it has the Final Fantasy brand attached or not, if they keep up this exclusivity stuff

Combine that with a number of just... baffling decisions and flops like:

Forspoken being a massive flop, panned for mediocre gameplay, bad dialogue, a weak story, and unlikable characters despite the massive budget behind it (and I do mean massive, it's probably where most of the financial loss is from)

New IPs that seems to be creatively uninspired and not fun to play, like Foamstars, which literally everyone said looked like Splatoon and is apparently just not a good PVP shooter

That fucking Symbiogenesis NFT nonsense, a game that you can only play by buying an NFT of a generic character, well after the NFT trend was over

And neglected legacy IPs like Kingdom Hearts going years without any real updates, and for KH all we do have is the horribly contradictory concept of a plot-heavy ARG game that you can play at home, which I can't believe was greenlit because it defeats the entire purpose of it being an ARG. And that still has no release date

...and it's no wonder that they lost $140m. And those are just the IPs I'm aware of. Like, let's be honest here, between an actually okay one-console showing for FF7 Rebirth and FF14, Final Fantasy is their money-maker right now. I'd be surprised if they didn't go more in on FF, because literally everything else is completely failing on them right now

It's so sad how fasts things can change in some cases...

Because, before we knew how many millions of dollars Square Enix had recently lost, I kept wanting to make a post about why I thought that a Final Fantasy VIII Remake was a really good/fun idea, even though Square Enix themselves and some fans might be hesitant about one in some regards.

And IDK... I still might end up making that post. But do I honestly think we'll ever see one now? No.

Chances were slim before... But if Final Fantasy VII Remakes can't really sell well (at least this most recent one -sobs-), we can honestly kiss our chances at most other ones goodbye:( Especially ones that would be even harder and more time consuming to make (and more costly).

Though I do think FFIX Remake is still happening. And maybe that rumor about an FFX Remake could be true.