@@Evanz111 that's the thing, most of those games were at least fun. even if not amazing. diofield was a nice AA game as was triangle strategy. its just that square did nothing to help them sell. which sucks because people keep asking companies to do exactly what square did, and it did not pan out for them.
Oh but absolutely, this whole thing is "Shareholder not happy, not enough money", exclusivity ain't a problem unless your whole focus becomes money. FF7 R/R/R is completely financed by Sony, and they have complete freedom, but all I hear from their reports is "Money money money" why else would they create a Mobile Unit, totally not to create a dogshit Gacha game. /s
square enix has quality graphics but good graphics do make for good gameplay and the gameplay is why people do not buy from square enix. Square enix is proof great graphics do not make great games, and they continue to prove it decade after decade.
Capcom started this after they realized how big the PC gaming community was. This this was around 2018. I know Monster hunter world and RE2 remake were HUGE pc successes, now they are a Multiplatform company and recently they gave their employees raises while other companies were laying people off. Glad that SE is starting to realize the same thing. This is good news.
Huh... RE7 on the PC was a clusterf@k of a release... not to mention the "VR" mode is only available guess where? Sony... but they the same can be said about RE8 VR mode... I wonder where you can play that one.. oh right...still SONY... WTF?!?! They changed some things... but they aren't the "saviors" people make them to be...
@@bousch8253 SE didn't finally realize anything. They were handcuffed due to Sony's exclusive contracts. They are almost fully free of that. If I'm not mistaken FF7 part 3 is still under Sony contract.
The issue is that the vast majority of sales are on Playstation and not PC. The PC community of sales is not as big as you let on. FF16 struggled because every major game but BG3 and Zelda struggled last year due to a very intense 2nd half of releases. Rebirth struggled due to the breakout success of Helldivers 2 and Dragon's Dogma 2.
@@cr082080 I was talking about capcom games. But ok. You say the PC community of sales isn't big huh? GoS just became the 2nd biggest sony selling game because of what again? Helldivers 2 became sony's biggest selling game because of what community? Both not because of PS. FF16 if released day 1 on PS along with PC would have sold a lot more copies. Thats a fact. The PC player base dwarfs sony and microsoft combined. You can't even create PSN accounts in more than half the countries in the world. 69 to steams 190+ alone. Rebirth struggled because it was pigeon held, just like FF16 to sony. EDIT: I also own a PS5, Xbox series X and a switch if your wondering.
What i'd be really concerned about is the future of stuff like HD-2D if anything. If this de-emphasis on quantity means less or possibly no more mid-tier titles like Octopath, Triangle Strategy and Live a Live I'll be sad. Especially because DQ III HD-2D made me really hopeful for more remakes of 16 bit Square games in that style
I wouldn't be too worried. Tomoya Asano, who is the producer of all of the HD-2D stuff, just got promoted at Square Enix very recently. If Square wasn't happy with those games I don't think they'd be promoting the person in charge of them.
@@treesnip5667 I hope so. I've enjoyed the 2-D games they've made, from original games like both Octopath games and Triangle Strategy to their 2-D remakes of older games. And with Live A Live, Mario RPG and Oger Tactics getting this treatment, plus with the Mana and SaGa series getting some love to in recent years, it gives a lot of people like me hope that Chrono Trigger and FF Tactics could possibly get that treatment as well in the future.
@Xanatos0504 nintendo games have lost the things that made them fun. Now it's all bland open world nonsense in zelda. Metroid doesn't exist, 2 sequels to splatoon no one asked for. Frankly nintendo is not what they used to be
it is more the kid get a+ and was one best student but currently he fall behind 3 or 4 other student and he only get b square enix currently fall behind capcom, namco bandai, sega, probabaly same level than koei tecmo final fantasy is not anymore the jrpg
@@marangoni097thats the fanboy in you talking, this game is more like a D. You really think a shameless cash grab project is good? You're paying full price for an incomplete game THREE TIMES.
People forget FF7 Remake released during the Panda. We were all were just sitting home with stimulus checks. It was a perfect storm. It wasn't something to compare a normal year to.
I don’t see this applying to Part 3. Sony bought and paid for the entire trilogy in advance. I think Part 3 may be an exception to the multi platform plan they are trying to implement but we’ll see. Depends on if they can renegotiate the contract they signed with Sony for the VII Remake trilogy being PS exclusive.
Square enix decided to take a 140 million dollars loss to stop developing games nobody wanted to play, I do not doubt they would accept to pay some more to break their contract with Sony since exclusivity is not profitable.
And regardless, it appears they got the window down to 3 months for Rebirth, which isn't all that bad if they can get other versions to market that quickly. Especially given the fact that the industry as a whole will likely be slowing down. Maybe peoples' attention spans won't shift quite so quickly either.
If they make 3 a Sony exclusive they’re screwed Sonys exclusivity deal has been cutting them off from other sources of money by not releasing for multiplat
The lack of a Rebirth sales number announcement is pretty concerning. They were quick to announce them for FFXV, FF7 Remake and FFXVI. It's been a few months now, and no word on how Rebirth sold. That plus the Japan figures out of famitsu make it seem like maybe Rebirth is under performing in a bad way
Don't worry, in Square's Financial Highlights, they said that Rebirth had a "solid performance", and even promoted the director to an executive position, because of that. Anything else you hear, is just speculation from people with nothing better to do.
Just because it didn't meet expectations it doesn't mean it or 16 aren't in the green at this point. 16 we know for a fact sold 3m+ copies so far and it has an 18 month strategy for goals not sell everything within the first few months. Both games are also still exclusives.
They didn't know the ending. But some who've heard of the ending would've not bought rebirth. IF they are fans or they've played the OG, or theyre skeptics.
FF7 Remake had the ps4/5 platform to help it with sales. Rebirth has everything such as the bad economy, PS5 exclusive (which a good portion of folks are still on the PS4), etc. that is going against it. From what I've heard though, it did well but obviously could've have done better for the accolades it received.
I know Max doesn't want to hear this and to his credit it's proooobably too early to DEFINITIVELY say this but when we're hearing repeatedly that FF7R is failing to meet internal expectations and they're not releasing the sales figures it's not the golden goose. That would be FF14. It's been an open secret that Yoshi P's baby has been keeping the light's on in Square Towers for a while now.
Well thats normal right? It's an MMO. WoW did the exact same thing for Blizzard back in the day. It allowed them to expand into Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 and Overwatch. Games that wouldn't have all been greenlit if WoW wasn't their security blanket. I see much the same here with unlikely games becoming reality like FF7R, FF16 and KH4 to name a few. We might also get FF9R. This reminds me so much of Blizzard back in the day. So absolutely thank god for BU3 and FF14 keeping these projects safe. Its super important.
Yes and no, I love FFXIV great story great game, I play it as an RPG, not a MMO, and you are right the income every month is a certainty and money hungry CEO love that, BUT FFVII will always be the golden goose, If you are talking about money from sales, they are less o more from the sells of buying Endwalker or dawntrail? (not the monthly subs), How much more people play FFVII R and Rebirth than FFXIV? who is more recognizable Tifa or Yshtola? And there is a reason SE release the Remake or not? and why if they are already earning moeny with XIV? FFVII is the golden goose, and the risk is ruin it and losing it forever
Square just said in their latest financial report, that Rebirth was one of their financial highlights, and even promoted Hamaguchi because of that. Meanwhile, they said that the MMO division(supervised by Yoshida), is not doing well. So you can stop kissing Yoshida's ass now.
@@Ukaran What are you even talking about? The financial report highlighted an 11% revenue loss in MMO revenue and for close to half the fiscal year its been the dry period for 14. The MMO is about to release its new expansion and enter its healthy period. AKA giant profit increase for this fiscal year. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Well, Forspoken was weird, FFXVI sold more than 3 million units and wasn't enough, FF7 Rebirth sold more than 2,5 million units not enough again. Maybe they are spending more than they should in some games and betting too much on other games that are indeed successful but not world Record breaking day one sales, which seems to be their expctations.
A point I’ve seen about FF7 Remake Trilogy is that some older gamers aren’t exactly a fan of the multiverse aspect of it. And then some new players are fine and enjoy the multiverse aspect. I feel like aside from console exclusivity, Square should’ve marketed it clearer from the get go. Tell players not to expect a one-to-one remake. It might be obvious but some players weren’t aware and disliked that multiverse plot. Moreover, the censorship and patching is something I’ve also seen discussed as a hard point against the game. Either way, Square needs to make sure the Trilogy ends up on PC and ends with a complete banger ending. Along with having KH4 ready, improved fixes from KH3, and a strong selection of Disney films/worlds to use.
The final fantasy franchise is the least of Square Enix's problems. Did they hit the obscenely high sales targets Square had set? No, but they were still Square's best successes, and are the reason why the company isn't fully under right now. FF7R not being exactly what every single fan wants is not the issue. The issue is that Square is dumping money into the wrong projects and wrong markets outside of FF. Multi-platform will absolutely help, but they need to allocate their funding better. Repeated mobile games that crash and burn, investing tons of time and money into IPs no one knows or cares about, years of games trapped in development hell that can't easily recoup costs (if you think FF is costing them, I can't imagine how KH is faring)
@@SableWind I think the release in multi platforms can help a lot at launch, Sony itself reveled that Helldivers 2 sold 12 million units in the first 3 months, so steam and console could easily help ff7rebirth something around 6 million in the same time frame, I believe. But I completely agree they're spending too much on not so sure bets, a Gaas for example, will hardly hit milestones since most people tend to stick to their favourite gaas and won't play other game to buid up a strong account all over again.
Keep in mind that Final Fantasy XVI was released more than a year ago, the problem isn't that selling 3 million copies in its first months wasn't bad, the problem is that it's not selling more copies as of the date hereof
FF is not the problem. Babylons Fall, Forspoken, Avengers and many random titles are. It‘s stupid to only look at exclusivity. There is way more broken than that.
@@pablocasas5906because it was a ps5 exclusive of course it won’t meet their expectations not everybody has a ps5 these days because the hype died down and people lost interest in the console those people are pc players now they don’t have to worry about console censorship they can have better graphics and frames pc offers much more than these companies consoles
for YEARS people kept asking companies to stop focusing on AAA games and start selling AA games, that's literaly what square did with ALOT of projects they made. and they werent half bad either. many of them were at least good. some were even great. but the problem is, they didnt market it to anybody, almost shadow dropping after anouncing them on their event as if they expected that the brand name alone would sell them.
SE's sales expectations have been silly now for at least 3 console generations. I still vividly remember when they announced back then that the first game of their Lara Croft reboot sold for about 3.6 million units at launch (which is bonkers) - followed by them also saying they lost money on the game and expected almost twice the amount of sales. And this dance has been repeating multiple times now, to the point I'm shocked SE hasn't just been bought out if they are underperforming as much as they claim.
This. I can't remember the last time SE didn't say that a game failed to reach expectations. They seem to be delusional when it comes to their predictions.
@@wood1066 Nope, they said it didn't "meet expectations" either. It was on track to originally, but its sales cooled off too quickly and ultimately didn't.
@@BAMFshee When was that? Because during a sales call back towards the end of January they said it did. Not once this year or last year have I every seen them say otherwise.
@@wood1066 They literally said it in the earnings call that this video is about. "Sales of FF16 did not meet expectations. Initial momentum was in line with expectations, but the games failed to meet the fiscal year target due to slowing momentum. No update from last reported sales figure of 3 million."
I'm a 68 y.o. gamer that has been a geek, gamer since the early 80's. I used to buy platforms just to follow FF series. That was until 7. The first thing that soured me was when the game started leaning towards storyline and drama and less with hand's on experience. The final straw was requiring Internet connection, subs, and multi players. I finally relented and purchased a PS5 this year but still play off the internet.
Square should stop with exclusivity deals Edit: To clarify, I'm referring to the EPIC games store exclusivity deal on PC. Because that is a near-death sentence for PC, even Alan Wake 2 hasn't recouped its costs til now
See I get that, but honestly no one on Xbox buys FF games. If anything put it day and date on PC. When it comes to the Switch they wouldn’t even be able to get half of their games to run on it.
Timed exclusivity with a certain platform is because they believe their game will succeed the best there. Usually, when that’s the case, they then get to porting to everywhere else. One of the problems with Square is that they set their sales targets way too high, especially when the game is on one platform, and not one a lot of people have.
I don't think FF7 Part 3 is in trouble because its development started, and it had to start in some fashion well in advance of Rebirth. Final Fantasy 17 and the future of Kingdom Hearts are multiple other cans of worms.
@LebowskiDee That's hardly a relief. Disney is very likely to screw over a project at any point. If they decide that KH III (which had a long tumultuous, and likely costly development) didn't sell enough because it wasn't purchased by the entire population of the world, it's done for.
I even bought the switch version just for fucks and overall I don’t care about getting a better version that’s how good it is, I had the option of ps4 or my gaming laptop/steam deck.
That makes me wonder if developers and publishers will go all out when the Switch's successor gets released. I can imagine there's some developers who wished to release some games on Nintendo, but the current Switch can't handle them
@@pablocasas5906 going all out is releasing the full pc version…similar to gaming on Steam deck or pc…even though your hardware might be weaker now when the next system or your update comes, you can just turn up the graphics and resolution….now if your speaking its own custom ports then yeah it’s going to happen again.
@pablocasas5906 likely if they can get a fraction of swotch 2s sold near the pace of switch 1 it and be reasonably powerful enough to muster to effort cost to make a port they might.
@@chillnspace777 it depends on game as well just because switch sells millions does not meat certain third party developers will benefit from it…sniper elite 4( fantastic switch port btw) I even purchased day 1 for switch…it was out for years on the other systems $80 special edition and only 3-4 players online…the pvp was a drag.
"The larger games, are relatively unaffected." Idk, when have very few rain makers trying to float multiple projects at once, you start to see the cracks.
Square if you want money just put the Kingdom Heart's games on the Switch. But like, actually put the games on the Switch. Not fucking Cloud versions of it.
I think the issue why all mainline Kingdom Hearts games were released as Cloud versions on the Switch were probably due to some sort of mandate from the higher-ups at S-E or Disney, I can imagine some executive demanding that all KH games were available on Nintendo to coincide with Sora's inclusion in Smash Ultimate, but that included Kingdom Hearts III, since the game was still kind of new, but the porting KH III to the Switch would've been impossible and they weren't able to just port I, II and 3D natively while III was only a Cloud game, so they reached a compromise in that all the KH games on Nintendo would be Cloud based I just hope that S-E and Disney port all of the mainline KH games natively on the Switch's successor
@@pablocasas5906 That would be such a dumb decision to make. They know perfectly well no one was going to buy cloud versions of the game, especially on the Switch. It doesn't even have a LAN port. Unless you buy an OLED Switch. Making them Cloud versions was just a waste of money, not to mention the price that they put on them. Let's hope we get all of them on Switch 2, maybe they can even throw FF7 Remake in there. 🙏🏽
@@TigraSpartan yeah that reply had me scratching my head. Only Octopath was Nintendo exclusive for a bit, the sequel was multiplatform from the get-go. Star Ocean is multiplat. FFVIIR, XVI and Valkyrie were all PS exclusives
Honestly, we still don’t know much about Kingdom Hearts 4. Plus, what Max said about the game not being released soon. I’m not sure about that. The game is owned by Disney but developed by Square. So, I don’t think it would fall under Square’s umbrella exactly. If we don’t get a trailer for KH4 at Summer Games Fest, then yeah… we aren’t seeing KH4 till 2026 or later
@@Tkj1990 You’d be surprised. The hype for KH3 and the *somewhat* failure it had caused a number of people to falter on the series. Granted, that could be only KH3’s reaction. But with KH4 being a new leaf into a whole new story arc it could drive new players in. Especially if a Star Wars Episode 6 world is utilized. Using Luke, Han, and Leia along with Darth Vader respectively and in an exciting fashion would draw new players into the game.
@@antisocial372 Work on KH4 is honestly based on speculation alone. But with the game having been… “worked on” since (2020) Re:Mind and even before then, the game has to have a good amount of work done on it. Plus, the footage shown of KH4 was on UE4 but Nomura mentioned that it would be fully developed on UE5. Not to mention, Nomura did mention at a Conference about the future of the series being affected but didn’t go into detail. I’m betting this has to do with Disney and their relationship with Epic. Possibly connecting UE5 development with KH4.
I'm pretty sure that game is still in development, Enix wouldn't shelved the remake of one of their most popular titles from its history, and I don't think it has to do with the passing of Akira Toriyama, and Koichi Sugiyama for that matter.
@@pablocasas5906 honestly dragon quest as a whole has been largely ignored despite the good reception of 11 with poor marketing to the west that Sqaure are very guilty in doing, the entire series of FF is quite easy to get nowadays where is dragon quest isn't for some reason and just simple ports of mainly the mobile versions which dor the most part in terms of content would be satisfactory but strangely have not really thought of that for some bizarre reason. they announced a new project for yoko taro to do which it's kind of surprising they haven't really used him as much despite automata, he did get some stuff later like replicant remaster but the rest are side lesser projects which are mostly fine and taro is still putting effort it's just strange they haven't given him another big game to work with
@@nightwish1453 yeah, there's seem to be some issues regarding the Dragon Quest series since there were some changes in the managenent of the series. I'd say Enix lost a huge opportunity in regards to growing the franchise, especially with the popularity of the Switch in Japan and elsewhere. Back in the GBA , DS and 3DS eras there tons of high-quality spin-offs and remakes from old games and the DS and 3DS saw the release of two mainline titles (IX and XI). While there were some interesting spin-offs released in the last few years like DQ Builders II & II and Monsters 3, it's kind of worrying the fact that the DQ III remake is taking so long, or that there hasn't been an Itadaki/Fortune Street game for the Switch, especailly with the popularity of Mario Party and Momotaru Dentetsu
I'm glad they've figured it out. A lot of us have PCs, and they aren't cheap. We don't want to buy a PS5, especially when the PS5 doesn't offer anything over what a PC can. If they consider moving a lot of their older exclusive titles to a PC format, I'll personally be ecstatic, and sure others will too.
@@edrez1I mean the PC ports for Rebirth and the fact that Crisis Core got a remaster with many assets from Rebirth came out on everything pretty much proves this statement wrong.
Square doesn't have a choice but to support PC. As Nintendo and Microsoft insist on releasing underpowered systems that can't even match the minimum required for Helldivers 2. The GPU needs at least 4GB of VRAM to even boot the game.
That's because A) they made a marketting slam dunk pairing the game with the right audience, and B) people who own a Switch more often than not, are big gamers in general, spend most of their Switch time gaming, and want to buy new games. The same isn't always guaranteed for the other consoles. Listen to what Max is saying about attach rates. Also Octopath was an incredibly charming and fresh game.
@@clydu91 it’s wild to call them a Flop lol. Both have been successful critically and commercially just didn’t hit internal goals. Especially Rebirth. They way you people act you’d thing square is millions in debt when they’re still pretty profitable
I’m still surprised that Rebirth wasn’t a MASSIVE success. I thought it would’ve been like what happened with The Dark Knight where the first installment was great and well received but the second would have word of mouth carry this game all year.
Sony was probably betting it would have been a system seller given Remake sold impressively - but even though it was just 4 years ago, it was a drastically different time. In their minds, they may have been thinking people bought the game because it was a Final Fantasy, just like how 15 sold. But 15 was multiplatform and a fresh game. All in all, PC is winning the console war.
It did well enough. The people who wanted it, bought it. That's what the numbers show. It also shows it didn't appeal to people outside of the fan base or genre, which makes sense. The game (FF7/ FF in general) is niche.
It was a bit of bait and switch. It was heavily marketed as a retelling of the original story, which it isn't. I didn't buy the game precisely for that (and because they outright lied about it having a turn based mode). Also, the fact they decided to make it a three-parter doesn't help. Historically, episodic games never did that well. A lot of people don't want to play a game only for then having to wait years to go on with the story. Add to it that I didn't buy a PS5. I was turned off by the fact they implemented censorship so heaviliy on it. I stuck to Switch + PC, this gen. I'm not a fan of them catering to politically correct activism.
The thing is that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has a lot of thing going against it: - The fact that is a direct sequel, which requires players to ay least know what the previous game was about before jumping to the sequel, so it has a huge barrier of entry for new players; - That there's plenty of people that didn't feel like upgrade to a PS5; - There's some folk who didn't like the changes made to the story in Remake; - FFVII Remake came during the pandemic, and that actually benefited its sales in some aspects; - There's plenty of people, especially young ones, who don't actually care about Final Fantasy VII, or FF in general.
It is definitely underperforming but the sales are good enough to the point where they aren't going to touch their AAA titles since they're the only things keeping them revenue positive. Both things can be true at once!
@@Northymark2 with final fantasy 16 out of the way hopefully there will be a bit more content this time round, I felt end Walker was driving through the heel when it came to content.
@77wolfblade FFXVI had no impact on FFXIV. EW had tons of content, plus significant system changes, but the reward and grind structure had a lot of criticism
I didn't even know these games existed. Like, if I'm going to play any Square Enix game, it's probably the weird non-flagship games, and even I didn't hear of these. Where's the marketing for these games?
Ive seen a lot of Japanese game companies make last minute pivots when they should've years ago when they saw their impending doom coming a mile away. Sega would still be a console producing company had they listened to their American branch in regards to releasing different consoles within years of each other. If Nintendo didn't have a strong dedicated fanbase they'd be in the same boat. I hope Square can recover before they go under.
Square is 90% multiplay it's only they're big 3A releases that are not. It's not an exclusivity issue it's a Brand issue, just admit FF isn't what it used to be.
What? Nintendo doesn't really do last minute pivots. That's why people like you always hate on them. "They are always off doing their own thing in their own world. Following their own rules. blah, blah"
@@ericp631 Lol people like me. All I said was that they're afforded the luxury of making a lot of dumb decisions because they have a strong enough fanbase. They could easily do simple things such as improve the performance of their consoles and online experience. I don't hate Nintendo. I'm just not gonna show any blind allegiance to them, Sony, or Microsoft.
@@RandomBlackGamer it's not about not criticizing them, it's being accurate in those criticisms. They have problems that are unique to them, but they don't act like the other japanese companies is all.
"this is one of the most expensive projects in the history of gaming" "let's make it an exclusive, that'll help us with the fiscal report" -some guy at square, apparently.
The exclusives were noted as a financial highlights in SEs financial report...the exclusive angle is a false narrative. Takashi Mochizucki is known to have bad info it pains my heart to see his stuff used here of all places.
Yea this is why you shouldn't listen to gamers about most things. The online consensus right now is that the exclusivity deals are to blame, but that's a gross over simplification. The exclusivity deals streamline development and reduce costs. The PS5 user base is basically 2x the size of the Xbox S/X user base. Would developing multi-platform FF games help ship more games? Sure. But it won't be a night and day difference. Development times will be longer and costs higher with a multi-platform strategy too. Square overall just had a bad strategy. Releasing FF16 and Rebirth within 300 days was not brilliant, inflating sales expectations for their biggest titles to help compensate for expected losses in other units was terrible planning, and a product portfolio that needs improvement all came together to bite Square over the last year. The next mainline FF games should sell much better as the console user bases increase over the next few years. As long as they budget the projects properly and don't compete with themselves, Square will be fine. The short term outlook will be shaky though.
@@rsoxboy Exactly thank you! And not for nothing we have the sales numbers to show Xbox users aren't buying these games (Crisis Core sold 6% total on Xbox). 3rd party deals are being villainized when in all actuality they subsidize so much development/marketing costs it fundementally changes the level of freedom the team has to create and they also get to work without the fear of collapsing if sales expectations are missed which is more of a benefit now than ever before. So many people are either too gung-ho to call an end to exclusives without looking at the benefits it's just game+ more people=better but that's really not all there is to it and thats definitely not the crux of SEs issues they specifically note shifting focus on core IP and cancelling multiple projects. All this info from the horses mouth and it's dismissed for tabloids that'll now be regurgitate en masse because they saw it in a Maximilian video so it MUST be legit.
@@thepews1511 I wish ppl would think more on their sales strategy and the marketing they do for games. For example I fully expect nobody knowing that the next mana game is releasing this summer. But really I think the writing was on the wall once they started selling all those AA games back to back a couple years ago for full price
Finally, someone with a brain in this comment section. It's ridiculous how people here failed to check the information themselves and go by the word of media headlines. The FF exclusives are doing well and was profit for Square.
@@rsoxboyTook the words right out of my mouth. I've posted similar comments on other videos regarding the topic but people disregard it calling me a "fanboy"
Absolutely. THIS. When Microsoft _a $3 trillion Company_ is gutting its game studios to make the number go up for shareholders it's really hard for devs to find ANYWHERE that's stable where they're not having to risk getting tossed into a meat grinder for cash to make a weak fiscal year have the number still go up.
@@Blast_S_rank_1 It's also worth noting that all of the dev and architectural investment for being heavily PS5-centric for its focus on titles like Rebirth were commitments that were in place pre-pandemic. You're just looking at solid bets that played out differently than expected for factors it's REALLY hard to factor in for, and them pivoting to address them like a smart company does. Cuts and things always suck, but at least there's a bit of hope that they're making changes that will ultimately make their games reach the audience who wants to play them. It took forever for them to understand that Steam is a better platform than Mobile for the West for games like Ever Crisis, so it's also that the Japanese & Global markets are VERY different in ways that feel obvious from the outside, but are less clear from the other perspective.
I hope FF7 - 3 does not take too long for Sony release. Come on - papa wants to know where the story goes! Good analysis Max. Time for the gaming industry to shake it like a Polaroid picture for change.
With all the recent Western game industry drama of lay offs and Sony PSN controversies, it's abundantly clear to me that the strategies used by Western corporations are terrible for game development, so much that it has even affected originally Japanese corps like Sony and SquareEnix. Every other Japanese game studio has been doing exceptionally well, not only having no layoffs, but even increased employee pay across the board. Capcom, Bamco and even Nintendo has all raised their overall pay, while Western studios are just doing layoffs after layoffs. SquareEnix has now cut ties with all Western studios, hopefully they can stop spreading their resources too thin and pick it up, and cut ties with Sony, they're just a liability.
It all comes back to how the law is setup for corporate shit, where Japan at least actually kept a lid on a lot of the more egregious things executives could do, whereas America just openly embraced corporations fucking people over
A side factoid about the japanese pay raises. They are separate from legal-mandated raises and likely a reaction to aggressive poaching from outside asian companies like NetEase and Mihoyo that established japanese-based studios.
Western studios and companies are just dicking around at this point. Not even serious. I see every good Japanese studio finding their way. Even SE. I have no hope for western studios.
Moving Sony HQ to california was a mistake since day 1, its not run by smart business people or artists only activists that hate entertainment, IF Sony HQ would go back to japan the industry will start healing again.
@@slifer875 I actually fully agree with this. If they can take the knowhow back to Japan and cut with the political bullshit that California seems to only be doing these days it will be better for everyone. Except for the no life activists but fuck them.
It'd be nice, but I'm not sure if S-E would make some sort of spin-off title with turn-based combat to appeal to old-school fans, the latest time they did it was with 4 Heroes of Light and since then it seems S-E prefers to make games that are Final Fantasy in name only, like Bravely Default and Octopath Traveller. I think they have a fear of diluting the FF brand by releasing a major spin-off on Nintendo consoles, it's the opposite of what Capcom did with Monster Hunter Rise
I guess this could confirm that FF7Remake will come to Switch 2 as some leaked information said that Nintendo displayed the console running FF7Remake and an enhanced version of BoTW
If the leaked specs for the Switch 2 are correct, I think the console would be able to run Final Fantasy VII Remake as well as in a PS4 Pro, but the question then rises in regards to future Square-Enix games. While I'm sure Dragon Quest XII will arrive in the next Switch, I'm not so sure about future games, especially considering how Final Fantasy games always love to push graphics to the limit
I dunno, I see people saying that Remake part 1's good sales lead to the scope of Rebirth expanding. If the sales of one title can effect the other, are we absolutely sure that they're not changing the scope of part 3 due to the slumping sales of part 2? Is everything gruly set in stone already?
It is not surprising because I never even knew that crisis or existed when it first came out because I saw no advertisement until I saw it on PlayStation five so I didn’t know about it
Money has been tight for many people these last few years. PS5's are still floating around $500. Games are releasing at $60-70 for the base version and well over $100 for the super-ultra platinum edition with ingame glamour gear. Many people cannot afford to buy more than a couple games a year these days. I was lucky I could afford to buy a PS5 just to play Rebirth and a few other games like FF16, GoW Ragnorak, and Horizon Forbidden West plus DLC expansions for 2 of those games. My controller went bad less than a year after I got it and I had to buy another $80 controller. That's nearly $1000 in video game stuff in only a year.
Qman even myself I still to this day can't get a PS5 so I still have the four like to say not everybody can get a console and most of the games that you see on the 5 is the same thing like you see on the PS4 so it's no different of what you're seeing.
I doubt that's the issue. 1000$ in a year for ANY hobby is rather normal. They had a big boom during COVID, that was a bubble. Now people are returning to their normal routine. Also, stuff like catering to activism and politically correctness doesn't help. Lack of competition between the companies doesn't help (competition was WAY harsher 1-2 console gens ago). And I think they generally alienated part of their audience with some unpopular design choices.
Octopath Traveller 2 was a magnificent hidden gem of last year. Graphics, storytelling, gameplay, musics (my goodness, the musics !!!)... After the Mana series, the Final Fantasies, and the Chrono, the Octopath series could have the potential to become square's new flagship franchise. That kind of news makes me fear it's gonna be the last one.
The only issue i see this, them going multiplatform, is the development for each of the platforms. We know making a game for each platforms, PC, mobile or consoles, will have some quirks to fix during development. Though if they got a good workflow setup, so that their titles can be on all platforms, I believe they can do it.
I just hope that this decision doesn’t mess up the development for ff7 part 3 and kh4. I am all for multi-platform but my god, please take their time on the development cuz I want the game to be how they wanted it.
While I want Square-Enix to take their time, I hope that the third part for the Final Fantasy VII project will arrive at least on 2027, just to coincide with the OG game's 30th anniversary
I think it's important to point out, that in Square-Enix's latest "Financial Highlights", they said that games like FF16 and FF7 Rebirth had "solid performances". And it's also important to remember, that Hamaguchi(Rebirth's director), was promoted to an executive position within the company, one month after the game was released. So Square-Enix is happy with Rebirth. The problem is everything else.
The problem with capitalism is that companies HAVE to grow contantly. If they reach market saturation and their growth stops, it's VERY BAD financially. It means they either solve it, have to sell the company, or they willingly decide to shrink, cutting costs, and restart being a much smaller company, to then try grow again.
@@Shendue Though Western companies seem to be especially susceptible to this. Eastern globe companies are also privy to these rules yes. But they seem slightly more resilient and suborn in how long they give themselves to weather the storm.
The reason why Playstation exclusives have been consistently such high quality over the last decade is specifically because of that cross-studio communication you reference. That was one of the huge talking points from Sony when they reworked everything between the PS3 and PS4, getting their studios to work together instead of treating them all separately.
Sony hasn't had a first party exclusive worth mentioning in years. Bloodborne was the last good one, it's been turd person hallway simulators and boring open world trash like Last of Us, Horizon, and GoW ever since.
It's not they probably have an exclusivity contract with Sony whom I'm sure helped pay for the whole thing. But they just won't do that going forward which makes sense they have split their releases for awhile like switch exclusives.
Nah. Nintendo teams share what they learn with each other. It's why Nintendo has Monolith Soft help a lot of their development while also having Monolith Soft work on their game..
If you've read any of the Iwata Asks interviews it becomes clear just how much Nintendo values the sharing of knowledge and how much of that knowledge is institutionalized. Many employees have commented on how working at Nintendo instills a certain philosophy about game making, so knowledge is being shared on both the technical and creative fronts. Nintendo's president highlighted the importance of this as recently as their latest shareholders meeting.
Gamepass and PSPlus have conditioned everyone not to buy games...the industry is killing itself. These subscription services kind of have to be toned down or stop, if we want our games to have a future.
I doubt the move to multiplatform would effect Remake Part 3 in any significant way. It’s an exclusive and will remain that way for however long. It’s not like it’ll be on PC or whatever day 1.
I find it weird bc Kingdom Hearts is like Squares only game that went multiple platform before any of this was this maybe bc Disney said fuck you we want as much money as possible and that means selling the games on all platforms. I know PC and switch were much later but it came out on Xbox and PlayStation same time
Thing is, the Square Enix blunderbus strategy might not have been good for their bottom line, but it was great for those of us who love experimental Square that just does a bunch or weird and different games rather than just doing FF and DQ games. These last 3-4 years has been like late 90’s Squaresoft in terms of output, and it’s been great. I know a lot of people are going “wHo hAvE eVeN hEArD oF tHeSe gAmEs, bRo?”, but thing is, the same thing happened when Squaresoft was pumping out games in the late 90’s, and now a lot of those games are considered classics and hidden gems. People may not appreciate it now, but in a decade or so this era will be looked back upon as another golden era for Square, and I wish more would appreciate while we had it (and actually bought the games) rather than lament that we lost it years after the fact. We’re about to enter another mid to late 2000’s era of Square, and it’s not gonna be fun. Hope you like FF & DQ remakes and mobile games, because that’s all we’re about to be getting.
Yeah, but those games back then were actually impressive and didn't demand much in terms of visual quality so all the effort could just be focused on great gameplay while having a great presentation. Games like Chrono Cross was like GOTY for 2000 and it didn't have the production quality of its predecessor. Games like Valkyrie Elysium deserved much better. The Valkyrie series was their hidden gem before it was even a Square game, so in one hand there's these development costs, and in the other hand there's a legacy to be maintained. Today's experimental games just get the short end of the stick.
@@LostChildOfTime Their experimental games of the late 90’s got small budgets and devs times as well. None of them got even remotely close to the same budget as FF 7-10. Brave Fensher Musashi, Einhänder, Racing Lagoon, Erhgeiz, Valkyrie Profile, Bushido Blade, etc did not get even a 100th of the budget of a contemporary FF game, same as their modern equivalents like Triangle Strategy, Voice of Cards, Various Daylife, Harvestella, etc. Visual quality is a subjective metric. And back in the 90’s, none of the games I mentioned was considered as good looking as the FF games, which were considered the graphical peak of the medium at the time (FF8, 9 and 10 especially). Same as the modern small budget games of Square vs their modern FF games. And personally, I think their modern low budget games look good for the most part, even though I’m not a fan of all their art styles (not a big HD-2D fan, and Diofield is kinda ugly). Plus people tend to care less about the graphical difference between big and small budget games nowadays than we did in the 90’s, when graphics were still rapidly improving. Would I want their experimental games today to get bigger budgets, sure. Or at the very least bolder art direction choices that stand even with smaller budgets. But I’d rather they get low budgets and still get to exist than be axed all together.
despite what you say I find DQ somewhat ignored by them like despite all the effort for the ds remakes which later most of them got ported to mobile they haven't thought of re-porting it elsewhere along with not even giving much of a push on the newer games because they poorly market DQ in the west and infamously so, same things can be said to the new jrpgs like bravely or octopath. like it just felt like square just focused on FF and a bunch of very mainstream IPs and that's it so to me it came across as less experimental then it did prior heck i found more appeal in the games that had less attention to the ones they wanted to me to focus on. after their statement they have grabbed yoko taro back for big project to work on so honestly feel like they are focusing on their niche more and being more experimental then they have as of late
They can't afford to keep it exclusive if they are expecting fewer future releases. There are a lot of people who just want to play the series once it's all released before starting Remake.
So what is saying is that FF will still be on PS, but also in other consoles? If so, thats a good thing because even tho I am a PS player, I can agree in a case like this.
I'd say that God of War and Spider-Man are much more attractive to casual players, I know that this might be difficult to accept for many people, but many younger players, and I mean even milleanials, aren't very interested in the Final Fantasy series as a whole. I mean, FFVII came out in '97, even if the youngest people who played it during its original launch are probably in their mid-30s right now. I feel that Square hasn't done a particularly good job at introducing the FF series to younger players
@@pablocasas5906that sounds like FF has quality issue. FF7 original didnt have issue attracting casuals. Good games will attract casuals. It doesnt matter how complicated it is. It happened to all the nerdiest of games. Souls games appealed to casuals despite its reputation of being obtuse, elder scroll appeales to casuals despite being nerdy lore game, persona being weabo games, etc. Stop blaming others for Square and FF's failure. FF games are simply not that well made these days, it's that simple.
If i remember correctly, having a console/platform exclusivity helps investors, bc the platform sign and agree to a minimum number of sales and profit for SE. Epic did that with their timed exclusivity on EG for KH3.
As someone who platinumed Forspoken, Star Ocean & Diofield Chronicle, as well as trying Babylon’s Fall, Valkyrie Elysium and Foamstars: I actually think Square Enix received far too much unfair bad faith criticism for their games. I feel like they release a decent although unremarkable 6 out of 10 game and people leap on them like vultures claiming they’re the worst games of the year. Their reputation almost worked against them, as people expected so much more. Yet if another dev released some of these games, they’d be in the very positive ratings for reviews and people would find enjoyment in them. This might discredit anything I just said, but it was even the same for Metal Gear Survive. Again I did 100% on it, and it was actually a very competent and polished survival game, yet it got scathing reviews due to the circumstances of its publisher.
konami screwed over kojima and turned MG into a survival action game, rightfully, people were pissed that the guy who created the series got the boot, and we got death stranding because of that all the other stuff is just ''go woke, go broke/DEI/libtards'' reactionary vitriol, set out to tank a game before it even releases a gameplay video, not actually reviewing the game, but driving a narrative based on what is effecitvely conspiracy theories about replacing white or straight protags with people of colour, reeks of bigoted purism
@@knuckles543if this was just empty hate, why did a lot of these games like forspoken, tank so hard? Can't people think for themselves and choose to play them anyway? It seems like the game was honestly bad because even the ones like you who say these critiques aren't deserved couldn't save the game from failure...
@@knuckles543 And forcing activism on all gamers isn't bigoted purism? Conspiracy theories my butt. There are literally consulting agencies like Sweet Baby Inc. that do nothing but work on games to ensure "inclusivity". Square literally built an internal department to check on their work to ensure it fits modern western sensibilities. Conspiracies aren't real. They are unsubstantied fantasies. It's hardly a fantasy when it's a documented fact. The fact you personally don't care either way, or agree with them, doesn't mean your views necessarily align with the vast majority of gamers. A large part of gamers dislike censorship on a matter of principle and think ideological activism in games is out of place. Deal with it.
@@AurumfaeI'd say Forspoken is more of a mid game, unfortunately tainted by the internet (particularly culture warriors) dunking on it (maybe deservedly?), so it gets way more unfair a hate than they deserved Mid games nowadays, in my view, can't just be mediocre or meh on its own anymore, there has to be a culture war lens applied to it because it's political when a mid game decides to have non-white protags in it or smth
It seems Max and a lot of people are misunderstanding about SE financial report and quickly pointed the finger at Sony + exclusivity, when SE biggest problem here is not Sony or "platform exclusivity" but their *messy management that produced low / mediocre quality games and unnecessary projects* . Like example SE spent a lot of money for NFT projects and all of them doesn't lead to anything except a big hole in their financial. Or tons of garbage mobile games that only got closed down in less than a year. Not to mention, SE sold mid AA games like The DioField Chronicle, Saga Emerald Beyond, or Star Ocean 6 at $50-60 which all of them are multiplats and failed to sold well. Even if FF XVI or Rebirth sold 100 million copies in less than 3 months, the money will not enough to cover all bad decisions or flops. edit: Forgot to add, SE has great multiplat AA games like Octopath Traveler 2 or Neo TWEWY. But both games also doesn't sold that much with Octopath 2 only sold like a million copies (not sure if SE consider that as a success) and Neo TWEWY 'has underperformed our initial expectations' said ex SE President. Another problems with SE are their unrealistic target sales and no marketing for their AA games that has positive receptions.
I know, you could argue that Enix could had appeal to some nostalgic fans from the original The Adventure of Dai manga, but it was clearly based on the new anime series
Have not played and avoided the internet for ff7 rebirth simply due to not owning a ps5 and am waiting for the pc version. As soon as it lands ill be first to buy.
Star ocean the second story r was very successful commercially and critically! It was brilliant! And FF7 Part 3 isn't in trouble at all, they are resetting the company so its dipping before rising again, also DQ12 is literally what they need since its their biggest rpg in Japan and it will do numbers! That game need to be on all platforms and it will sell A LOT!
I heard rumours about Bravely Default 3, which is done by the same team that does Octopath Traveler, so maybe there is hope. Octopath Traveler 2 was my GOTY.
Idk about it being better than FF7, but Octopath Traveler definitely deserves to keep being made. It's one of those games that is great all around with very few actual flaws, which you don't see very often from smaller titles (and major titles nowadays...)
Dragon Quest Monsters hit last year, too--my most-anticipated of the year. As far as I heard, that did pretty well--but only relative to their expectations of it as a more budget title.
They throw stuff on Xbox I'll buy it, already planning on double dipping on Octopath II when it drops and if the current two FF7R's drop and we gotta wait for part 3 on Xbox that'd be fine and it'd lemme catch up. Mind you there may not be many people on Xbox clammoring like I am to show support but we are here and want to show our love for the franchise too.
PC is such a huge market that if I ever made a game there wouldnr even be a question, I'd release my game there above every other platform right on Steam. Forget Datamines and Leaks, forget making people wait
Square Enix owners will never be satisfied with the sales numbers. I can assure you even with the PlayStation exclusive deal the sales number is quite high (IMO around 5-8 million copies) but greed has no bounds. If They are so desperate for sales then They should release their flagship titles like FF16 and FF7 Rebirth to other platforms such as Windows, Xbox and even Nintendo as soon as They can deliver. They publish very popular franchises so sales aren't an issue.
Not gonna lie, if they can actually get the entirety of the Remake trilogy running well on Switch 2 then I would probably double dip. I'm actually still slowly working my way through Rebirth and I feel like I'd have already beaten it had it been on a Switch-like system (and ran decently well) because there's a LOT of things that I would prefer to do in that game laying down in bed or lounging outside that would be much less tedious being freed from the tether of my television.
Yeah, but I guess by that time the PS5 will have sold at least over 100 million units and perhaps Remake Intergrade and Rebirth will have increased their sales a bit, maybe giving the third part a little boost to their sales, but who knows, I feel we are 3 or more years away from the release of Part 3 and many things can happen in the meantime
The point is if being on PC at the time it came out did nothing for it because console gamers don't rock with PC like that, it's usually one of the other units you got that kind of money. 2 by it being cell phone focused out heavily limited is market share when it comes to people who care about ff7
Max is the only youtuber and journalist that actually read the earnings report and understood it... FF is not in jeopardy and sales of it aren't rhe direct reason for Squares shift. While the exclusivity doesn't help, the biggest issues are all the smaller games not selling at all as well their bloated mobile game side that is filled with failures
I respectfully don't agree with u . They did an amazing job with this game. I feel remake sales helped alot because of the pandemic because alot of people were at home
@@spiderhulk26 Its not the question anymore of Rebirth is good or bad, we are way beyond that. The actual question is, if FF7 Rebirth is the worst game ever made actually. Thats how bad it is
@@Alex-Omega there is alot of really good games people will have different opinions on is it bad or good game . And to alot of people rebirth is considered to be a really good game
I really hope you're right about the Epic deals likely stopping too. I've not got Rebirth yet because never got a PS5, but the Epic deal stopped me bothering to get Remake on PC when I still wanted to play more of it too. I ended up buying Strangers in Paradise on Epic, but played it a lot less than I would have since I needed to boot up an extra service to run it (always talk to friends on Steam so it's always open regardless)
