General gaming news

[Exoduso]

It went to hell ever since they acquired their competition (Enix, naturally.)

[Tajin]

Wasn't it a fusion of both shares or something like that?

[Exoduso]

Actually I think Enix was the one to acquire Square's shares, but Square's top dogs ended up getting most of the leadership positions in the new company after the merger. I'm pretty sure Squaresoft's old president is now SE's pres.

PS change you damn avatar already, it's too confusing. >.<

[Tajin]

PS change you damn avatar already, it's too confusing. >.<

;; fine.

[Exoduso]

Yay, now you're not Nynja anymore.

[Tajin]

:nikkei:

[BRP]

Isn't FF the fourth best-selling video game franchise? Although I guess you can say the fact that it (the main games) has always appeared on the most popular console for each gen (prior to now) contributes to that.

Maybe overall, but the sales and popularity have been on a steady decline since FF7. The final fantasy name doesn't have nearly the same weight it did in the SNES/PSX eras, and for good reason.

Final Fantasy is always a top seller and sells huge numbers compared to your average game. FF7 did extremely stellar, so it's not so much a decline as it is being unable to recreate those perfect conditions. Also I'm pretty sure post-FFVII is at least as success or more success than pre-FFVII, if no reason other than the market expanding. To dismiss Final Fantasy(or MGS) as important franchises is silly. Don't let the the market's growth fool you. So maybe a couple million buy Halo 3 or Wii/Wii Sports, that doesn't mean they are buying other games(well, Madden too).

[Deejay]

Isn't FF the fourth best-selling video game franchise? Although I guess you can say the fact that it (the main games) has always appeared on the most popular console for each gen (prior to now) contributes to that.

Maybe overall, but the sales and popularity have been on a steady decline since FF7. The final fantasy name doesn't have nearly the same weight it did in the SNES/PSX eras, and for good reason.

Final Fantasy is always a top seller and sells huge numbers compared to your average game. FF7 did extremely stellar, so it's not so much a decline as it is being unable to recreate those perfect conditions. Also I'm pretty sure post-FFVII is at least as success or more success than pre-FFVII, if no reason other than the market expanding. To dismiss Final Fantasy(or MGS) as important franchises is silly. Don't let the the market's growth fool you. So maybe a couple million buy Halo 3 or Wii/Wii Sports, that doesn't mean they are buying other games(well, Madden too).

Other than 7, no Final Fantasy game is in the top 5 games sold for any system. It's not "the" system seller that people think it is.

[izembo]

top5 games <> system seller.

but i agree both ff and mgs are not as much of a system seller as people think, but there are people who wait to buy a sony system for its FF to come out. ive heard it plenty of times at work, whereas ive never heard a person say that they're waiting for mgs to buy a ps3.

[Elcura]

FF and MGS are not system sellers for the majority of people, but don't deny there are people out there waiting to get a PS3 for those games. If anything, the main allure of having FF and MGS is that it's more of a reason to get a PS3, not the reason alone.

[Xavier]

I have no doubt that FF13 and MGS4 will each easily sell a million copies, I expect more from FF13 without much trouble, given the series past. The only way their going to be system sellers, however, is if those 1-2 million people haven't already bought a PS3, because its unlikely that FF13 is going to convince someone with no interest in the series or the PS3 to suddenly pick one up.

[fantasticdan]

Final Fantasy is always a top seller and sells huge numbers compared to your average game. FF7 did extremely stellar, so it's not so much a decline as it is being unable to recreate those perfect conditions. Also I'm pretty sure post-FFVII is at least as success or more success than pre-FFVII, if no reason other than the market expanding. To dismiss Final Fantasy(or MGS) as important franchises is silly. Don't let the the market's growth fool you. So maybe a couple million buy Halo 3 or Wii/Wii Sports, that doesn't mean they are buying other games(well, Madden too).

It is a decline, the sales keep going down, even thou the install base for the consoles kept going up.

Global sales:

Final Fantasy VII - 9.8 million
Final Fantasy VIII - 6 million
Final Fantasy IX - 4.6 million
Final Fantasy X - 6.6 million
Final Fantasy XII - 3.9 million

Yes, I'm sure FFXIII will sell relatively well (compared to the PS3 install base anyway), I'm just saying it won't have nearly the impact other FF games did in previous eras. FF used to bring in many new players to it's franchise and the respective console, but now I think it's mostly running on old fans that will continue to buy things with Final Fantasy # in the name, which will obviously continue to diminish as people grow older, or grow tired of the quality/direction the series is taking. The price-point of the PS3 certainly doesn't help the franchise bring in new players either.

[Xavier]

I think that, honestly, the Final Fantasy series is a victim of its own success. I think the reason that Final Fantasy VII had such amazing sales is because the series just wasn't very well known in America at the time. Yes, you had Final Fantasy games on the NES/SNES, but they didn't have wide appeal and had a much smaller fanbase. When FF7 came along, very few people actually knew what the hell kind of game it was, but they saw it being hyped game, they saw it had great marketing, getting great reviews, great graphics (at the time, anyway), etc.

If you ask a lot of people what their first RPG was, they're going to tell you it was FF7. I think a large part of the record breaking sales from FF7 came from the "first-time" audience, who had no prejudices against the series and were really just giving it a shot based on word of mouth. Most people either love or hate RPGs, so I'm fairly certain a lot of those "first-timers" got turned off and didn't keep up with the series. The other problem the series encountered was that, while the sales of FF8 are good, you can see the decline from the previous installment, and I think a lot of that dissatisfaction came from the game not being an FF7 clone. FF7 was so widely popular that some gamers were turned off of the series when they realized that the next installment was totally different. I have no shame in saying that, although I had played games like Zelda and Metroid before, FF7 was my first true J-RPG, and I became hooked on the genre and backplayed the games in the series, and expanded out to other RPG series as well. But I know that for everyone who had my experience, there were people who reached the conclusions that RPGs are gay and a waste of time.

And now, flash forward 11 years, the series is very well known in America. It isn't going to have the same opportunity to get the curiosity sale it did in the past. The series has its fanbase, it might attract some new gamers who like RPGs, but it isn't going to be able to draw in people who just straight out had no clue what an RPG was anymore.

It doesn't help that the PS3 is too expensive for the impulse buy and that Square itself really hasn't given concrete details on the game at all, nevermind that its release date is a complete mystery (but given the development time of FFXII on the PS2, its quite far away).

[BRP]

I know more people who played X than played VII or played both X or VII. So that's not entirely true.

Second, aside from IX which was the closest thing to a sleeper hit compared to the rest of the series, I'd have to say the fact VII and VIII came out a couple years before X and XII gives them bigger numbers. And again both VII and VIII were ported to the PC. Later final fantasys seem to have bigger first week sales so you'll have to wait until they become as old as the old ones to compare them. VII and VIII is likely remain on top, but not nearly as much.

[Exoduso]

If people put their fanboyish remarks towards FF7 aside (it wasn't THAT great a game, it was just revolutionary for its time..), FF9 was hands down the best PSX FF game (while all 3 were very good in my opinion, especially in terms of story) and it all went downhill with the shift from PSX to PS2 with FFX (no world map/airship? seriously? >.<). Not even going to mention the monstrosity that is FFX-2, or the addicting habits of FFXI, but FF12 wasn't all that great either compared to its PSX predecessors.

Like I said, ever since the Square/Enix merger it hasn't been the same. I suppose I wouldn't be trying too hard either if I didn't have any other big RPG series to compete with, but it does kind of suck.

A lot of people will buy FF13 regardless of how good/bad it is, simply because it's Final Fantasy, and that's where the problem lies.

[Xavier]

Regardless of your opinion of FF7's quality, the reality remains that it was the entry point into the series for a lot of people and the follow up games (they weren't FF7, or they discovered they hated RPGs in general) were their exit point.

[Exoduso]

I never disagreed with that part, I just think that the games that followed it were even better.

And the quality of the FF stories has seriously declined, starting with FFX. All the different twists/prequels/sequels/what have you that they keep releasing (FF7 AC, CC, DC, BC, FF12RW, etc. etc.) are just making it worse (although CC is a good game, get it when it comes out. )

[Mysterio]

I think it may have been Famitsu or something of the sort did a japanese poll and the majority of the respondents said they were waiting to buy a PS3 for MGS4, not FF13.

I think it was a poll of about 100-200 people/readers, I remember it being small. But I do remember the majority was saying MGS4 as opposed to FF13.

And one voter said Ninja Gaiden Sigma, lol


forgive me, no links or anything ; ; this was awhile ago, before Ninja Gaiden was out.

[Xavier]

The only game I personally had a problem with was FFX-2, the point at which the milking of the series became so incredibly that I almost gave up on it. They followed that up with the plethora of Final Fantasy VII: Milk Quest titles, which damaged it even further.

But I still thought that FFX, and FFXII were good games on their own right, I don't think the production values of the main series (story, gameplay, etc) have really declined so much as they've attached the Final Fantasy name to so many shitty spin-offs that its damaging the brand name overall.

[Kazen]

Even though its technically a spinoff sorta(By spinoff I mean its not part of the main series), I think Versus might help change that slightly, its quality doesnt appear to be crappy so far.