Final Fantasy 16 dev reveal lower profits than expected, shifting to multiple platforms

Final Fantasy developers are not satisfied with the profit margins of FF 16 and 7 Rebirth in the latest briefing. According to the president, both the games cannibalized each other’s sales. Hence, the company plans for multiple platform strategies and extends the time for future titles.

The briefing on the games’ financial results was held on May 13th. These results were shared today, September 18th. 

According to Takashi Kiryu, president and representative director of Square Enix, the HD games sub-segment could have performed better profit-wise. This segment contained newly released titles such as Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Kiryu stated that “these titles did not meet our expectations”.

Final Fantasy games cannibalized each other’s sales 

The president of Square Enix further stated the apparent reason for lower profits.  He says the failed strategy of releasing both parts in the same financial year ending March 2024. 

“We did not manage our title portfolio across the company as well as we could have, which I believe resulted in opportunity losses due to cannibalization between our own titles.” says Takashi Kiryu

Both Final Fantasy parts had a gap of only over half a year between them. Final Fantasy 16 had its release in June 2023, while Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was released in February 2024. 

The sales figure of Final Fantasy 16 was announced by Square Enix, selling over 3 million copies during the first week of launch. However, the company has yet to share the sales performance of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, which is the second game in the FF 7 remake trilogy.

Square Enix aims for multiple platforms in the future

As Square Enix is working to increase its profitability, the company has announced a new multi-platform plan. This plan includes PC, while Xbox is also a potential partner. Additionally, the next Nintendo console is also on the list. 

Recently Final Fantasy 16 was released on PC , both on Steam and Epic Games. Although the company has made decisions to cancel several games to curate the sequence of their games releases in a better way. 

Future titles will have enough gaps between their timeline

The new strategy of Square Enix is to extend the time between the future title releases. Kiryu revealed two reasons for this. One is the “massive amount of time required to develop HD games” while the other is to have enough time to strategize the delivery of these titles in the best possible way. 

Apart from Final Fantasy, Square Enix is also struggling with Foamstars, which has an underwhelming performance and is now available for free gameplay.

The future anticipated releases for Square Enix are Kingdon Hearts, the final part of FF 7 remake trilogy and Dragon Quest 12.