Square Enix put a lot of faith into the team behind Final Fantasy XVI. How so? Simply put, they were taking massive swings with this game to try and “shake up” the mainline franchise and deliver deeper storylines that would attract more mature players/gamers. This is one of only two M-rated titles within the franchise, and they were playing to the potential of that rating. However, no matter what they did, it wouldn’t matter if the game didn’t sell. But thankfully for Square Enix, not only did it sell, it set a record for how it sold on the PS5.
As you can see in the official Square Enix tweet below, the game has already sold 3 million copies in less than a week! As an industry insider would later note, this is the fastest-selling title on the PS5. You might think that the title would go to something like God of War Ragnarok, but you’d be wrong. Remember, that game came out on both PS5 and PS4, so the numbers apparently were a little more evenly divided between them.
How does this compare to other Square Enix titles in the mainline series? Well, that’s where things get tricky. For example, Final Fantasy VII Remake sold around 3.5 million in its first week, but that came out exclusively on PS4 when it had a much wider audience base. The PS5 is doing better now that the supply chain issues are fixed, but its numbers are still much smaller than PS4 currently.
As for how it compares to Final Fantasy 15, it’s well behind that as it sold 5 million in its first week. But that game came out on both the PS4 and Xbox One, so that meant it had two consoles to try and get lots of sales from, and it worked.
So has the PS5 exclusivity hurt the game? Not necessarily. Just because a game is exclusive doesn’t mean it’s a failure due to slow sales at the start. How many people have the console is a big factor. Plus, given the reviews for Final Fantasy XVI, the game will be one that many people get over time when they finally get the console themselves.
As for what this says about the PS5, it shows that more people are getting the system and are willing to get the big games that are coming out for it. Sony will want to continue that trend going forward, and seeing them do it will be interesting.
