Fujito 4gamer Interview

Last I'd seen, sales in Japan are as good or better than the rest of the world, in terms of attach rate% relative to PS5 install base. Technically, a larger percent of Japanese PS5 owners bought FFXVI than Japanese Switch owners bought Tears of the Kingdom.

The bigger thing is that the home console market has been on a downward trend in Japan, and the PS5 is continuing that trend. It's just the extreme example of what you already said, there just aren't that many potential customers. Pretty much, if a game doesn't come out on Switch, its Japanese numbers are going to be meh.

Yeah you're right, but in the past (probably before FFXV era though) FF in japan used to sell much more than in the rest of the world.
So the fact that this time it's selling pretty close to what it's selling in the rest of the world could be seen as a somewhat colder response by the japanese public.

Then again this has been a trend for quite a long time, and much of it has to be blamed on all the things you said.


So really yeah, depsite the clickbait news you can read in several websites (and then copypasted everywhere else) FF16 so far didn't really sell that bad at all, considered how many PS5s are around.


If someone wants to say FF16 sucks they're free to say it of course, but please don't use the "bad sales" as something to support your point because it's kinda moot.

FF12 is my favourite FF battle system as well. Enough room for "rpg mechanics", but without annoying random encounters and battle field switch. It's sad that SE never make battle systems like this anymore.

I am never the fan of action/menu hybrid in FF7re too. It feels super weird to press a button to attack/guard/evade but use a pause menu for special moves and spells.

To me it's either full menu real time battle like FF12 or full action like ff16. Somewhere in between feels lame tbh.

Who is a fan of that, really?
It's a missed opportunity.
They could've made classic mode so much better instead of the last min useless addition that it is.
In that form, classic mode is sorta pointless if you ask me.

But yeah, trying the "two birds with one stone" approach can potentially be a decent solution.
A sorta real-time based battle system, with an alternative gameplay mode where a few things change and you have more time to decide your actions, pick stuff from menus etc. I mean if you like it... sure, hey we're giving it to you as a secondary option.
Bang! Two birds with one stone.

If they wanna go that route they definitely have to plan it better though, and from the beginning. Not the last min rushed pointless thing they added in FF7R.

Yeah, which was done so poorly on ff16 that it became a fresh new mega title that nobody talks about anymore. If you like the new stuff, then you are definitely their target audience.

You are also wrong on the battle-system aspect. While I mentioned that the jump-flip-in-the-air-100combololzer-battle-system isn't the only thing wrong with ff16, the battle-systen is important, and it could alienate players. There is nothing special in ff13-15-16. That's why nobody remembers or mentions them as top FF titles. Ff16 didn't survive its first month. Even SE walked away from by spending tons on advertisement for Ff14 new expansion.

Funny thing is, SE knows how to do ARPG's, Trials of Mana is a good example of this along with Dungeon Siege 3. But I guess they really wanted to push the Final Fantasy Versus line instead.

The Persona series as a HUGE cult following.

It also has tentacle *** monsters.

Are you being serious ? That's judging the older entries with rose tinted glasses. FF didn't wait for XIII to have flashy/edgy/whatever characters. Nomura made a lot of them before that.

Also not sure what you're going for with making the game look good. It's always been like that with the series, it always tried to be a graphical showcase.

Makes sense though and doesn't surprise me. What calibre of grown-*** adults have the time to invest in such things, probono?
The type that were rejected from everything and everyone else, for the most part.
Like you say though, there are gems of people out there with true altruism and good ethics, values who just want to be productive members of society and communities or/and love the game that much.
But overall, you were getting society's rejects applying.

The last 10-15 years has seen a lot of experimentation and diversification from SE, in the types of games and genres they participate in. That was a conscious decision they made at a strategic level to diversify their customer base and revenue streams. that, until there is absolutely sound.
What was their blunder was using their flagship series, FF, to be the experimentation guinea pig. In taking that route they upset their core fan base, and haven't achieved a position of primacy in any other genre as a result.
They should have kept FF titles for the purest, loyal fan base, and depended on their corporate brand, Square Enix to be the prime driver in attracting new customers.
They've always been terrible at marketing and customer interfacing. So bad that the JP onry meme is a direct result of their terrible ability to understand their customers.

Tbh...persona 5 is from way back in 2016, that's kinda before waves of recent high quality indie games. In 2016 there aren't many modern turn based games to compare with. Plus Persona 5's art style and presentation is fantastic, so it doesn't even need to rely on game mechanics or battle system to sell.

Most of the very good turn based games are released after 2017. I played Octopath Travelers in 2022 for the first time, at that time I felt OT's gameplay is outdated even though it's a 2018 game, so I couldn't enjoy the game nearly as much as I wish because I can't stop myself from comparing it with other games. I am pretty sure if I play OT before 2010 it'll get a solid 8.5/10 from me. In 2022 the standard is much higher now because every other developers are pushing the bar higher.

My point is, it's impossible to discuss if a game is good or bad without considering time. Anything that was best of the besttttt many years go isn't going to feel the same now.

The discussion is if SE is a healthy company by any metrics we can actually observe. Their Brand as a company is diminished by them publishing a bunch of slop. These are SE games because they put their name on them. They had to sell studios because they kept making terrible games that had their name on them as damage control. You don't get this because you're not paying attention to the discussion.

We all get that you are intentionally ignorant as a discussion strategy and unpleasant to communicate with. We don't need to hear your 'well it's my opinion' when no one is asking for that. If you want to throw yourself at any discussion when people elude that SE games suck feel free.

You posted a bunch of your opinion in a discussion then when people counter with their opinion your reaction is "well nobody asked for your opinion, I don't need to hear it"???

Zeig is right, it's not worth having a conversation with you if you only want a safe space to post your rant about SE. I suggest you start a new thread called "SE sucks, different opinions not allowed here" so people with a different opinion won't need to waste their time in a conversation.

I couldn't have said this better. I also read this same point being made by multiple critics. It's like Apple turning their iphones into foldable phones instead of making a new line of phones.

They could have kept FF as a FF line and deployed these jumpy-slash-in-the-air-combo games as a DMC-like new line.

FF15 was a jumpy-slash-in-the-air-combo (okay, at least the concept video was) and it sold super well.

Of course they are doing the same in ff16 again. It's not tough to see why ff16 followed the same direction even further with previous sales to back it up. You are in marketing, if you see one direction sold super well wouldn't you keep doing it?

Sounds like a reasonable decision judging from the time that ff16 was made.

This has gone waaaay off topic.

I'm sure you'll share your expert opinion

How you doing on finding something that is new and well received?

Octopath 2? FF16? Endwalker?

Dude, it's like talking to a wall, but not even your favorite wall. A basement moldy one. FF16 has been such a disaster it got featured even on non-game magazines like Forbes and Bloomberg.


Some people will defend SE even after SE comes out and admit they messed up. lol. The bootlicking is insane. Fortune Magazine: While TOTK results in a Switch sales surge for Nintendo , FF fans with PS5 turned their backs on it.

I don't want ro repeat the same thing so gonna link Sech's post here, which I agree 100%.



@Godfry

There are some people who hate the game, but many people love it too. The sell isn't on the same level as Zelda, but it isn't a disaster either. It's better than most, just not the best.

Your problem here is that you interpret all the info to the extreme negative then when people tell you "no it's not a disaster" you think that's bootlicking.

Why does TOTK's sales even matter in this discussion when nobody made the statement that FF16 is currently selling better than TOTK? We only said it sold decent enough and plenty of people love it too. We never said it beats Zelda in terms of popularity.

Why does everything has to be "terrible" or "the best" but nothing in between?

Anyways this discussion isn't going anywhere so I think it should finish. We aren't going to convince each other either way.

Good point, actually. In the discussion of companies turning their backs on their core fan base in search of more revenue and profit, here is nintendo, and more specifically Zelda.
That's one game that has continued to remain loyal to it's brand while also growing it's customer base. My kids, nephews and neices, their friends, my brothers, my friends and even my sister (who has only ever played Zelda since NES days) all rave about how good Zelda is (all zeldas). me and my youngest brother are the only ones who played both (FFs and Zeldas). I tried getting my kids into FF. They're not having it. But as soon as a new zelda game is released, the living room turns into Nintendo land, and the tv is none-stop twitch streams of zelda. None of them are even hard-core gamers. But Zelda just has that effect.

on my recent vacation, at my uncle David's house, his grandkids were playing it. Bravo Nintendo, Bravo.

?

Breath of the Wild was a complete departure from the rest of the Zelda franchise. It completely changed everything from the gameplay, the way the game was structured, how you received and used items, level design, etc.. Nintendo absolutely has turned their backs on the original Zelda fans, but they made a good game in the process and, it being Nintendo, they have a bigger install base with a wider age range than any other console/first party developer by nearly an order of magnitude (which you've seen yourself based on the numbver of children in your own life playing Nintendo; Playstation and Microsoft will never have a chance of competing on this front and that is a major hit for the Zoomer and Gen Alpha demographic). Don't mistake BotW/TotK's success with loyalty or keeping things the same, especially from a company whose entire MO is rebuilding, remaking, and trying to break into new fields regardless of the consequences.

Yeah, I know no one but me played Skyward Sword, but the three games before BotW were:

- Skyward Sword, maybe the most linear Zelda we've ever had
- A Link Between Worlds, a LttP spirtual successor
- Triforce Heroes, a multiplayer game

Those games barely have anything in common with each other, and they have nothing in common with BotW/TotK other than "It's a Legend of Zelda game". Honestly, if you look at the series historically, the Zelda games have a wider coherent themes/disparate gameplay ratio than the FF series, and it's not really all that close. XVI has a lot more in common with XV or even XIII than Triforce Heroes and Skyward Sword do with BotW.

BoTW was indeed kinda .. different. Like it kinda felt like Zelda in that it was an quasi platforming / Action Adventure game, but definitely not the usual Zelda game. I could only make it playable after removing Cell Shading and inserting infinite weapon durability, but that is entirely personal taste.

I am currently playing Twilight Princess with my 5 year old and she absolutely loves it. When I wake up she assaults me to let me know that is what she is interested in doing today. She's never had that reaction with a game before and she's played lots of them.

It's like when you make games Good, people don't need to make excuses for them.

So a retro sequel, a 16th, and an expansion to an MMO that literally uses previous titles as their story elements...

Thank you for verifying that you aren't reading other people's comments.

One in six people with a PS5 bought it. If they'd had that ratio with the PS4 install base, they would have sold almost 18 million copies.

Like, the real reason to clown on SE is for them releasing a flagship title on a system no one *** has. This "no one bought it" narrative is just wrong, no matter how many times people trot it out.

SE makes tons of mistakes, y'all. You don't need to invent new ones.

I see your points and don't disagree.
However I'm talking about the overall game themes; chivalry, adventure, Japanese aesthetics and design combined with European romanticism and knighthood. Gameplay evolves. Nothing wrong with that. It should. Otherwise it's just the same game over and over again.
Zelda was able to break into open world with breath of the wild and succeed on an epic scale. But it, and all other zelda games, always felt like a Zelda game.
FF's had that consistency up until about FF12? (XI of course is an exception since it was their first MMO) FF8 felt a bit off (can't put my finger on it, but there was just something about 8 that felt off. Still a great game and FF enough for me). But ever since 12, it's been terrible. At least for me. I know some people who got into FF as a result of 13 and 13-2. Those games are an eye sore for me. The vehicle summons.. ufff, I should have stopped playing at that point.
Anyways, not disagreeing. But to put in a way that is swift and quick, Batman and Bruce Wayne are who they are, across cinema and comic books, games and cartoons. That's zelda.
FF is Optimus Prime. a *** *** in some transformers universes and the boss in others.

Also, 1/5 or 1/6 PS5 owners buying FF16 isn't saying much, Rooks.
PlayStation generation Units sold
PlayStation 102.4 million
PlayStation 2 155 million
PSP
(PlayStation Portable) 76.4 million
PlayStation 3 87.4 million
PlayStation 4 117 million
PlayStation 5 25 million

Seeing how gaming is far more mainstream today than it was in the past, it's pretty surprising their sales haven't increased at least 10-15% generation on generation.
But to see a decline. Interesting. Nintendo on the other hand, is close to having sold a total of 1 billion total units (across all consoles/generations)

Actually, thinking about this some more, I want people to understand how unkillable SE really is at this point.

- Massive library that they can remake and re-release on a zillion platforms (that's REALLY what that Xbox/XIV thing at fanfest was about - expect to see Pixel Remaster on game pass before too long)
- A handful of mobile/gacha games that all bring in hilarious amounts of money
- A merch division that sells items of dubious quality for hilarious prices, and we know it sells because they keep doing it
- An incredible cash cow (XIV) that even in a down year still produces mountains of cash

And a handful of IP that can be spun into any random genre to make games sell better than they would. Like, no one would have thought twice about the Dragon Quest Treasures game (incredibly mid) if it didn't have the DQ name on it, and it managed to sell enough to justify a Steam port.

It genuinely does not matter how long it takes SE to land another hit, they can weather virtually anything until then. (This is good news for us in general, because it means XI isn't going anywhere, either). They can - and will - *** up repeatedly, because success is pretty irrelevant to them staying profitable.

How does it not? It says the problem is less one of the game itself (which, while I enjoyed it, is not without its issues) and more that the install base is small enough that unless it expands past the diehards, there's a hard ceiling on sales totals. The mistake was making it PS5 exclusive.

I dunno man, to me FF16 is the most classically "FF feeling" FF since 10.

-Giant avatars of destruction named Ifrit, Shiva, etc.? Check.
-Crystals? check.
-TALKING to crystals? CHECK!
-Making god angry? Check.
-Worldhopping adventure full of peril and magic? Check.
-Killing god? Check.

The tonality in general is darker, maybe more political (which, so was 12 which you cite as being consistent). It carries all of the original tropes and FF hangers-ons such as the summons, weapon names, overarching themes (crystals, elements, etc. etc.). The main sticking point is its combat which, to personal preference, may not be as good as older games. Everything else is purely final fantasy and, even its dark fantasy v high fantasy theme can be linked to older FF games (FF8, FF12, FFT). Unlike 13, which I agree does break from the FF mold far more than any other FF in a way that I didn't personally appreciate with the way it portrays common FF staples (until the sequels and Gran Pulse, really), 16 manages to remain thematically concurrent with every other mainline FF (besides 12, seeing as it's set in Ivalice which has its own set of tropes and themes), in a way that feels Final Fantasy. XV had a similar problem to 13 for me, though to a lesser extent. The fact that there's basically no player castable magic whatsoever? The fact that the summons are window dressing that you might see once a playthrough? Etc., etc.; FF16 doesn't have this problem.

If we continue the comparison to Zelda (which I don't think is a good one, but let's anyway): there are very few Zelda games that carry the same tonality, characters, and premise through to others in the series. Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword are as tonally disparate as 16 vs 9. The characters, sans Zelda and Link, are completely disconnected and not even remotely the same people. The items you get, the way you traverse the worlds, the way those worlds function at a basic, elementary level is completely different. All you keep between these two games is the Zelda name, the Master Sword, Link, and Zelda.

The argument of FF16 not being a Final Fantasy because it "isn't consistent" with previous entries or isn't thematically Final Fantasy isn't really based in fact, but basing it on comparisons to other franchises like this is just confusing and ultimately dissolves any point that is attempting to be made.

Anyway, that's my take on it.