Hypothetically Speaking.. What would happen if FFXIII Flops?

[loves2splooge]

FFXIII sales are going to be lower than usual in Japan because of the limited PS3 userbase over there. I also predict that FFXIII sales outside of Japan aren't going to be as hot as FF sales were in the past due to the declining interest in Final Fantasy and jrpgs in general. And it just makes sense. JRPGs have failed to grow up with their audience. FF7 may have been cool when you were a pre-teen or teen but guess what? All those pre-teens and teens who played FF7 are now in their twenties. You think a bunch of twenty-somethings are going to be just as hyped up for 60-hour cliched melodramas with tedious gameplay as they were in their pre-teens/teens? Plenty of those twenty-somethings moved on to western rpgs and FPS. And many of them are not coming back unless the jrpg dramatically changes. I myself have pretty much given up the genre (and I've given it a lot more chances than I should have) but yet I still have this hope that it will get better so I'll for sure end up buying FFXIII anyway. lol. But honestly, for the most part, playing those games feel like such a complete waste of time to me and not exactly the most enjoyable way to burn a whole bunch of hours.

Right now the genre has become more and more niche, appealing to a much more narrow dedicated hardcore fanbase. The FF name alone will sell a lot and I'd be shocked if it didn't outsell the top western rpg (worldwide, americas might be a different story) but it's not going to be like the FF7 and FFX days. Providing a cinematic gaming experience isn't as cool and novel as it was a decade ago.

As for what happens in the case of a flop, Square Enix may shift their focus to the DS. It worked for DQIX. That's pretty much where a niche genre like this belongs now given the large expenses for HD development. At least on the DS we have that whole illusion of nostalgia to make these kind of games seem better than they really are. We can try to convince ourselves that things were better with Chrono Trigger, FF6 and FF7 but we only think that because our memories are clouded by nostalgia and let's face it, it was much easier for us to be impressed back in our early years and when the jrpg experience seemed fresher to us.