It seems like naming a home console RPG "Final Fantasy" guarantees millions sold copies.

FF VII: 9.7 M   FF VIII :7.86M      FF IX: 5.30M       FF X: 7.95M        FF X-2: 5.21 M    FF XII: 5.67 M

I know that a lot of you will agree with the FF success. I for one agree with it since I bougth every single one of those games mentioned above. And I am pretty sure that all the RPG fans out there have played RPG that you considered as good as Final Fantasy and maybe just maybe sometimes better than Final Fantasy. But if you go check their sales, you might not believe your eyes. Some of the sales that I was dissapointed at are:

Xenogears: 1.20M      Valkyrie Profile: 0.7 M   Suikoden series (1 to 5): 2M  Lunar 1 (Sega + PS1): 0.6

Wild Arms series: 1.5M     Tales Of ..... series: 10 M for 20 different titles.

And this is just to name a few.

I think that if anyone of those games were just called "Final Fantasy something", their sale would have at least double.

My answer is: Not Fair

Perhaps their reputation precedes them a bit, but they can make some great games when they put their heart into it. Loved Crisis Core btw.

"think that if anyone of those games were just called "Final Fantasy something", their sale would have at least double."

nah, look at Final Fantasy crystal chronicles for example.

Not fair.

Seriously, it isnt. After watching twelve play itself I never wanted to play the series again.

FFXII got adjusted up in Europe, finally. Still too low for such a masterpiece.

And to answer the OP - Final Fantasy selling less wouldnt benefit any other games you named. If anything, it would only harm them.

The Final Fantasy titles have actually been slowly selling less each title since FFVII. And, like everything, it depends on if you're talking about worldwide or regional sales.

If you're talking about worldwide sales, Final Fantasy might be the best seller on consoles. If you're talking about regional, a couple others probably surpass it. Stuff like Dragon Quest in Japan or recent WRPGs in America.

It's just as fair as halo and call of duty having the sales as fps's.

In a golden world Demon's Souls would sell 10 million copies ;)

Square earned the reputation of slapping Final Fantasy and a roman numeral on the box and selling millions upon millions of copies. They made good business agreements to get their name out, and they created an RPG experience unlike anything out at the time. They now get to coast because they put in all the work over 10 years ago. So it's not unfair. Tell the publishers of those other games to step their game up and create something accessible, marketable and tell them to put millions upon millions of dollars behind a giant marketing campaign for their RPG. Out of all of those RPGs mentioned as examples, how many even had a legitimate marketing campaign to accompany expected sales of multi-millions? Answer...none of them.

I think SE has pretty unfairly raised the bar for JRPG's and are pretty much destroying the genre.

It's not that they are making great games anymore (or at least the FF games aren't great), it's that they have these insanely high budgets that other publishers can't match but SE can get away with because they know the FF name means several million units and a Cloud clone means another million units.

You mean other publishers like Microsoft, Namco Bandai and Konami? Those small guys that can't make big budget RPGs to match Square Enix? Let's be real here. No one else tries as hard as Square Enix does to sell an RPG (besides Nintendo), and that is why Final Fantasy is where it's at and why the only other largely successful RPG franchise to come along on consoles since the NES days is Kingdom Hearts. Square understands what RPG gamers want enough of the time, and they understand how to market it to them. No other publisher believes in their RPGs enough to market them like a large scale, multimillion selling title. They buy ad space in dying game magazines for a month or two and they get appropriate sales for doing so.