Soundwave on 09 July 2023
Square-Enix accepted money for exclusivity sure, but I don't think "well lets just let Final Fantasy sales in Japan sink below 750k and not see much/any franchise growth elsewhere" was ever part of the deal. They were probably hoping for a better result.
Look at Capcom, they took money to keep Street Fighter V on Playstation 4, but it limited the brand and the game probably didn't sell as well as they hoped (a lot of the sales it got came at a heavily discounted price too, I got SFV for like $20 on Steam, otherwise probably wouldn't have bought it), it was a step down from Street Fighter IV. So they went back to multiplat for SFVI, which will probably be on the next-gen Switch and likely sell fairly well on it too.
