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Otter on 10 July 2023
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Soundwave said:
curl-6 said:

There's a reason hardly any AAA games are exclusive any more, with even first party Xbox and Playstation games making their way to PC. The cost of these titles has become astronomical, and this is Square Enix we're talking about, a company that is notoriously often unhappy with how their games sell these days.
Heck, a month ago, it was reported they were apparently "slightly panicking" over FF16's preorders: https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2023/06/square-enix-allegedly-slightly-panicking-about-final-fantasy-16-ps5-pre-orders

If you're going to spend a fortune on a game, it's probably not wise to limit its userbase unnecessarily.

Square-Enix is already hitting up against their budget limits I think. 

FF16 doesn't look a full generation ahead of FF7 Remake or even FFXV if I'm being honest. It's the first time maybe ever that a mainline FF game on a new hardware generation doesn't look much better than the previous one. 

It kinda looks like Super Mario Galaxy versus Super Mario Sunshine, which was not a full generational leap and even that might be being generous, I honestly think FF7 Remake looks better in some respects. 

So Switch 2 could align well with Square-Enix not being able to go much higher up the graphics ladder at this point. Is Final Fantasy 17 really going to have a monster budget way beyond 16? I doubt it, not with the sales range of the series stagnating, very possibly declining. 

Budget is not really a factor here.

Final Fantasy XVI looks the way it does because the technology it uses & the team in question. It is graphically only second to Horizon (and Ratchet-very different style) in terms of what it achieves visually. Future titles will be graphically defined by the team,  the software tools & new methods targeted at the new consoles, not bigger budgets.

Switch 2 may be able to take advantage of some of these, but may also be cut out, just as PS4/Xbox One do not support nanite on UE5. FFVII Rebirth looks the way it does because its a direct sequel using the same assets and blueprint as the PS4 game, just expanded in bigger environments. It'll probably be the cheapest Final Fantasy to produce since XIII-2. 

And once again  the notion of the series declining is very off, I think people do not know the actual sales history of Final Fantasy. Every generation has had wild fluctuations in sales. VII/VIII/IX sold very differently from each other. X/XII/XIII sold very differently from each other. The series sales range is 7-10m and XVI openning with 3m puts its pretty clearly in that mark. Only time will tell whether its on the upper or lower range. XV is the only game to open to much bigger sales than 3m and it had a decade of hype. 

Last edited by Otter - on 10 July 2023