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Kyuu on 12 March 2024
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Soundwave said:
Kyuu said:

FF would sell worse on Switch than on Playstation even in Japan. Too much effort/time/cost for a small return. The decline has little to do with the platform they're on, and Japan is not nearly as significant a market as it once was.

First of all, games can be on both the Playstation and Switch and the world isn't going to explode. Dragon Quest XI was made for both systems. FF7 Remake on the Switch as a port of similar quality to DQXI or Witcher 3 or DOOM probably sells about 1.5-2 million extra copies, which isn't nothing. 

Secondly, a big part of the reason the Final Fantasy brand which used to open at nearly 3 million opening week in Japan and is now in the toilet fishing around for 246,000 is because Square has tied all their fortunes to the Playstation brand in Japan, and people in Japan don't want home only consoles. 

So they've watched their entire audience based pretty much walk away in Japan. I have to wonder if it was worth it, what did they get out of it? Did the "pretty graphics" cause the franchise to explode in sales in the West? No, it didn't, FF7 and FF8 even were the peak sales for the franchise even in the West, since then they've been trending below that, but in Japan the franchise has completely fallen apart. 

You need to cultivate a fan base too, Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter can sell millions on Nintendo platforms, because they've also had a steady flow of cultivating an audience there, Square never really bothered with Nintendo and mainline Final Fantasy games after FF6 (other than remakes of older games), and really I think long term it was to their detriment. 

The Playstation brand declined in Japan because 3rd party games lost popularity, and not the other way around. But of course the lack of portability also contributed to the decline.

The biggest 3rd party Japanese games exploded in popularity globally without the need of Nintendo platforms or Japan. Monster Hunter literally had to temporarily leave Nintendo to grow in popularity. A decision that was frowned upon by so many Nintendo fans.

Final Fantasy didn't actually decline in the west or globally after 8. FFX, XI, XIV and XV are all bigger games than 8, and good chance Rebirth and Remake will outsell 8 too when all is said and done. I will say Final Fantasy stagnated due in part to the decline in Japan, but the core problem was that the series just wasn't as high quality as it was in the old days. It'll take a period of consistent quality and a strong word of mouth to start meaningfully growing again. The platforms aren't the problem.

The Switch is at the end of its life and is underpowered. SE would be wasting a lot of time and resources making a port, it might not be cost-effective, especially when Sony's money-hatting/marketing is in the equation. Would be wiser to port it later for the Switch 2 which will inherent the majority of its predecessor's playerbase.