| NobleTeam360 said: Quality over quantity probably means the smaller stuff like TWEWY, Bravely Default, Valkyrie, etc... are gonna be dormant/dead franchises. Shame since those were some of their best games imo. |
I do think their main focus will be on their highest selling franchises moving forward, those being Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, and Nier, but I think their mid tier series will continue to get releases, albeit at a slower rate, take for instance Mana, the new Mana game looks like they took their time with it, I think they saw what Namco Bandai did with Tales of Arise by catapulting that series up in sales to make it one of their core series, and are hoping to do the same with their Mana series. Additionally I think their HD 2D team have proven themselves with games like Octopath, Triangle Strategy, and Live A Live remake and will continue to make games.
The smallest and most niche franchises will indeed be the ones that suffer, I doubt TWEWY will get a 3rd game after the 2nd flopped, and it seems like the recent Saga Emerald Beyond flopped as well with an 18k debut on Switch in Japan and failing to chart top 10 release week on PS4 or PS5, so I don't see SaGa continuing probably. Valkyrie might continue, it's my understanding that while Valkyrie Elysium physical first week sales were fairly weak in Japan, it actually sold through it's entire physical allotment apparently, so digital sales and late physical sales after restocks may have made up for it. Bravely Default may be safe, Square said Bravely Default 2 sold 1m in the first 10 months, and that was with a late PC release and no release on Xbox or Playstation, with late ports to Xbox and PS5 it may sell well enough to justify continuing the series.
My thoughts here:
Safe
- Final Fantasy
- Kingdom Hearts
- Dragon Quest
- Nier
Possibly Safe
- Mana
- HD 2D games (Triangle, Octopath, etc.)
- Valkyrie
- Star Ocean
- Bravely
Probably Not Safe
- TWEWY
- SaGa
- Forspoken
- Theatrhythm
- Diofield
