Toyo Securities estimates Final Fantasy 16 has sold 3.5 million

[IcaroRibeiro]

JRPGfan said:

IcaroRibeiro said:

This is the correct answer. FF didn't use to sell because it was turn based, this is nonsense. Turn based JRPGs always sold poorly. In reality Final Fantasy was a game that was always sold to non-JRPG fans as well, so being turn based or not was never the point 

Final Fantasy were among the best selling game because they were technical showcases of hardware capabilities and overall among the best games of their generations.  

This is just not the case anymore. Nobody looks at Final Fantasy and think "This is the current pinnacle of gaming", there are other IPs that steal this spot now

If FF go turn based again it will sell at best in ~5 million range, because this is how much a turn based JRPG sells. Persona 5 needed a re-release and be multi platform including Switch and PC to get over 5 million (the 7.2 million figure includes Strikers sales)

And goes without saying Persona 5 is by far the best received JRPG last generation

That's said there is an audience for turn based Final Fantasy. Maybe Square should release turn based spin offs, that way they could satisfy the older fandom 

Persona 5 games went over 10m copies sold back in 2023, around September.
(yes, ~2,5m of that was probably Strikers, a fighting spin off....)

However a year lateron? I think its safe to assume, that Persona 5 (with its re-release) went over 10m.
You can make a Turn based game sell well.
Hell Pokemon is turn based, right? that thing sells like crazy.

Then it was 7 million not counting Strikers and other spin offs (I misunderstood the numbers thinking 7 million included Strikers and other spin offs). In any case it still a game released multiple times across multiple platforms with an enhanced version and still the best JRPG last gen 

This is a similar situation with DQ VII, which sold 7 million with multiple versions and re releases, including a completely different game in the 3DS version 

In any case, this still show thet if they want AAA numbers they can't go back to turn based, turn based are good for spin offs maybe, but I think Square wants Final Fantasy to sell in the 10 million range if this is the case I don't think being turn based would increase the IP sales that much (if at all) 

Pokemon is selling despite being turn based, not the opposite. I dare say Pokemon gameplay combat is kinda meaningless really, it sells because people like to collect pokemons and explore the world, as long those gameplay mechanics persist Pokemon can change from turn based to action and will still selling the same. We can see this when look at Arceus sales, its an spin off with nothing done to extend its legs and sold pretty insane numbers (over 15 million, is withing the range of Pokemon's remakes) and even got a sequel. I would not be surprised if Gamefreak just changed the gameplay combat for the mainline series eventually