Considering it's the least FF game ever created that's not a surprise. Well, the western sales will make up for it. After all that's the people SE developed this game for and not the Japanese.

Ito directed 6 and 9 helped with 12. As in he's the best one they have yet he's not directed a game in ages. I kind of hope that SquEnix have let him and Minagawa (the other director of FF12 and Ivalice team) make the next FF game and they've been working on it for a while now.

I think Nomura needs to stick to KH, that is at least his to do with as he pleases.

Yep. Im not really surprised tho, the direction the game took clearly is aimed to a western audience. Doesn't feel much like a jrpg. 

Not
Enough
Waifus

At least they'd have more colorful outfits.  

Though, groups of 'attractive guys bonding' is really popular in Japan right now and a fair amount of females there play RPGs and video-games.  There are like 5 anime this season that fit that description.  Also, my god, FF15 erotic content has flooded the net--and very little of it seems to feature the female characters.

The theme with this game was clearly designed to target that popularity.

Also keep in mind that Japan loves their traditional turn based rpgs. I think this western approach to the combat is what keeps a lot of people from buying the game.

Good. Not only that contributes to the popularity of the game, it also provides amazing, worthwhile content to fight all that flooding amount of yuri that's contaminating websites.

Worst non-numbered main entry you mean? It was a given. FFXIII-II-III obviously hurt the franchise and the botched release of 14 didnt help (tough RR did it good). Also we are forgetting digital sales as well. ALl in all IMO this is a solid debute. Both software and hardware sales wise.

I know 10000 people must have said this already but you served it on a silver plate: I mean it's not a huge shocker that Japan wants entratainment  related to Squids that spray in Ink on little Girls.

Btw a real shame that the game couldn't sell as much as the other titles in the series, I wonder when/if XVI/XVII (depending on XVI beeing MMO or not) will come out, I mean shure, the sales are still astonishing, but it'd need a world similar in size to XV to draw interest and that needs a HUGE ammount of money, let's see in a few years if XV managed to make a profit selling those 10M copies, perhaps with help from a PC/Switch port...

Yikes. When FF underperforms in Japan, something needs to be re-evaluated. Well I guess FFXV is more of a western game than a Japanese RPG, so I guess it was to be expected. Not terrible numbers by the stretch of the imagination but still, outdone by SFC FFs...