I don't get how switch numbers are up in a week without new releases

No matter how much someone sugar coats it, those FF7 Rebirth sales are terrible. Even counting digital it's still way down compared to the 1st game, and still down from FF16. PS5 sales didn't even get a big boost. This is Final Fantasy we're talking about. This series used to sell as much as Dragon Quest and Pokemon, now it's selling closer to what a Like a Dragon and Persona sells. Some people think this game will have legs are lying to themselves. FF7 Remake shipped 3.5 million in 3 days then that number grew to 5 million (April - August 2020), and we know it shipped an additional 2 million in 3 years (August 2020 - Sept 2023) to 7 million where during that time it released on PS5 and PC.
For comparison sake how much did the OG FF7 sell on just the PS1? 9.8 million and 4 million of those sales were just in Japan alone.

I think the main reason FF sales have continued to decline over the years is because the quality of the games now verses before is just not the same people know that. And all the younger people just see an average JRPG that doesn't standout from all the games that are constantly being released.

It's a combination of factors I think; the series' focus on graphical fidelity has kept it on consoles Japan doesn't much care for since the 7th gen, the games since then have had mixed reception, a whole generation of Japanese gamers have now grown up without playing it as kids the way Millennials and Gen X did and so don't have that attachment with it, PS5 just isn't a healthy platform for software in Japan, etc.

The former might get there before much longer though considering how large the growth has been the past few years for it. Hopefully Square moves away from this strategy by the time the last part of the trilogy comes out.

Yeah it is weird that some seem to think that PC is small in Japan while it could potentially be bigger as a platform than PS5..

Also in FF case; a ton of PC gamers play FFXIV and a large group in Japan play it on PC aswell, I think SE is nervous about releasing it soon as possible on PC aswell.


Also about the PS5's shipping to China discussion... when I joined this site we had threads about how the first PS3 was sold and the Japanese sony executive could not talk with the customer because it was a Chinese customer, we had threads about '+30% of PS3's are shipped to China...'    or      'Famitsu/Media create probably doesn't count PS3 sales to foreigners thats why reported PS3 sales are not so high'... 

Yeah Japanese developers have largely embraced the platform now. Other than the obvious exception of Nintendo there's really not many notable ones left not releasing there. Vanillaware is one that still isn't but they're bound to start doing so at some point if they're releasing on Xbox now.

Vannillaware has a weird policy about the PC platform but nonetheless, it is their choice if they do not want to do it. They are just a team of approx. 40 workers that can output 2/3 games a decade. 

Porting to PC would be the most budget intensive and QA consuming time of the bunch whilst being limited in resources to do so.

From what we know they refused Atlus offer for a budget to a PC port but unknown are the reasons why ...

Anyway, as for Overlord Unicorn sales, I don't think they'll have to be afraid of a poor result on consoles yet 

Atlus have apologized for stock shortages of Unicorn Overlord in Japan!

Many retailers are out of stock due to high demand. Altus are grateful the game has been well received and apologize to their customers. They are currently shipping more copies!https://t.co/CTgmcYh6eZ pic.twitter.com/DUL3Qd5FX9

— Genki✨ (@Genki_JPN) March 12, 2024

Hopefully Unicorn Overlord is successful enough for them to gain enough resources to port to PC. Since they've ran out of money multiple times it would really benefit them in the long term.

That's another thing. They always stretch themselves so thiiiin by the end of their projects. It was the same with 13 Sentinels. Thank goodness it was hit because ooooooh boy, I fear at what would've happened to Unicorn Overlord .... 

Seems so far like they'll be able to continue on their next project afterall, but it's evident that an eventual PC release of the game and their back catalogue would definitely help alleviate their financial woes.