Like a Dragon and Persona are also much smaller still than FFVII is today. Sure P5 sold 5 million but only after a lot of years and after releasing on pretty much every platform. FFVII rebirth and FFVXI will reach that same number in 2 years on PS5 and PC alone. When we hear P3 sells 1 million in its opening week it's a great number for FF VII Rebirth that would be a massive letdown. It's easier to manage your brand if a one million opening is already a huge succes.

You are right about that. Although I would argue no developer has managed to transition RPG combat from turn based to real time combat successfully. Its either been a continuation of turn based or an action based RPG.

Then finally when FF7 Remake came out we finally got an action RPG with turn based mechanics, on top of a deep level of customisation and equipment options. I think they have found the definitive version of Final Fantasy's ATB system, so hopefully FF17 will be based on this system.

I going to say that I don't have a clue at why Rebirth is getting so many 10's. As of 40 hours in, I prefer Remake hands down. The pacing of Final Fantasy 7's storyline has been ... Bi polar. I don't not think the western open world style compliments FF7's story at all. Chapter 6 is a waste of your time.

"Successfully" as in being forced to because Nomura took too long?

I disagree on that also about ATB. The AI it too stupid to spam attack and dodge when needed and non player controlled characters take far longer to build up the gauge than the one you are controlling. Plus the basic removal of MP is sacrificed strategy in exchange for things looking cool. It's a good system just if that's the set path for the future? No thanks. FFX-2 had one of the best ATBs made and that's on X-2 of all things. 

Plus as mentioned before "stagger" is easily one of the worst mechanics added to video games, so they'd need to remove that before going any further. how they decided that was a good thing, I don't know.

That's because you're supposed to change characters from time to time, not stick with just one. You know, almost as if they were taking turns :D

Not sure what you mean by "removing MP"? But the stagger bar exists exactly so people won't spam attack + heal when needed (which can get you through almost every other FF game with ease) and actually use spells + techniques to that effect.

It's a pretty common mechanic used in games like GoW, Resident Evil, some Zeldas, etc. (basically anything that involves chip damage followed by weak spot damage) but it's just in the background in these cases, not apparent with numbers and all.

Update on Europe sales
-down 23% compared to VII Remake (part 1)
-up 4% compared to FFXVI launch last year.

To me 16 is the more logical comparison since VII Remake launched on a userbase double Rebirths size. Part 3 will be in a more similar position to directly compare. Having said that the PS5's userbase is big/active enough for the game to debut with bigger numbers if the IP was showing signs of growth which it is not.

I think a lot of the optics of this thread are a bit dramatic though. As always for the most concerning thing about recent FF games sales is simply the lack of legs.

Concerning that we STILL haven't had any sales figures of Rebirth more than 2 weeks after launch. We heard of XVI's sales within the first 6 days after that game launched.

I think they fell just short of 3m and were afraid that announcing sales less than FFXVI would sink share prices. With FFXVI they were confident sales would continue to grow with the PS5r userbase, so they were happy with the numbers at launch but the continued sales they hoped for didn't happen. So they can't deliver that same line to shareholders this time round. 

True, which makes me curious as to how and when Square will frame it. For such a blockbuster release, they can only stay silent for so long until shareholders start to get antsy. 

Pretty much likely spot on. Their stock got rocked big time when they had to state FF16 was only on the "lower end" of their expectations or how ever they phrased that, their stock got rocked. This probably is under 3 mill right now and they don't want to announce that.