Triangle Strategy on steam is $60.... same price as Forbidden West. Come on that is funny.

You're entitled to pay whatever you want in the games you want. The point is the games were still at full price on Playstation when PC version was released, to offset the decrease in price you need to increase the number of copies. To offset a 43% decrease in price you will need to increase in 75% the number of copies sold.

Whether or not there is so much people wanting for a discount to buy is everyone's guess but I honestly doubt it's the case. The game already went on sale 13 times on Steam. It was indeed for half of the price just one month ago. Checking for the history it had a 50% discount every month this year except May, if you want to grab it for 35 USD you just need to wait a couple of weeks 

The wiki says that OT2 is on Xbox:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopath_Traveler_II

Postscript: I edit to add that the wiki actually says that it should have been released in early 2024.

I have the first one on Switch and was wanting to get both for Xbox, but I've gave up on it ever coming out at this point.  

That's the catch with the PC market, sizable market base sure but wild differences within the demo (lots of people who play on cheapo rigs) and are used to only buying software on Steam Sales at heavy discount or CDkeys and sites like that for a fraction of the regular cost of a game. "I'll wait for a Steam Sale" may as well be the official slogan of the PC market. 

Timed exclusivity and the $70 pricetag might play a very minor role in why FF isn't doing well these days. But they are far from the main reasons. All notable Sony games including Days Gone sell better on a single platform than recent FF on PS and PC combined, with some 4 or 5 times better.

JRPGs have limited popularity and are associated with weebs. FF is no longer the cool console defining shit, and it'll take a miracle to get it in the 20 million+ league.

I loved Rebirth. It's easily a contender for best combat system of all time imo, and it has a lot more going for it than just combat, so I'm not pleased at all that it's underperforming. But sometimes great games won't sell gangbusters. This genre itself has a limited appeal, and to top it off, Rebirth is a fragemented sequel to a fragmented remake.

Hogwarts on Switch made up a substantial portion of sales, more than half some weeks on the UK charts:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2024/02/uk-charts-top-three-receive-another-shake-up-but-mario-stands-firm (53% this Feb)

Hogwarts had the third biggest launch of a Switch game in 2023 behind only Mario and Zelda:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/17zuk8t/christopher_dring_a_huge_surge_in_sales_of/

As for FF7, it would almost certainly do more than 300-400k. Nintendo has cultivated an audience that loves JRPGs.

Probably, yes.

Question is... how much do they need? After all, sales numbers alone are insufficient for these kinds of questions.

There is only one comparison that makes sense:

if a > b then the port is a financial success and will most likely lead to more ports or simultanous releases.

if b < a then the port is a financial loss, even if profitable and will likely affect future releases negatively.

And another interesting question would be, how does porting a game impact the sales-mix?

As in: how many new customers did it attract vs. how many existing customers merely switched the system they play the game on.

Ports don't need to sell that much to turn a profit since the game is already made. We've seen Switch ports turn in a few hundred k and then go on to receive further ports from the same series/company which suggests they found the profits worth it.

Heck, if ambitious Switch ports weren't worth it financially, we wouldn't still be getting them in the system's 8th year.

I could be wrong but I still think something like FF16 could push an extra 2-3 million on PC via day 1 release, standard PC pricing and with good performance.  Maybe I'm wrong but I think the audience is there.

Plus splitting FF7 into 3 separate games was a God awful decision.  Square needed to cut all the nonsense fluff and at most make it 2 games. 

Square just needs to be smarter with PC folk.  I mean Triangle Strategy for $60....  😆