So, I keep hearing people say FF7 Rebirth didn't meet expectations, but hold up, it won The Grand Award for being one of the top 3 best-selling Asian games worldwide along with Black Myth Wukong, and the DLC Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. Yes, you read that right, worldwide, not just in some corner of Asia. And as if that wasn't enough, it also picked up the Users' Choice Award. So maybe it's not flopping after all? So, who’s ready to admit that FF7 Rebirth might just be doing better than all the doom and gloom suggests?

Hot Sauce: https://www.playstation.com/en-sg/local/events/playstation-awards/history/2024/

Square themselves admitted it fell short of expectations: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/final-fantasy-7-rebirth-and-final-fantasy-16-did-not-meet-expectations-says-square-enix/

It didn't "flop", it just underperformed.

Worth noting: Top three best-selling *PlayStation* games. Not much competition tbf. It’s definitely not flopping as hard as SquEnix is leading on, though it’s certainly not moving anything crazy.

I love it and it's my GOTY, but it obviously underperformed. Being a PS5 exclusive puts it at a sales advantage against the PS5 versions of Asian multiplats.

It's all relative. We kind of already know its around 3.5-4m WW at least which is not bad but definitely not in line with expectations since the it's legs are essentially dead and its rarely charting.

Essentially SE needs to explore ways to reach new audiences with FF because the last 3 entries including VII Rebirth sell 70% of their sales week one and then fall off pretty hard.

I thihk is fine for a franchise which is growing and/or made on a budget, but FF games are not cheap and the audience is shrinking.

Multiplatform is one route but if the franchise is shrinking in the playstation echo-system whilst other IPs are growing, that painst a franchise specific problem.

I'm playing FF7 remake now, third try and I get it more this time, you just gotta find that games pace and go with it but I understand the fall off. People were sold on FF7 as being one of the best games of all time but this game is very difficult to find a pace with and I'm sure people just don't want to try Rebirth cause Remake failed to grab them. It's less to do with console population and more to do with that plus the pandemic and peolme were more willing to gamble their time. The people who loved Remake stayed for Rebirth and they'll probably stay for part 3. SE should be happy, they could have done much worse considering how niche this actually is when you think about it and how anime it is. 

I'm glad it another chance to grab me and I'm looking forward to Rebirth now which I've bought and ready to go but many won't give it that second chance and it has a massive fall off based on trophy data. 65% only get past the first 90 minutes of the game. 50% make it ten hours in and like most game, 30% see it through to the end. The probably is that Rebirth isn't a sequel but a continuation of the same game. Thinking on it now, we could see another drop off for part 3 since so many people complain about the direction of the game and unskippable mini games. 

I don't think the idea was ever that the sales were necessarily bad, just disappointing from S-E's point of view. Admittedly they are quite notorious for always being disappointed in the sales of their games, so I feel like it's at least partially because they have vastly unrealistic expectations for almost all their games.

Considering FF used to sell upwards of 10 million copies with each release practically routinely starting with FF7, and FF being one of the most storied and best-selling franchises in all of gaming, SE should absolutely be having higher than average expectations compared to their other games. It's true they've historically had unrealistic expectations, but FF should always be the exception.

None of their other games get the budget the way FF does. Therefore, each release should be paying off the most for them. Selling 3-4 million units or wherever Rebirth is currently just isn't going to cut it considering the amount of investment in development and marketing they put into these titles.

Not bad, just not as good as they expected.

True, FF is and pretty much always has been their flagship franchise, but I think there are a lot of issues with their expectations regarding Rebirth in particular. It's a direct continuation of a story of a game from the previous console generation released only on one platform so far, so if you don't have a PS5 you have no option of playing the game yet even if you'd like to, and I'm fairly certain not everyone who'd like to play the game have a PS5. They've obviously realized this as well since they've been talking about ending any exclusivity deals going forward. Obviously there are also those people who played Remake, and don't care about playing the story further, which will have diminished sales as well, though I imagine Rebirth's critical reception has also attracted new players to the series as well.