tbf it doesn’t make sense to refute data unless you have legitimate reason to do so. A simple “eyeball check” isn’t conclusive to anything.

I didn't see any big reputable outlets or tweet about it or report it. Just sites like Resetera

Glad to see the number redacted & primarily the source simply was not reliable or tested for accuracy.

Assuming SE 3m in 1week was mostly sold, I think it should be around 4m. Would love to to be wrong and for it to be closer to 5m. XVI was the most I enjoyed a FF since X

I mean, ‘journalists” all the time are making claims about insider information and future products and people are always skeptical and calling BS.

Some random finance dude(the Japanese Pachter) claims he got information from a Square Enix investor call that apparently no one else in the world was present for(note: their last financial release was the first week of February, the next is May. No one else reported on this 3.5m number being stated, and it doesn’t fit into any timeframe) and everyone is like “Yeah, sounds legit”

Plot twist: They retracted their statement because 3.5 million was actually an overestimation.

Sure would be nice if SE gave us some actual numbers themselves...

Bravely series (Default 1, 2 and Second) exist.

Its Final Fantasy all but except the name. The gameplay, story themes (light warriors, crystals, etc), items, monsters, spells, etc - all from the FF series.

It was still claimed to be from the investors meeting so the was no reason to push back unless you can verify contrary information especially as the source was a securities analyst who would be or have sources at the event you'd have a hard time pushing back, at one point Matt and Chris were also unknowns.

The is an article on this very site for a start and considering the weight sites like Resetera and GAF carry that highlights the point even further.

More bullshit nonsense to try and shit over SE by the same ignorant analyst.

To be fair... like World of Final Fantasy, Bravely games were scaled down "too much" to be seen as proper successors to early 3D FF's.

But "AAA turnbased/ATB" isn't going to magically make FF a sales monster. A hybrid system like Rebirth's is what the series always needed imo. Scale down the content to shrink development time and we're good. A lot of fans complained nonstop about Rebirth's "padding", so you may as well trim it down a little and save cost/time.

Final Fantasy titles with reasonably to significantly lower budgets were actually made. All of them sold relatively poorly, but they were sequels and spinoffs. Namely: X-2, XIII-2, Lightning Returns, World of FF, Crisis Core, and Type-0. None of them was particularly well received.

If there is one thing the series should avoid (and it refuses to), it's "sequels". Rebirth's sales trajectory is a tragedy for such a great game. Remake as a late gen PS4 game sold a lot better. Hopefully they're not returning to sequels once they're done with the final part of this project.

I wouldnt consider the Bravely series to be a proper successor to the 3D FF games, more like they are 3D successors of the 2D FF games (FF1-6) specifically moreso to FF1, FF3 and FF5 which all three were based upon the class/job system and the Crystals that provided power to that system.

But ya I agree - the action RPG system that VII Remake and Rebirth has is the way to go - its actually what I wanted FFXV to be like but it lacked.

I'm not familiar with Rebirth's padding because I'm still going through FFVII Remake (on Chapter 9) - from what I played so far, I actually like the sidequests in between the main chapters

X-2 I didnt like as much, felt too much of a cash grab and they ruined the lore completely that made FFX great.

XIII-2 was a huge improvement from XIII and I found it to be an exceptional game, really enjoyed it, havent played LR.

World of FF I havent played yet but thats pretty much a pure spinoff for fan service.

Crisis Core was a great game at least the PSP version I played over a decade ago but the gameplay mechanics alienated people who were a fan of the old systems back then , I personally enjoyed it.

Now Type-0 was utter garbage in comparison to everything I covered above - absolutely the worst FF game made in the last 15 years. They tried and added too many mechanics and the story was utter shit that required multiple playthroughs to actually experience it - the gameplay was a mess and it felt like you were playing one of those old school dungeon crawler games with an action RPG gamestyle. To add insult to injury, the creator thought he had made something that would be red hot especially considering it was the first rated M FF game , even teased a sequel at the end which went nowhere since the creator isnt part of Square Enix anymore and for the time he was there, stuck on fixing Final Fantasy Versus XIII/XV.

As for the conversation about sequels - I agree.

Square Enix is terrible at continuing stories in sequels and do far better with making original worlds/stories. There's obviously many examples

-Final Fantasy IV After Years, the entire gameplay was re-hash of fighting the same enemies and bosses, the new characters were not memorable and the gameplay focused more on difficulty and challenge rather than a compelling story like the original Final Fantasy IV.

-Final Fantasy Legend of the Crystals - turned into an anime which only vaguely mentioned events that happened from the original FFV.

-Final Fantasy VII Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus - they tried to capitalize from the popularity of FF7 but failed miserably because there wasnt much to add to the original story, the stories after the original VII were weak which is why they made the Remake trilogy to be another timeline/multiverse thing.

-Final Fantasy X-2 - completely destroyed the lore, only good thing was the gameplay

-Final Fantasy XIII-2/LR - story was perfectly done at the end of XIII, didnt have to expand the story but they did. As much as I loved XIII-2, I just felt the story didnt need to be made and the gameplay they created for XIII-2, could have been used for a original new world and cast of characters. Cant say much about LR but I know LR has that bullshit time limit mechanic similar to Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter which I played and I hate that mechanic so much because its just a cheap way to make you play the game multiple times to get different endings/paths.

I'm not sure if they would have fared better with FFXV considering the prequels didnt have as much impact and suffered the same things that VII series went through.

They dont know how to expand a world or have writers that can do a Kojima/Metal Gear style world building.

But ya, stick to making original stories/worlds instead of sequels and treat the FF series like an anthology series like how most of the series is, that should be the way to go for the Final Fantasy series.