After the incredible sales of FF VII, it seems a bit hard to understand that no other FF has been able to put numbers even close to the game.

1st FF VII 9.71 Millions WW and  2nd FFX with 7.95 Millions WW. Almost a difference of  2 Millions. I know that a lot of you have your own theories about this so this is mine. FF VII was the First 3D RPG and probably one of the most hyped game of its generation. The game had so much hype that you will definitely go the store and buy the game. The bigger question is: How many of those owers new to FF actually loved the game.

When FF VII got out I remember having a lot of friends really a lot who bought the game and after playing it they decided not to ever buy a FF game again. So out of those 9.71 Millions copies sold, how many new FF gamers actually became fan of the series and how many decided not to ever buy a FF game again. This is my theorie and now my questions to you guys

1) Do you have friends (or yourself) who played FF VII (FF VII being probably their (your) first or second FF) and hated the series after playing the game?

This could help to see if my theorie is close to be right or completely wrong.

I myself I loved it

Edit:Someone in the thread just made me realize that FF VII was not the first 3D RPG. So sorry for the false information and thanks for the people who made me realized it.

Another thing to remember is that it was the first Final Fantasy to be officially released in Europe so a lot of people (in Europe) would have bought it based on the FMV adverts not realising the sort of game it was.

I know a few people that bought it, played it, and never again bought a Final Fantasy (some of whom actually enjoyed FFVII).

I belive that FFVII arrived into a "perfect storm" scenario. 3d games were brand new, we just had never seen anything like it on a console before, LOTS of advertising, it was a pretty good game too, don't forget that. Just lightning in a bottle.

Let me start off by saying that I can't back this up with proof, but I severely doubt that FF7 was "the first 3D RPG", as you put it. I doubt it was even in the first 100 3D RPGs.

Either way, I think FF7 got off the ground because it got good advertising and was backed heavily, so it was pretty much the beginning of the series outside of Japan. By this I mean, for a lot of people FF7 was more like "FF1". And as with most series, sequels rarely reach the point of their predecessor. Some of the people who bought FF7 just didn't want to take part in the series anymore. But a lot of people did, which shows why other FFs have had strong sales.

I'm pretty sure that when it was first being advertised, it had by far the biggest advertising budget for any game ever. Both its ad budget and the advertising itself was like something for a movie. No other Final Fantasy was ever considered as cool and mainstream as that game.

It's really really good?

I spent $60 to play it. 13 years later.

EDIT: Note: I don't play it for 3 days.

What the hell are you talking about

http://vgchartz.com/swlaunch.php?reg1=All&game1=Final+Fantasy+VII+-+PS[756]&reg2=All&game2=Final+Fantasy+VIII+-+PS[758]&reg3=All&game3=Final+Fantasy+XII+-+PS2[765]&weeks=200

I think the OP is thinking more of personal bias than actual facts.

To red bolded:

That's a bit debateable isn't it? I mean:

MGS1 vs MGS2

Uncharted 1 vs 2 (it's close to beating it's sequel in a much shorter time period)

Age of Empires 1 vs 2

CoD2 vs CoD4 (if we go by IW games)

Tomb Raider 1 vs 2

Halo 1 vs 2 vs 3

If you look up each individual games then:

FFVII: http://www.vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=756&region=All  9.72 million worldwide

FFVIII: http://www.vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=758&region=All  7.86 million worldwide

FFXII: http://www.vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=765&region=All  5.68 million worldwide

Because we only have detailed data for Japan of FFVII and VIII it appears that that's the only thing shown in the chart you linked, whereas FFXII has a full data set from around the world.

I think you misunderstood my thread. This is the fact: http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Final+fantasy&console=&publisher=&genre=&minSales=0&results=50&sort=Total

You can clearly see that WW FF VII is first in the FF series with 9.75 Millions copies and FF X second with 7.95 Million copies. The comparison you are making is about FF 7, FF 8 and FF 12, and if you look closely, you will realise that the curve for FF VII and FF VIII only matches Japan sales even while you put "All Region". For some reason, most games before 2000 on the site in the compare table shows only the sales in Japan even if you put "All Region"

So I am not being bias and I can also understand your concern since it's not your mistake.