Final Fantasy 16 May Have Underperformed on PS5, But It’s Doing Terribly on Xbox

Recently, there’s been a great deal of conversation surrounding the Final Fantasy series, with many attributing its relatively poor performance to Sony’s exclusive contracts regarding their console.

Following a well-orchestrated marketing blitz primarily backed by PlayStation, the popular game Final Fantasy 16 managed to sell about three million copies in just one week on PS5. Despite this achievement, Square Enix, the series’ custodian, deemed it as underperformance. This lackluster sales trend was further validated with the similar performance of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, prompting Square Enix to actively shift towards a multi-platform approach in its strategy.

As a dedicated fan, I can’t help but express my excitement that Square Enix chose to release Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2 this month. However, let’s not dwell on that right now.

Last year, the much-anticipated PC version of Final Fantasy 16 was released following extensive marketing. On its debut, it managed to attract approximately 27,508 simultaneous players on Steam, which can be considered reasonable but not particularly impressive.

As a dedicated gamer, I feel compelled to clarify once more that the term “concurrent players” doesn’t equate to sales figures. Instead, it simply indicates the number of individuals engaged in the game simultaneously – at that particular moment. Regrettably, this is the only data we have at our disposal for now.

During the recent Xbox Showcase, Square Enix sneakily released an Xbox Series X|S version of their game, causing quite a stir.

As a dedicated fan, I must admit that the sales projections fell short of my expectations. Upon checking, it turned out that Alien: Isolation was ranked quite low (443) on the Xbox’s Most Played list recently. Later, Alinea Analytics reported that the game has only managed to sell around 22,000 copies on Xbox One within the past week or so.

We haven’t received confirmation about the specific approach used by the consulting firm yet, but they claim to offer advanced analytics that have been producing intriguing data recently. It seems they might be on the right track.

There’s been plenty of debate over these figures on the web: some people believe the price of the game is high for an older release, while others feel let down by Sony’s exclusive console releases.

From our perspective, it appears that Final Fantasy, despite maintaining a dedicated fanbase, no longer holds the dominant position it once did. To boost sales in the future, Square Enix might benefit from adopting a multi-platform approach. However, unless they manage to revamp the franchise in an impactful way, we’re not fully convinced that it can meet its ambitious goals again.

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2025-06-16 15:36