I think even Square Enix must have been aware the PS5's limited install base might have been issues they'd of projected their original targets on, but there could have been other factors that played into them not hitting targets.
I seen some say the Japanese weren't fans of the game's design, not sure I buy that. If there's an issue of the game's domestic performance, I think that could be attributed to not knowing what the domestic install base was.
We had heard months back that PS5 price in Japan was increasing, but what many didn't point out is that the price in Japan was substantially less than the costs in all other regions by large amounts, and still is even with the price increase. It was also brought up in separate reporting that a large number of Japanese PS5 consoles were being shipped overseas because of the substantial cost savings of getting a PS5 that way. Some speculated too that many went to China to bypass their content being locked down to their censorship there. If true, depending on the extent of this, they could have drastically underestimated domestic attach rates for PS5s with FFXVI because Japanese PS5 sales might not accurately reflect the PS5's Japanese install base.
Furthermore, I believe Hogwartz Legacy deserves some consideration. For a game that was reported to sell 15 million copies with 80+% being sold on PlayStation 5, I'm making an assumption the game was a significant driving force in PS5 sales, over this year, but also considering maybe those that splurged on a PS5 due to strength of the Harry Potter license might not have been interested in much else, possibly had less consideration for IPs that define Sony's core exclusive line-up. And given that the game sold 12+ million on PS5, there could be a substantial percentage of PS5 owners with little interest in much else. This wouldn't just be bad for Square Enix to sell FFXVI, could be an alarming indicator for any other publishers to project sales attach rates just based on the PS5 install base.
Furthermore, perhaps there targets may have been mislead by previous indicators. FF7R for instance releasing on PS4 and then re-releasing on PS5 may have perhaps toyed with the sales numbers some with it being difficult to know what sales numbers account for users who double dipped, or even counted those who made an upgrade as a fresh sale itself. The cross-gen logistics in PS ecosystem is very screwy. Every PS Plus game I download even spams my inbox with a thank you for your purchase type email and even there I wonder if PS Plus play gets conflated with actual sales. Possibly worth noting too FF7R was a PS Plus title too if that's relevant. But if they try to base FFXVI sales from FF7R's commercial performance, there might be issues with doing that.
But also worth considering $70 games aren't exactly attractive themselves. Sure some people might be willing with the right titles, but perhaps this just isn't the kind of game people want to shell out $70 on. Especially now with modern consoles having plenty of 8th and 9th gen digital games in their catalogs people can go back to with ease and discounted all the time and perhaps people still want to play FFXVI, but maybe they just want to hold out for a sale, and they have plenty of games to keep them busy until then.
All that aside, it's not surprising a game's sales are limited when they limit their audience by locking it down on a single system. Many Japanese publishers are finally catching on and abandoning this one system only model they've been stuck to for years. Square Enix seems to be the last of the major Japanese publishers to catch on. Not surprising Square Enix seems to be open again to releasing more games on Xbox after they've ousted their previous CEO with another. Not sure if it'll make any difference, the previous one may have locked the company down into a Sony exclusivity arrangement for quite a while but we'll never know when that runs its course until the exclusives start coming to other systems and they start focusing on more multiplatform releases.
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