Final Fantasy VII Rebirth missed out on Game of the Year at The Game Awards, losing to Sony's Astro Bot.

The second installment in Square Enix's remake of the PS1 cult classic Final Fantasy VII also failed to woo the executives in the market.

According to company president Takashi Kiryu, both Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Final Fantasy XVI "failed to improve" the profitability of the company's HD games segment.

None of that seems to matter to director Yoshinori Kitase, who revealed some big plans for the third part of the Final Fantasy VII remake in an interview with IGN Brazil.

Kitase revealed to IGN that the sales were "safe and satisfactory", and referred to other 2024 PlayStation releases for a benchmark.

Earlier this year, Sony Japan hosted the PlayStation Partners Awards, with the Grand Award category going to the three titles developed in Asia with the best sales between October 2023 and September 2024.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was one of the recipients, alongside Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, and Black Myth: Wukong (no, not the suspiciously cheap Switch version).

The satisfactory market performance of the game does not mean Square Enix will take future sales for granted though. Kitase said that the modern gaming industry makes platform exclusivity untenable.

Despite feeling safe and pleased after reaching a certain level of sales, it's obvious that with modern gaming you cannot be a platform exclusive. I think we need to offer the game to the biggest number of players possible.

Square Enix restricted the initial console launches of the Final Fantasy VII remake franchise and Final Fantasy XVI to the PlayStation, in a move that arguably had a strong impact on sales performance in the last two years.

Final Fantasy VII Remake came out in April 2020, when many people were unable to head outside and spent a record amount of time gaming.

These circumstances mixed well with the anticipation of the long-awaited reboot propelled the game to the top of the charts, but its successors did not have the same fortune.

Back in 2016, Square Enix scored a major commercial success with Final Fantasy XV, which came out for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One simultaneously.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will be available on PC on January 23, 2025. There is no release date for the third part of the Final Fantasy VII reboot.

Posted: Jan 02, 2025 9:02 pm
Related Forum: PlayStation Forum

Source: https://www.dualshockers.com/final-fantasy-vii-part-3-not-console-exclusive-strong-rebirth-sales/