"Exclusives have become commercially unprofitable": producer of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth spoke about the game's good sales, but noted the importance of multiplatforming
In early 2024, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was released, which received such high marks from critics that it became the second highest average score among all the games in the cult series.
However, excellent reviews from experts did not help the game to gain much popularity. Analysts Analyst: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth sales halve from the previous instalment and fall short of Square Enix's expectations second part of Final Fantasy VII remake, and Square Enix management didn't show much enthusiasm about the sales results, but it seems that they weren't that bad.
Here's What We Know
In an interview with IGN Brasil, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth producer Yoshinori Kitase said that Square Enix is generally satisfied with the game's sales and does not consider it a commercial failure.
We're happy that we've reached a certain level of copies sold, but with the current state of the industry, we can't remain exclusive to one platform. I think we should be able to offer the game to as many gamers as possible.
In the same interview, Yoshinori Kitase noted that although Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is selling well, it could have made a lot more profit if it wasn't a PlayStation 5 exclusive. Previously, the same statements were made about Final Fantasy XVI. The Japanese producer quite reasonably believes that the production of games of this scale and level of performance has become so expensive that their release on only one platform is economically unprofitable and threatens huge losses.
These words echo Square Enix's new strategy, which involves abandoning exclusive games in favour of making them as multiplatform as possible.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will be released on PC as early as 23 January, but it remains to be seen whether the third instalment will be available on multiple platforms at once or will be a temporary PlayStation exclusive.
Source: IGN Brasil