FF7 Rebirth's Sales - Thinking Out Loud
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There has recently been discussions surrounding Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, but more particularly its sales, as recent data has suggested that the continuation of Remake trilogy has reportedly selling half of what Remake did within the same timeframe.
Data suggests that active players for Rebirth peaked around 2.2 million players between Rebirth's launch and April 10th. Whilst this isn't an accurate representation of sales, it is an indicator for many and it suggests that Rebirth is underperforming in comparison to Remake which sold 3.5 million copies in three days.
What does this mean to me? Well there are a lot of variables to consider here, I believe that yes, there are definitely people who wanted a 1-to-1 remake and also others who were turned of by the changes, and multiverse angle that the story was looking to be taking at the end of Remake.
But I think it's also important to consider the other factors too, like firstly Final Fantasy 7 Remake was the first part into this trilogy for one, and secondly it came at the tail-end of the PS4's lifecycle where most people owned a PS4. I get we're according to Sony half way through this console generation, but the momentum for the PS5 and need to purchase one has really not been as heavily felt for the PS5 as it was for previous generations, so with that I'd say there's more than likely a fair amount of people who haven't purchased the game purely because they don't own a PS5.
The next component is that this game, whilst Square have said you can play this without having played Remake, IS a direct sequel and a continuation. So with that in mind it makes sense why people who maybe are yet to play Remake haven't picked up Rebirth.
Tarrmu
There's also the PC gamers, who're waiting for this game to hit steam who probably picked this game up originally on PS4 because it was a console exclusive with no expectation of it coming to Steam, and Remake really did set this philosophy in motion for future PlayStation exclusive Final Fantasy games.
Then last but not least there are also a large crowd of people who're probably waiting until this whole trilogy is complete to see if it is worth investing the 100's of hours and dollars into this experience.
With all of these different groups of people in mind, as the value proposition for a PS5 increases sales for Rebirth will increase, when it hits steam the sales will improve, and lastly when this trilogy is complete I except there to be a big bump to both Remake and Rebirth in terms of its sales.
But one thing that I don't like about these sales discussions is how it is being weaponized to indicate the quality for how good the game is. I think that Rebirth is anything but a failure, it is one of the best approaches to a modern Final Fantasy that we've seen in years, and I think with time we'll only look more and more fondly on this game.
