Famitsu - Final Fantasy VII Rebrith Sales

Last week's Famitsu sales charts were quite surprising, and unfortunately, not in a positive way….

The focus is on Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, hailed as the PS5's most anticipated release of the year, which debuted with 262,656 units sold. Despite factoring in digital sales, this number remains notably low. By comparison, Final Fantasy XVI, another PS5 exclusive, launched with 336,027 copies sold in June 2023.

The PS5 experienced a notable 43% increase in hardware sales week-over-week, reaching a total of 48,000 units sold. Despite this surge and the launch of its flagship title of the year, the PS5 still lagged behind the Switch, which sold 62,000 units during the same period, despite lacking any major releases.

The talk all over the Twitter/X and gaming forums is the decline of Final Fantasy sales in Japan. Circulating widely was the tweet below detailing the downward trend in Final Fantasy series sales:

Final Fantasy series physical launch day sales - Japan

Back in the day, Final Fantasy reigned as on of the juggernauts in Japan. A new release in the series was an unparalleled event, with only Pokemon and Dragon Quest able to match its impact and popularity.

It seems like Sony is facing continuous challenges at the moment. The leaks last year that showed how costly Sony’s game development budgets are, it is not turning much of a profit, it lowered their PS5 sales forecast (and likely won’t make it), Sony admits to having no major first party software releasing the entire fiscal year, and the PS5’s biggest release of 2024 is off to a very slow start in Japan (and UK).

It will be interesting to observe the game's performance in tomorrow’s Famitsu chart. I expect the typical JRPG pattern of a huge second-week drop. As of now, Square Enix hasn't issued any PR or commented on sales in any way. I am eager to hear their perspective on this matter. I’m sure many will monitor this closely in the upcoming weeks.