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Square Enix share price drops amid claims Final Fantasy 16 didn’t meet ‘high end’ expectations
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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FF16 sold really well though. Square Enix likes making unrealistic expectations for their games and they do it every time. I don’t think they even believe their expectations are real. The real reason for their share loss is increased operational costs.
FF15 sold 5 million copies on the first day, while FF16 took a few days to get to 3 million. It's not selling as well as 15. Anecdotally I'm seeing far less discussion of it online than when 15 came out.
They also have more competition this year. Personally I won't get it till it's on sale because I haven't enjoyed a FF game much in a long time, so I don't really trust them anymore even if critic reviews are positive.
The article states that the 15 sales were for multiple platforms and 16 is for one platform.
Looks like we've found the reason
Capcom was guilty of this 10-15 years ago with the infamous "Capcom test" where they would release a small project or re-release a game in a franchise they were floating around ideas for a new entry in, and if the small game or re-release didn't sell basically like a new AAA game, the franchise didn't get the new entry. This was part of how the company was basically reduced to only Resident Evil and Street Fighter for a time. Fortunately they eventually snapped out of it, probably when they realized you can't make the kind of money you used to make when you're effectively killing off all but two of your IPs due to stupid sales expectations. Square Enix will probably hit that point eventually as well.
Feels more like general human behavior, and less specific to only making games. People can get quite lost in those ways. But as you've said, I'm glad they've snapped out of it. Just in time for me to get a remaster, Ghost Trick! Not exactly groundbreaking here, but it ain't SF or RE lol.