The Japanese publisher did not blame the game but instead referred to the state of the platform it launched on.

Final Fantasy XVI was released as a timed exclusive for PlayStation 5 a month and a half ago. Sony treated Square Enix’s game as a first-party, internally developed JRPG. Initially, the Japanese publisher tried to be optimistic about the launch, as we’d heard from them how quickly Final Fantasy 16 had reached 3 million sales. Still, Square Enix’s tone regarding the game’s performance has slightly changed.

The Japanese publisher’s quarterly business report was not that positive, with operating revenues for the quarter down 79% year-on-year, even though Final Fantasy XVI came out in the April-June period… but let’s add that the game didn’t even have two weeks to make a solid push. The game did not become a failure: it was welcomed by the press and gamers, but it could not be a success to make up for Square Enix’s other losses (e.g., Forspoken). (Maybe they shouldn’t push the live service model that the publisher REGULARLY flopped with last year!)

Bloomberg reported that in a conference call after the report, Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu said that Final Fantasy XVI had not met the company’s high-end expectations, implicitly suggesting that the PlayStation 5 user base was not large enough. In the meantime, Sony is no longer struggling with a stock shortage, so if Kiryu is still going on about it in three months, we’ll laugh; by then, they should admit they’re expecting too much.

It’s perhaps no coincidence that Square Enix recently announced that they’re trying to mend fences with Microsoft, as we’ve already reported that Final Fantasy XIV will finally be available on Xbox, as the MMO has only been available on PlayStation and PC.

Source: WCCFTech