What Final Fantasy 16’s Sales Say About the Future of the Franchise

As @Zuby_Tech notes on Twitter, these numbers make Final Fantasy 16 the fastest-selling PS5 exclusive yet and the 6th fastest-selling PlayStation exclusive ever. Granted, the PS5 exclusive record comes with a bit of an asterisk. After all, there have been very few true PS5 exclusives so far. More importantly, Final Fantasy 16 is the biggest true PS5 exclusive we’ve gotten since the PS5 hardware became more readily available. However, that number is still significant, as is the revelation that Final Fantasy actually charts quite high on the all-time PS exclusive list alongside some notable competition.

In terms of the Final Fantasy franchise, this number is a bit more complicated. As you can see in the link above, Final Fantasy 7 Remake sold slightly faster than Final Fantasy 16 at launch. However, the discrepancy isn’t that great, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake benefited from its availability on PS4 and a ton of hype. Besides, these numbers mean that Final Fantasy 16 will soon outsell the first six Final Fantasy games and could very well end up being a top-five best-selling mainline Final Fantasy game.

It’s when you compare Final Fantasy 16‘s sales to Final Fantasy 15‘s sales that this conversation gets a lot more interesting. Early reports indicated that Final Fantasy 16‘s UK retail sales were down 74 percent compared to Final Fantasy 15‘s initial sales. However, that number only accounted for physical sales, and Final Fantasy 16 still managed to top the sales charts in that region. Besides, physical sales were more popular when Final Fantasy 15 was released, and that game was available on multiple platforms.

Even still, Final Fantasy 15 is actually the fastest-selling Final Fantasy game ever. A Square Enix report from that time revealed that Final Fantasy 15 sold five million copies during its first day of availability. Though Final Fantasy 15 enjoys a mixed reception among fans (to say the least), that game did go on to sell an estimated 10 million+ copies, which would make it one of the top three best-selling Final Fantasy games ever. Final Fantasy 16 can certainly still outsell Final Fantasy 15, but it is an uphill battle from here. Of course, we still don’t know when (or if) Final Fantasy 16 will be released on other platforms. Those hypothetical ports could end up accounting for a lot of additional sales.

That seems to be the biggest takeaway here, though. Historically, Square Enix has had a close relationship with PlayStation for quite some time. There have even been talks of PlayStation purchasing Square Enix (though a lot of hurdles would need to be cleared for that to happen). Given that Square Enix reportedly approached multiple console manufacturers to discuss potential deals for Final Fantasy 16‘s availability, it seems likely that the company was willing to accept the possibility of lower initial sales for the revenue they would get for an exclusivity deal.

If that’s the case, then Final Fantasy 16‘s sales certainly seem to validate Square Enix’s decision to make the game a true PS5 exclusive. These early sales numbers are objectively impressive for a true PS5 exclusive and strongly suggest that Square Enix is reaching a considerable portion of the Final Fantasy fanbase through that platform. We’ll see what happens when the next rounds of negotiations come up, but it’s easy to imagine Final Fantasy 17 also being a PlayStation launch exclusive.