The highly anticipated game Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the second installment in the ambitious Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, received widespread critical acclaim when it launched in late February.
The game earned a perfect score in Wccftech's review penned by Kai Tatsumoto:
Related Story Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Director Hopes Series Will Continue After Remake Project
If there’s one word to describe Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, it would be ambitious. Tetsuya Nomura, Kazushige Nojima, and the rest of Creative Business Unit I at Square-Enix have turned what is merely the remainder of Final Fantasy VII’s Disc One upon leaving Midgar into a 100-hour-long epic. Moments of distracted exploration throughout the massive wide-open environments are often bookended with more linear story segments that balance comedy and somber moments. Players will feel more intimately engrossed with the story of those chosen by the planet and routinely have their fond memories of playing the original tickled with delight. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is an absolute must-play for fans of the series.
The Metascore (the average of reviews aggregated on Metacritic, which includes ours) is 92, three points higher than the predecessor. And yet, according to Daniel Ahmad, Director of Research & Insights at Niko Partners, the game is severely underperforming in sales compared to Final Fantasy VII Remake. Here's what the analyst wrote on Twitter:
Not to be that guy, but Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is underperforming sales wise. It’s selling about half of what Remake sold in the same timeframe and looks like it’ll have a weaker tail (prior to any PS+ like release).
Ahmad cited equities research reports that get the data from 'usual trackers'. Publicly, we know that the game ranked fifth on UK's March 2024 chart (topped by Helldivers 2).
There's a few obvious reasons for this puzzling sales performance. First and foremost, the Final Fantasy VII Remake launched in April 2020, right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the games industry experienced an unprecedented boost to gaming revenue and engagement caused by the mandatory stay-at-home laws.
Moreover, that was also just a few months before the release of the new consoles. PlayStation 4 was at an all-time high install base nearly seven years after its launch, whereas PS5 has barely reached half of that time on the market.
It is unlikely that this underwhelming performance will influence Square Enix's plans to complete the trilogy. The next and final installment is already in production, and the developers hope to be able to release the game in around three or four years. However, the low sales may persuade the publisher to be quicker with porting Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to PC.
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Circana’s March 2024 data on video game spending in the United States is available, with Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Helldivers 2 scoring big. In the midst of all this is Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the long-awaited second part in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy, which is the fourth best-selling title in the US year to date.
The former NPD Group (now named “Circana”) has released its full North American sales data for March, and it seems like it was an up-and-down month for the industry. Players spent $4.9 billion on games, additional content, and hardware in March, up 4 percent year-on-year. This increase came from mobile and software spending, as hardware sales were down 31 percent year-on-year with PS5 #1 in terms of unit and dollar sales, Switch #2 in terms of unit sales, and Xbox Series X/S #2 in terms of dollar sales.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's co-director, Motomu Toriyama, recently unveiled the poignant lines spoken by Cloud during Aerith's death scene: «My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning!» Toriyama's insight into this pivotal moment in the game has sparked discussions among players, providing clarity and context to a scene that holds immense emotional weight for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth fans.
Square Enix recently released a patch for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth that fixed an issue preventing the Platinum Trophy unlocking for some players, though it turns out the update also fixed another minor issue that players have discovered in the last few days.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth players have been perplexed since release over its confusing retry screen, but Square Enix has quietly tweaked it in the latest patch.
Despite releasing to universal acclaim from both fans and critics, it appears that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth may have failed to perform well sales-wise, according to a notable industry analyst. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth potentially underperforming may bring into question the popularity of the franchise as a whole.
The latest update for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth made an important change not mentioned in the patch notes by changing the wording of the retry screen. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth features all kinds of adrenaline-fueled, over-the-top battles. The action-packed encounters can be rather lengthy, especially when it comes to the game's multi-phase boss battles.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth enjoyed widespread critical acclaim upon its launch earlier in the year on a level that no game in the series has in a long, long time- though it seems that critical acclaim isn’t quite translating to commercial success in the manner that Square Enix would have hoped for.