Japanese Charts: Mario vs. Donkey Kong Drops To Second As Final Fantasy Makes A Splash

260k for a new FF in Japan is shockingly low

Was there any doubt? Just glad I also have a PS5 and to think Nintendo is where I spent my teenage years playing FF games.

Bizarre that not even Final Fantasy can get PS5 sales to the top of the chart.

Oh, some big number of PS4 sales. 😯

I really want to see the total sales of Splatoon 3 since they haven’t been updated since December 2022 (11 million copies sold and the game came out four months before, which is impressive)

I need to dig out a link to one of those comment sections where everyone doubted the OLED before it was launched, everyone was so certain it would flop due to the price...niche views on niche websites rarely reflect the real world.

In other news Momotaro is rapidly approaching the million mark!

very odd the rebirth sales.. considering when final fantasy 16 came out it sold i think 340 thousand copies it's first week and there are a lot more ps5 now in japan then when 16 came out.. either digital sales take up more of sony total game sales or perhaps people are just tired of final fantasy 7 even in the uk sales were down considerably for this compared to remake..then again digital may be the reason i will wait until the total games sales for the first week are announced..remake sold 3.5 million it's first week and 16 sold 3 million.. it will be very disappointing for a game with 92 on metacritic to fall below those numbers..

@mariomaster96 agreed...

@johnedwin Don't forget ReBirth is a sequel, Sequels pretty much always end up selling less than the previous game as people are put of jumping in without playing the first game. Whereas Final Fantasy 16 was a brand new game so anyone could jump in straight away without fear of not understanding the story.

What will most likely happen though is that Final Fantasy 7 Remake will get a player boost as people will want to play that game first before jumping into ReBirth.

Either that or Japanese players just aren't interested in high end JRPG's and want their gaming to have simple visuals and handheld capabilities. Probably why Dragon Quest sells better in Japan whereas as Final Fantasy sells better in the west.

@johnedwin
Remake of course, was always going to have far more hype and it's release window in a time when games were selling like hotcakes due to the pandemic are 2 big reasons.

A decent debut for FFVII Rebirth. It'll probably have a stronger Western showing. I'm curious to know if debut numbers on Nintendo hardware for FFVII remake series will exceed these figures.

Even now the Switch still is the top selling system, that's kinda funny. Wonder what it will take for it to be knocked down a peg. And still wondering where it will end up, if it could be the top selling system of all time by the end.

I am happy to see those Final Fantasy Rebirth numbers. Yes, it is over.

What also makes me happy is, that people seem to not care for scores. If they like a game and want to play it, they do.

@WiltonRoots,

What?, the armchair console/buisness experts on here were wrong, such a shocker.

@johnvboy The very same, remember that mass outcry about how the Switch was doomed for launching at £279.99 over here, guaranteed fail apparently.

I really hope rebirth does well! I have to admit that I haven't purchased it yet. I really need to finish my games to lower this backlog but man this adult life isn't easy lol. I only really have 5-10 hours a week to game now.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is for me more fun than Final Fantasy XVI. It's a pretty awesome game to be honest.
Even though I get a bit tired with all the mini games the game throws at me, but Final Fantasy XVI didn't have any mini games as far as I remember, so I guess they decided to really double down on it with this one

Anyway, sorry for going a bit off rails, The game is great so I am not surprised that it's selling...

@WiltonRoots,

Yes I do remember that, and the epic.... "will the Nintendo Switch be a success" thread on NeoGaf, which has now been closed down, rather than left to be bumped every time the Switch reaches another sales milestone, to serve as a reminder why Niche core hobby gamers are the last people you should be asking about these things.

@Axecon rumors have it the trilogy will never appear on any other console it will only be on the ps and eventually pc..

@mariomaster96 It's a national holiday almost when a mainline Dragon Quest drops in Japan.

I'm looking forward to Rebirth when I get a chance but newer FF just isn't the franchise it used to be.

I just can't wait to see the Unicorn Overlord numbers next week.

Strong sales for PS5 software?

I has suspected that we can't trust the PS sales in Japan for a while now.
This just proves it even further... The sales of FF7RR is laughable abysmal.
No secret that the FF-brand has declined in Japan for ages now. But that FF7RR may ending up selling worser than FF16 which were sold below half million, while FF15 and FF7R ended up at +900k each.

We has seen on numerous occasions of that PS5 had +80.000 (or even +100.000) in sales for some weeks straight despite not having single one games on top-10, or top-20.
While this happens and that PS5 couldn't sell more than 50k as mostly despite having a (or more than one) big game release or releases.

So what heck are they playing on their PS5 in Japan actually? PS5 has +5m in Japan and FF7RR may ending up selling below 500k, so what are they playing actually? There're zero PS5 game in Japan which has been sold 1m... This makes zero sense anymore.
I presume that it's a loyalty "thing" or even a "scalper" thing, or something even more fishier thing?

It also makes me so sad to see that Japanese devs westernizes (aesthetically and politically) their games, especially series like Final Fantasy, Street Fighter (puke!), Tekken, Resident Evil, etc so much in nowadays to cater the western audience, that they aren't even the same game anymore compared with how it was before.

Well it's no loss for me since I has stopped to supporting those games. But it can't be that so fun for all those longtime fans who just helplessly watches their beloved series being butched again and again now.

I always love reading the comments on these articles. I'm constantly impressed by how loyal some people are to a corporation. As someone who owns both a Switch OLED and a PS5, I can't quite wrap my head around the reason for consumers to be competitive, but it does result in some fascinatingly pearl clutching comments.

Wow even Final Fantasy VII Rebirh didn't help ramp up PS5 sales number at all.

@johnedwin
Thats frustrating if thats the case since i would have gladly double dipped if they came to switch successor since i love playing on handheld and it feels unlikely that we will see sony rejoin the dedicated handheld market (as in a handheld console rather than something like the steam deck which is more a portable PC) would be cool if i had had much luck with remote play at all (since it goes through wi-fi and can be very temperamental)

@Keman the fact is japan gamers are portable they love the switch no big deal the west more then makeup for the lagging sales of ps games in japan..

I bought a PS5 specifically to play Rebirth, and I'd say being at the top of the sales chart is well deserved. Though I was expecting it to be even higher, but like was said here, it's a sequel. I wonder, though, did Japan have the same preorder bonus that gave you Remake for free?

I think this is a sign FF is screwed as a Playstation exclusive.

The market just isn't there even for AAA FF anymore, and I think even square realise it given the majority of spin-offs and inspired series like Bravely and Octopath go Nintendo 1st. spinoffs tend to do well on Nintendo, while Strangers of Paradise did poorly despite being in PS4, the same system as mainline FF

I think FFXVII needs to be multiplatform including the Switch successor and PC. These insane Playstation exclusives are just killing the franchise slowly generation by generation, there's literally millions of players who buy FF spin-offs, Bravely Default and Octopath, on the other systems that Square are leaving on the counter by doing deals with Sony.

@Dr_Lugae mind you this game is only on the ps5 with a base of 50 million that by itself will hurt sales numbers..remake was on a base of 100 million when it launched world wide and more then 7 million ps4 were in japan at the time 2.5 million more then the current ps5... but final fantasy biggest customers and loyal followers are in the west not in japan anymore..

@Dr_Lugae it is coming to pc so that will beef up sales...

@Dr_Lugae octopath 2 did not set the world on fire in japan either..

@johnedwin Yet the original FF7 did about 2million 1st week in Japan when the PS1 was at I believe 10million worldwide.

Difference is the original was a true system seller and the remake is just a pale shadow. Square usually announce the 1st week sales of FF but they're pretty quiet about this one, which speaks for its performance worldwide.

Way to go New 2DS LL!

@DwaynesGames I'm surprise there's even an unnamed invisible 10th entry in the hardware chart as well.

@Serpenterror I guess there are not enough console models available for a 10th place ranking. Even the 2DS only sold 13 units.

@Anti-Matter It's pretty hilarious to see PS4 neck and neck with XB!

@Serpenterror Switch 2 confirmed!

@Dr_Lugae Yeah, I have a feeling these games will probably jump ship to Switch 2, provided it can handle it. Both Remake and Rebirth were timed anyway; that hasn't changed. Rebirth's exclusivity will wrap up in May. The WP article was proven to be a mistake, so, any claims of it being "full console exclusive" are shady at best. Both are still timed. The third game will probably follow a similar path, or maybe be multiplat, but it's hard to say at this point.

@mariomaster96 it’s notably lower then the first part as well.

Its sad. Final Fantasy XIII sold over one million units on its first day of sale in Japan. Its not only that the franchise is in decline. I think first week sales reflects the franchise fatigue after all these disappointments. I mean FF13 sold like crazy in first week mostly using momentum and anticipation of excellent FF12. So low numbers reflect more the previous games shortcoming than FF7 Rebirth potential.

@dimi It is sad to see the series fall so far, but I don't think it's franchise fatigue. The NES, SNES, PS1, and PS2 each had 3 mainline Final Fantasy games which were all very successful. Now we get one mainline game per generation because each one has been in development hell since FF12. FF16 seems to have reversed that trend but it might just be too little, too late.

At least FF14 was able to recover from its disastrous launch but the interest in single player FF just isn't there anymore. I'm guessing people moved onto Monster Hunter (in Japan, at least).

Another factor is that portable gaming had dominated Japan post-PS2. Unless SE scales back the production values so that they can launch on Nintendo hardware, the series will just become more and more irrelevant. Dragon Quest really did itself a favor by not chasing power.