KingdomFantasyXIII said:
I need to correct you on some things:
1. The higher ups (like Yoichi Wada) were the ones that skewed the overblown sales. Don't be associating developers of the FF13 brand sales wise to the developers of Tomb Raider sales wise.
2. Yoichi Wada got the boot because of this bullshit and got what he deserved. He no longer controls Square Enix and a new boss named Matsuda does
3. Motomu Toriyama was quite open with the sales to FF13. He did want the game to sell 5 million copies but over the course of the year, not immediately. He was much more open to the sales of said game because he compared the output of what FF10 and FF12 did and saw how it took time to sell over the course of the year. Even when FF12 had more initial sales than FF13, the yearly sales of FF13 greatly outsold FF12 and paralleled that of FF10.
4. XIII-2 and Lightning Returns are direct sequels. Applying the same logic of the yearly sales that Toriyama had for FF13, he is waiting for the game (Lightning Returns) to sell over the course of the year, not initial. Tomb Raider 2013 is a complete reboot of a franchise. It cost much more money, had more hype and attention, and is much more commercialized than XIII-2 or Lightning Returns. It sold more because it was much more important than a direct sequel that cost less, had less attention and hype and less commercialization.
I hope this helps
You're not "correcting" me, per se, since I was just paraphrasing their ineptitude from several months ago. You're "clarifying", not "correcting".
But allow me to do some correcting, if you will.
1. Square Enix, as a business OVERALL, reported Tomb Raider as a disappointment that failed to meet expectations on their quarterly financial reports and their investor meetings. That had nothing to do with Final Fantasy or Tomb Raider's teams, but the absolute leads of the company publically claimed it as a disappointment and tagged it as one of THE reasons for a poor financial quarter. That wasn't just opinion; that's on their financial records. In fact, nearly every Western game released that quarter was claimed to be "underperforming" (Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs, Hitman)... but little mention was given to the investors about FF14 (probably because it was obvious) or FF13-2 (which sold less than 60% of what FF13 did). All the blame was placed on the western releases in the investor meetings and financial report.
2. Wada voluntarily stepped down. He was not "booted" (though Japanese culture definitely pressured him to do so). It was, in fact, this exact same investor meeting where the blame was pegged to games like Tomb Raider that he stepped down. But his successor, in part, got the job because Matsuda, in that same meeting, vowed to find out what went wrong with these games and correct it (hint: it wasn't the games that were the problems).
3. That's actually TERRIBLE that FF13 sold "comparable" to those PS2 games. Mainly because those games managed to achieve those sales on ONE single platform, while FF13 hobbled along on TWO major platforms. In reality, that should have doubled their traditional sales numbers by doubling their userbase, but it only sold comparably to those, and, I would argue, the initial sales were heavily based on the Final Fantasy brand name itself and not the actual quality of the game (mainly evident by the staggering drop-off of sales with every direct sequel; most sequels this generation IMPROVED with time, not diminished). Eventually, the 13-year-old port of Final Fantasy X outsold the debut of the brand spankin' new Lightning Returns. Hell, DIRGE OF CERBERUS, as big an abomination as that was, had higher launch numbers than Lightning Returns.
4. Tomb Raider sold better because it IS better. Plain and simple. It wasn't "more important". If anything, it's incredible. Sales of Tomb Raider games had stalled. The franchise took a hit after Angel of Darkness and never recovered, and Tomb Raider Underworld underperformed as well. The series was in limbo, lacking the universal acclaim and sales it once had while Uncharted took the baton and ran with it. Tomb Raider was facing irrelevancy. Yet the reboot became the fastest selling game in the franchise and one of the best selling games of its year (AND it's likely going to be Square Enix's biggest seller THIS console generation, surpassing FF13 even). It's name was dirt and the reboot saved the franchise. FF13, on the other hand, took a series with near universal acclaim and broke the fanbase. I'd argue it was MUCH more important for a key numbered FF game to retain its expected level of acclaim and quality, but it failed to do so and damaged the brand. Then FF14 happened. Then All the Bravest. While Tomb Raider's brand name value has never been higher, not since its peak PS1 days, Final Fantasy, due to their terrible decisions, is at an all-time low, with ports of better games from their golden days selling better than their newest efforts. A decade-plus port of a PS2 game on one platform outsold the current-gen finale to a trilogy of games available on both major platforms. More people cared about revisiting Spira than about spending any more time with Lightning and her merry band of morons and put their money where their mouths were.
Tomb Raider is now sitting in a position of power and respect, having earned not just profitability (the biggest Square Enix console release in over 7 years), but also universal acclaim and legions of new fans. Final Fantasy, by comparison, had their brand tarnished and lost legions of fans this generation. Final Fantasy 15 is not in an enviable position, but best of luck to it, because Square Enix did an impressive job dropping the ball in every way with Final Fantasy these last few years... while Lightning's creator continues to claim she is, and I quote, "the FACE of the company and the first strong female protagonist in the series."
