Final Fantasy VII Remake hit stores this spring to rave reviews. People loved the reimagining of their favorite characters from the original 1997 PlayStation 1 classic, and the sales numbers have proven that.
Square Enix, the company that develops the Final Fantasy series, has noted that they are pleased with the game’s initial shipment. This included 3.5 million units, which is particularly impressive when you take into account that the world was at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic when the game was released.
Yosuke Matsuda, the president of Square Enix, spoke about the game’s sales during his presentation for the fiscal year, which ended on March 31.
He noted that the physical sales of the game fell below their high expectations due to the global pandemic, but that was offset by a very strong rise in digital sales. Of course, more digital sales works better in Square’s favor and will yield a stronger gross margin for the company.
The question then turned to this game’s future. Specifically, someone asked Matsuda whether Square would be releasing the game on other platforms like PC or Xbox.
Matsuda responded, saying that he would refrain from commenting on that for now. However, Square has noted that capturing new players is going to be a key part of its strategy moving forward. The company stated that it is planning future initiatives to gain new players throughout the year.
Final Fantasy VII Remake was released as a PlayStation 4 exclusive. Sony has exclusive rights to the game for a period of one year. If the game were to be released once more, for the Xbox One or PC platforms, the earliest it would be able to do so would be April 10, 2021.
Before its long-awaited release, Final Fantasy VII Remake was hacked, with spoilers released on the internet. Hackers were able to gain access to the game by breaking into the, at the time, unreleased and unannounced demo on the PlayStation Network.
It was definitely noteworthy that the hackers discovered PC code in the files recovered from the demo. This led many to believe that once Sony’s exclusivity deal is up, the game would at least see a release for PC.
Despite spoiler leaks and a global pandemic, Final Fantasy VII Remake went on to break records for the Final Fantasy franchise, both in terms of physical and digital sales. It was the best selling game in the United States for April 2020.
