FF7 was always overhyped, the situations surrounding the original FF7's launch has continued to cloud peoples head in years, the PSX had from late 1996 started taking names in sales and there were all kinds of hit American and Japanese games, right around the time the degenerate style of anime was becoming popular in the US creating the weebs, which also coincided with a deceptive marketing campaign about the games real graphics, while within a year after launch the Pokemon craze started while the FF7 craze still had steam, among other factors.
However, that lightning in a bottle did not strike twice for either FF8 and FF9 both which sold less than the one before and non-gamer anime/ova fans who didn't convert started moving away, and the JRPG commercial craze was also fading removing other gamers.
FF7 did about 2.3 million in the US, and 4+ million in Japan. It still did well in the US but it wasn't as big as the hype and circumstances surrounding it during it's release and it's first full year on the market. Going to 1.9 to 1.3 for FF8 and FF9 respectively. The perception created inflating the size of the game also led to the slight falsity that Jrpgs were the range because of the game, which isn't really accurate, there was an attempt by publishers in Japan, and even western publishers who would publish or commission Jrpgs to see if they can grab on to the belief that there was money sitting on the table, but the reality was that Jrpgs just weren't really popular outside of Japan, sure some games, and I mean a select group, may have moved from super Niche to somewhat of an audience during that time but the 3 FF games mostly due to FF7 were the only Jrpgs to sell over 1 million units on the console and most Jrpgs sold less than half that.
But the belief itself made sense if you were there, but it was more like a visual mirage than a real thing actually catching fire. MGS without any of the advantages and circumstances surrounding it, and in less time, sold only slightly below FF7, while Tony Hawk games and Spyro (only the first one) were quite a bit ahead in the US, same with Tekken 3, and none of the mentioned games had any spectacle and hype associated with them with the same intensity as with FF7.
When FF7 remake first came out many people expected it, even after it was confirmed episodic, to fly off shelves pretty much the entire first 2 years it was on the shelf, likely hitting 10+ million sales. There is a current and nostalgia audience for FF7, however it's nowhere near that big. It's not that FF7 is bad (although I personally don't like it much there's a lot of bad design, flaws, and bad writing even in the remake let alone the original) but it's that people forced themselves to believe that FF7 was more massive than it ever really was.
Now with that said whether it's LTD is 3 or 5 million those are both numbers many games and studios would kill for so unless Square messed up their budgeting (which they have many times in the past) I think they are happy with the sales. Maybe.
I'm surprised Square-Soft had that much money back in 1997
They didn't, some big games would get funding through sources or outsources partnerships, align with margin. FF7 did a lot of that you can see this just in the credits in game though there are credits out of game as well. Generally Square was always on the line doing this, that's why when they tried the same tactic with their first "movie" it nearly killed them by itself. They always were looking for the ball that hit out of the park so even with successful profits their margins were very bad from a business perspective.
dont forget, the impact of the previous title in the franchise, like since FFXIII to FFXV
FFXV is 3 feet from being the best selling FF game of all time, but It doesn't really have anything left to make it across the line but it's close. Considering the XIII games reception that's pretty crazy.
JRPGs are sadly no longer mass market. They had a moment in the late 90s where FF7 opened up the genre to casual/mass audiences, but its been in steady decline ever since. I dont really imagine any JRPG in todays market would move 10M units. At least not without also checking more mass boxes like "open world" and "emergent" and a bunch of other stuff I have no appetite for.
And in the original post of mine at the top of these quotes, you now see what I mean by the "belief" that FF7 opened doors, it didn't, it created a hallucination that there was money on the table due to the circumstances and hype surrounding FF7 at the time, causing publishers to try and catch a paper tiger, but there were no other mass success Jrpgs on consoles than FF7 FF8 and FF9 which all sold significantly less than the one before. In fact if not FFXV, FF7 is still likely the biggest Jrpg on consoles in the US. I don't think people realize outside of Japan Jrpgs are still very very niche on average on gaming consoles. You'll find more buyers on portables, even then only a group of games do really well, but better than consoles across the board though.
Of course some people may have differing definitions of jrpg.
I think right now there is probably more of a demand for a Chrono Trigger/Cross remasters/remakes. S
lol No there isn't.
Chrono Trigger is one of those games that didn't initially do that well (but did decent in japan) were the cult fanbase kind of gets drunk and completely ignores reality and current interests and demographics and pretends that the first thing a Jrpg fan wants right now is a remake of Chrono Cross and not FF7 episode 2. lol.
FF7 may not have ever been as big as people perceived it to be but it's still the number one Jrpg brand on average on gaming consoles.
