I don't understand what you mean by much of that audience didn't return to FF7 after that period?
Because you haven't really read a single post so far.
It's a ps1 game so selling a few million copies is pretty good.
This is evidence of that, as I never said it wasn't.
FF7 was that big of a game. The fact that Sony was able to pull them away from Nintendo was a massive win.
In Japan sure.
Saying it was "Never that big" is straight up wrong.
100% accurate outside of Japan.
FF7 is what won the console war for Sony,
In some countries like the US, which Sony sold the most PS's, it wasn't even in the top 10 best-sellers.
Was a good selling game, lots of hype, but the amount of people who inflate HOW big it was has always been inflated by certain online gaming circles over the years. Nothing wrong with the game, it didn't sell poorly, sold great really, just wasnt that big.
Final Fantasy 7 is the second best selling game on the original playstation,
No, that is FF6, followed by Xenogears.
This is complete nonsense. FF7 is what won the console war for Sony, and at the time was a massive success. E
Many games are inflated on the wikipedia list (which isn't entirely accurate) because everyone buys everyones games except japan, who mostly only brought their games at the time (and Crash Bandicoot)
You see 10 Million but don't think about where that came from.
~5million shipped in japan compared to 2.45 in the US is already 7.45M out of the original 9.8 Million sales back in the day. The new 10 something million on there includes late JAPANESE sales on top of that 9.8, and that number is NOT including PSN and other legal sales in JAPAN for the game which is included in this new number (and in other countries until now) which added 4 million sales, mostly from Japan.
When people talk about big games they usually mean having big reach as well, FF7 was a good seller, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't ever that big, most of it's clout was in Japan.
Gran Turismo would actually be a much better example of a impactful big game that really shifted the narrative back in the day without it being artificial and/or inflated.
To say that FF7 "won the console war" for sony is actually nonsense, given it's a war they were already winning before FF7 came out, and won more so AFTER it was already out with other games.
FF7 had CG commercials on primetime. It's sales were massive.
Many games had commercials during prime time. Technically, you are right it did have massive sales relatively, for the time, except you're applying that the wrong way by acting like it was a big thing across the industry in mass, instead of primarily in one country, which is responsible for most of its sales, and the fact other countries also play that game (even if not as much) which adds to the total, something that was not done in reverse back then for most big games.
While other big games that actually had better regional spread and were more known, were not generally brought by Japan, this is why looking at absolute numbers back then doesn't mean much.
Notice people don't use this argument for Dragon Quest because they knew that game basically didn't exist (relatively) outside of japan without having as loyal fans, or heavy marketing (despite the western anime boom taking off at the time, silly move in hindsight at Enix back then), it's not different with FF7 other than the fact it had better sales outside japan because of the marketing, Sony's assistance, and other factors.
Yeah, its a straight up foolish argument, and it's clear they weren't there/weren't old enough to remember what was the biggest marketing push ever in gaming.
No, more like you were a kid, became a fan, and went along with the hype without looking for the facts I mean we have sales figures, FF7 wasn't even top 10 in the US, and the UK sold less FF7 than what the US sold, who knows how little it sold across Europe despite the marketing campaign.
Marketing campaigns don't guarantee massive sales across the board.
With that being said, you are also being misleading, you are twisting me saying it wasn't THAT big, which is true, and no it didn't save Sony or lead to a win it was already winning, to me acting like it didn't sell at all. or very little
FF7 sold great, it just wasn't the Halo 3 of the time you are making it out to be. People who think like that are the ones who are constantly surprised when stuff like US numbers are released, or they see this thread and see only 14 million. Much of it's sales was in one-region, outside of that region many of the sales were frontloaded because of the circumstances of the time you may not have been there for, or may not remember. After that, interest waned over time, and some of those initial users did not come back.
- Such as the Anime boom
- Sony's marketing assistance,
- Casual anime fans who weren't gamers being pulled in
- Prominence at some retailers
- People who jumped on the bandwagon (trend chasing)
- Actual people who wanted the game straightforward on top of the above.
Some of those decreased or stopped coming back after the first few years of FF7's release, it's really only been consistently strong selling up until now in Japan with big number, I'm sure it's done well everywhere else put together outside of Japan, but that 14 million number doesn't seem low to me at all given the circumstances.
That was my first thought with the amount of platforms it's been released on over the years as official classic emulation through to direct ports psp, Vita, ps3, ps4, Xbox one, switch, various pc ports, various mobile ports across multiple platforms..
Given the circumstances, I think that 14 million is right on the money. That 4 Million or so on top of what was there in the 2000s until now doesn't seem that low to me if you think regionally for where those sales may have come from.