I’m not one who is interested in just looking at the worldwide number as I don’t think it tells the true story. Breaking things down by region, looking at how previous titles performed in that region and what market conditions were like then and now are important and gives us a better understanding of things. Just saying, “FF XIII did fairly good with ~7million” isn’t really saying much without digging into the specifics.
And since I’m focused on Japan. Here are some Media Create numbers archived by
Game Data Museum from FFVII to FFXIII-2.
FFVII - 3.2 million (3,277,776)
FFVIII - 3.5 million (3,501,588)
FFIX - 2.7 million (2,707,301)
FFX - 2.3 million (2,325,215)
FFX-2 - 1.9 million (1,960,937)
FFXII - 2.3 million (2,322,541)
FFXIII - 1.8 million (1,905,979)
FFXIII-2 - 0.9 million (906,394)
LR:FFXIII - 0.4 million (419,532)
That reads as a decline to me. Now, that doesn’t mean the IP is dead or going to die. It also doesn’t mean it can never go back up either. Pretty sure FFXV will do better then FFXIII-2 and LR:FFXIII as it’s a brand new mainline entry on a brand new next generation platform (which is going to be one reason for the sales it puts up). After putting up with FFXIII for an entire console generation, I imagine people are pretty hungry for this one. They want something fresh.
The root of FFXIII-2 and LR:FFXIII numbers pretty much comes from FFXIII. If FFXIII were a better game, then those numbers probably wouldn’t be so low. In contrast, FFX-2 did pretty well because FFX had a positive reception.
Anyways... It will be interesting to see how FFXV does in Japan. The market has changed greatly in Japan all thanks to mobile gaming. That’s where everyone spends their time gaming and where the money is. Home console gaming in Japan is nothing like it was 10 years ago. And as you’ve pointed out, the brand has taken a hit last generation. Some of that consumer trust has been hurt. Will it do better, around the same or worse then FFXIII? Time will tell.
Hmm... I wonder why...