PlayStation Final Fantasy 16 News
- Thread starter cm2
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Yoshi-P said this on sales:
Ochiai: Since I do not have any experience in game sales here, but you previously mentioned that if you go with the selling out pattern, then you can somewhat see the how the next implementation will be, and sometimes there are cases where this isn't what's the approach taken when it comes to sales pattern so my question is how, or at which timing would you be able to grasp on how the sales of the game will end up when it comes to today's context?
YoshiP: By the way, the system of lump-sum payment is applicable only in Japan※1 but when it comes to overseas, basically if you can just "break in" if you want to. This can be weird, but they basically just go "just purchase a shelf". What this means is that, let's take a street-level store for example: when release date approaches there will be other games released along with your game, yes? You can brush all of them aside and say you want to place one huge portion of the segment to sell, say, FF16, then you can ask them how much do you need to pay them to do so, and they'll do so. They would also tell you that you can ship them as many copies as you want to and they'll return the extra copies that they couldn't sell. Therefore to see how sales would fare will be starting from...the amount of pre-orders....so sales wise we'll look at the first week, to see how many have purchased the game digitally as well as from wholesale dealers, so the sell out starts there, and the rest will be predictions: How much the game has reached the hands of gamers, so predictions will be made. So we'll use those detailed data in advance and create a simulation. The reason is because we'll have proof at hand on how much the copies have reached the players. For example, for FFVII Remake, we calculate based on what we can see how many user base do we have and calculate from there, so judging from the content we have this time, we can estimate that there are certain generation base that hasn't played a single Final Fantasy game purchased this game but since we are making it a full real time action, we can calculate once on how much it has dropped in percentage for certain player base who would prefer turn based Final Fantasy games and create a simulation based on that, but ultimately the results cannot be certain until we open the lid (read: release the game) so it can be hard to tell.
Ochiai: Like for example when it comes to movies, as movies run a duration of usually 2 hours when it comes to content, so in a way we can easily see how it performs, but when it comes to games, it takes time to complete them from start to finish so it's tougher to grasp how the behavior would change. So this is my personal thoughts on the matter but how do you approach the post-release sales period like for example, to see if there's a change in certain behavior, or see if your game makes it to the ranking, and by looking at these, what kind of marketing strategy would you take after the game is released?
YoshiP: When it comes to sales extension, well, this can slightly different from country to country, but when it comes to Japan, I can bring up one good example which is Slam Dunk (which is recently aired in theaters).
For the generations who are fans of the show, they would be extremely interested about it, but there was a commotion when it comes to the promotion prior to its release and this caused everyone to have doubts. But once the fans watched the movie, they'd go "You better watch this movie!", or they'd go recommend those who haven't watch the movie but expressed interest in it and nothing beats that kind of attraction when it comes to what PR can do even today. Though as for me, I'd go back to my roots, and convey properly on how the game has been made and released properly, and if people find the game interesting, streamers from all around the world who will be streaming this game will convey their comments and the louder those voices are, then it might encourage others who hasn't buy the game yet to give it a try, purchase a PS5 along. Another thing I've realized that younger generations don't tend to be particular about the release date, and tend to based their purchase on what's popular within their community circles, and what everyone is playing. In fact this is what happened when it comes to Apex, Fortnite, and this is definitely what the trend is heading towards today, so what I did is to make estimations on budget, lay out the plan saying "FFXVI is coming out", and made simple approach to try getting the shop to convince gamers to get FFXVI together with their PS5 purchase. Therefore this time, I've laid out a plan on sales that would last about 18 months.※2 Even when looking at the ownership ratio for PS5, there's no mistake that there will a drop in absolute ratio rather than looking at the games that are released for both PS4 and PS5.
Ochiai: Yeah, that's right.
YoshiP: I mean, yeah, it would be idiotic for anyone to not make these calculations beforehand, which is why it's important to consider the sales in a long term and extend them for as long as it can be, and then from the sales that have accumulated through these long months, we can see up to which extend people have played the game, and since we can see data in the achievements people obtain in game, we can tell how much people are stuck at certain aspects, and so on. From there we may make adjustments so that it'll be easier for people to obtain them, and we wouldn't need it to be an online game to do so. Therefore, I'm not looking at the short term sales at all.
Ochiai: Since I do not have any experience in game sales here, but you previously mentioned that if you go with the selling out pattern, then you can somewhat see the how the next implementation will be, and sometimes there are cases where this isn't what's the approach taken when it comes to sales pattern so my question is how, or at which timing would you be able to grasp on how the sales of the game will end up when it comes to today's context?
YoshiP: By the way, the system of lump-sum payment is applicable only in Japan※1 but when it comes to overseas, basically if you can just "break in" if you want to. This can be weird, but they basically just go "just purchase a shelf". What this means is that, let's take a street-level store for example: when release date approaches there will be other games released along with your game, yes? You can brush all of them aside and say you want to place one huge portion of the segment to sell, say, FF16, then you can ask them how much do you need to pay them to do so, and they'll do so. They would also tell you that you can ship them as many copies as you want to and they'll return the extra copies that they couldn't sell. Therefore to see how sales would fare will be starting from...the amount of pre-orders....so sales wise we'll look at the first week, to see how many have purchased the game digitally as well as from wholesale dealers, so the sell out starts there, and the rest will be predictions: How much the game has reached the hands of gamers, so predictions will be made. So we'll use those detailed data in advance and create a simulation. The reason is because we'll have proof at hand on how much the copies have reached the players. For example, for FFVII Remake, we calculate based on what we can see how many user base do we have and calculate from there, so judging from the content we have this time, we can estimate that there are certain generation base that hasn't played a single Final Fantasy game purchased this game but since we are making it a full real time action, we can calculate once on how much it has dropped in percentage for certain player base who would prefer turn based Final Fantasy games and create a simulation based on that, but ultimately the results cannot be certain until we open the lid (read: release the game) so it can be hard to tell.
Ochiai: Like for example when it comes to movies, as movies run a duration of usually 2 hours when it comes to content, so in a way we can easily see how it performs, but when it comes to games, it takes time to complete them from start to finish so it's tougher to grasp how the behavior would change. So this is my personal thoughts on the matter but how do you approach the post-release sales period like for example, to see if there's a change in certain behavior, or see if your game makes it to the ranking, and by looking at these, what kind of marketing strategy would you take after the game is released?
YoshiP: When it comes to sales extension, well, this can slightly different from country to country, but when it comes to Japan, I can bring up one good example which is Slam Dunk (which is recently aired in theaters).
For the generations who are fans of the show, they would be extremely interested about it, but there was a commotion when it comes to the promotion prior to its release and this caused everyone to have doubts. But once the fans watched the movie, they'd go "You better watch this movie!", or they'd go recommend those who haven't watch the movie but expressed interest in it and nothing beats that kind of attraction when it comes to what PR can do even today. Though as for me, I'd go back to my roots, and convey properly on how the game has been made and released properly, and if people find the game interesting, streamers from all around the world who will be streaming this game will convey their comments and the louder those voices are, then it might encourage others who hasn't buy the game yet to give it a try, purchase a PS5 along. Another thing I've realized that younger generations don't tend to be particular about the release date, and tend to based their purchase on what's popular within their community circles, and what everyone is playing. In fact this is what happened when it comes to Apex, Fortnite, and this is definitely what the trend is heading towards today, so what I did is to make estimations on budget, lay out the plan saying "FFXVI is coming out", and made simple approach to try getting the shop to convince gamers to get FFXVI together with their PS5 purchase. Therefore this time, I've laid out a plan on sales that would last about 18 months.※2 Even when looking at the ownership ratio for PS5, there's no mistake that there will a drop in absolute ratio rather than looking at the games that are released for both PS4 and PS5.
Ochiai: Yeah, that's right.
YoshiP: I mean, yeah, it would be idiotic for anyone to not make these calculations beforehand, which is why it's important to consider the sales in a long term and extend them for as long as it can be, and then from the sales that have accumulated through these long months, we can see up to which extend people have played the game, and since we can see data in the achievements people obtain in game, we can tell how much people are stuck at certain aspects, and so on. From there we may make adjustments so that it'll be easier for people to obtain them, and we wouldn't need it to be an online game to do so. Therefore, I'm not looking at the short term sales at all.
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I did read that SE is worried on the numbers, they should just focus on the after sales imo lol.
other than the low per order numbers, probably they are also worried of FF16 becoming like Stranger Of Paradise sales wise, that game is a ff action rpg with similar battle system (though SoP is better imo since it has full party members) and it did not go well with the sales.
Not all cutscenes are realtime:
Here’s what was jotted down by a translator who watched some Japanese interview given by Yoshida.
“And since the game is rendered on real time, Ochiai asks if there's anything YoshiP is particular about when developing the game through the use of game engine. YoshiP's answer: They wanted to stop using anything that is related to pre-render, but there is one particular scene that involves the sea (which he won't detail because spoilers) and he felt that going real time render is impossible for that particular moment, so he'd say 95% of the game is real time, and the sea/ocean is pre-render, and characters that are rendered in real time will be pre-rendered just for that particular part and created a movie cutscene of it without any need of loading (since they are going with an FF with no "Now Loading" on screen).”
Further clarification from translator:
“Yes, it's true that YoshiP has said that he has discussed with the team that they want, or aim to stop using pre-rendered. However there are certain cutscenes that would require the use of pre-render, which he cited that there are scenes involving the sea as an example, which he won't detail which or what scene that is because it has spoilers. As the sea would naturally make it impossible for the scene to be done in real time, so they render the sea in pre-render, while characters along with other assets that are rendered in real time are re-rendered in pre-render format for that particular scene (which I assume is dividing the asset for two usages: one for real time, and one for pre-render use). They also made sure that the game can progress without the need to use loading feature on it (meaning it's seamless).”
We know the Kingsglaive CG team is involved. The head of the internal CG studio at Square Enix is apparently “directing certain scenes,” along with providing “background pre-rendered elements” for certain scenes.
But despite this information, I still have zero clue if Yoshi-P is just referring to scenes that 100% use in-engine assets and are just played as a video, or if Yoshi-P is being coy about there being full-on CG cutscenes like prior FF games.
Here’s what was jotted down by a translator who watched some Japanese interview given by Yoshida.
“And since the game is rendered on real time, Ochiai asks if there's anything YoshiP is particular about when developing the game through the use of game engine. YoshiP's answer: They wanted to stop using anything that is related to pre-render, but there is one particular scene that involves the sea (which he won't detail because spoilers) and he felt that going real time render is impossible for that particular moment, so he'd say 95% of the game is real time, and the sea/ocean is pre-render, and characters that are rendered in real time will be pre-rendered just for that particular part and created a movie cutscene of it without any need of loading (since they are going with an FF with no "Now Loading" on screen).”
Further clarification from translator:
“Yes, it's true that YoshiP has said that he has discussed with the team that they want, or aim to stop using pre-rendered. However there are certain cutscenes that would require the use of pre-render, which he cited that there are scenes involving the sea as an example, which he won't detail which or what scene that is because it has spoilers. As the sea would naturally make it impossible for the scene to be done in real time, so they render the sea in pre-render, while characters along with other assets that are rendered in real time are re-rendered in pre-render format for that particular scene (which I assume is dividing the asset for two usages: one for real time, and one for pre-render use). They also made sure that the game can progress without the need to use loading feature on it (meaning it's seamless).”
We know the Kingsglaive CG team is involved. The head of the internal CG studio at Square Enix is apparently “directing certain scenes,” along with providing “background pre-rendered elements” for certain scenes.
But despite this information, I still have zero clue if Yoshi-P is just referring to scenes that 100% use in-engine assets and are just played as a video, or if Yoshi-P is being coy about there being full-on CG cutscenes like prior FF games.
Think I'm going to pre-order this, but from what store? I like the idea of the steelbook case from Bestbuy.
The steelbook version is either the deluxe version or the collector's version I believe.
FF 16 demo should be live today (6/12/23)
Takes 2 hours to complete and progress carries over to the main game.
Takes 2 hours to complete and progress carries over to the main game.
Well Like what I said before , Combat is basically just your standard typical single player action game with meh QTEs. Dragon's Dogma II's combat system will be so much better than this, and even DD II has party members that you can customize with, eventhough it's not a complete party system like the Excellent FF7 Remake.
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