Square manufactured large numbers of stocks due to overwhelming demand for the beta, only to find out that most of the beta players didn't actually want to purchase the game. They sold around 50% of their launch stock, which ofc is vastly under expected sales figures. Many will of taken advantage of the free upgrade but this is a total loss for SE since these players would of probably kept playing anyway, the fact they couldn't sell more than half of their initial stock run does not bode well and large price cuts will probably soon be applied to try and sell off the vast excess of expensive stock they are now stuck with.
http://www.siliconera.com/2014/04/28/ffxiv-a-realm-reborn-posts-underwhelming-ps4-retail-sales-in-japan/
Quote:
The Japanese sales stats for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn's first week are in and it unfortunately doesn't paint a pretty picture for the game.
Bearing in mind, many people probably have taken advantage of the free upgrade from the PS3 version, but so far the PS4 version has only 31,326 copies sold in its first week.
The PS3 version, on the other hand, sold 184,018 copies in its first week with 89% of its shipment sold compared to the PS4's 52.96%.
The problem is that it just doesn't quite add up to their original projections as the PS4 beta version of FFXIV: A Realm Reborn was downloaded more than any other downloadable game on the platform.
Bearing in mind, many people probably have taken advantage of the free upgrade from the PS3 version, but so far the PS4 version has only 31,326 copies sold in its first week.
The PS3 version, on the other hand, sold 184,018 copies in its first week with 89% of its shipment sold compared to the PS4's 52.96%.
The problem is that it just doesn't quite add up to their original projections as the PS4 beta version of FFXIV: A Realm Reborn was downloaded more than any other downloadable game on the platform.
FFXIV on PS4 is vastly under-performing to expectations that Square had, and for Square this is something that bothers them greatly. As was shown by Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs, and Hitman: Absolution all being labeled as 'financially unsatisfactory', which for Tomb raider was selling 3.4 million when it was expected to sell 6m.
I wonder how they will manage to put a positive spin on their much touted title vastly under-performing their already meager launch sales expectations.