Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Loony BoB View Post
Has there been any main FF that was anything other than a commercial success?
That's largely my point. XV being relatively successful is great in the short term as they get to make at least some of their money back from the mess that was Versus XIII development, but it's clearly a game where money was more or less no object. They built a whole new engine for it. They gave it to a new team and rebuilt it from scratch. They made a movie, an anime spin off, mobile game spin-offs and did a deal with Audi to make an FFXV R8. I haven't seen this many eggs in a single basket since The Spirits Within.

And it was fairly well received.

If you're a Square Enix executive right now, I would expect the following two thoughts to go through your head in order:

1) Thank god we were able to rescue something from that dumpster fire.
2) ...how the hell are we going to top that??

XV is the one that crossed the line from being a big budget game to being an unsustainably big budget game. I don't think SE will be confident that they can fund a sequel with comparable levels of spectacle, and I don't think they will have the balls to develop a sequel without it. That's why I expect nothing but spin-offs, ports and online games for the forseeable future. Maybe if FFVIIR and KH3 absolutely knock it out the park, I'll change my tune. But if anything I expect VIIR to fail to both fail meet SE's expectations and sour another chunk of the fanbase, and that'll be the nail in the coffin for any hope of XVI.
No matter what happens, the first thing that will go through the people who invest into SE's shares is this:

1) Is there an FFXVI being produced?
2) Yes? Here, have my money. No? Sorry, I'm selling my shares.

SE lives and dies on Final Fantasy alone as far s I'm concerned. I don't know of anything out there that impacts their shares as much as FF does.

The first thing that I would have in mind as an exec instead of an investor?

1) We need another FF if we're to keep this company alive outside of FFXIV.
2) We need to improve our efficiency.

FFXVI might not top FFXV, but given the belief of the many in the world that it's not the greatest game of all time, let alone the greatest FF of all time, it's not exactly a stretch that they would believe they can top FFXV. They're back in the good books with what fans want, they know the next FF will sell enough to make a profit.

Investors will say they want an FF. They pay the wages of the execs. Execs will want an FF because of this. It's up to them to figure out how to pay their wages by creating an FF that will sell. If they can't do it, the execs will probably sooner get fired than FFXVI not be developed and released.