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Final Fantasy XV Broke Even with Development Costs on Day One

FFXV_Money.jpg

Many have been speculating on how many copies Final Fantasy XV would need to sell in order to break even, and DualShockers asked just that to Director Hajime Tabata during a recent visit to the Business Division 2 development floor in Tokyo,

Tabata-san clarified that not only Final Fantasy XV already has already broken even with its development costs, but it did so on day one, which means when it launched on November 29th.

http://www.dualshockers.com/2017/02/07/final-fantasy-xv-broke-even-development-costs-day-one/
 

Some Nobody

Junior Member
Believable. Final Fantasy XV entered development in like, 2012? Final Fantasy Versus XIII was just written off as sunk costs.
 

Blablurn

Member
Congratulations to the whole team. I hope this will help to fund one more Final Fantasy game (no screwups this time please).
 
Wow, that's pretty impressive.

Even if it was only in development since...mid 2013 or whatever, you could be forgiven for thinking it'd still manage to be some slightly crazy overbudget mess.

Congrats
 
It didn't exactly sell blockbuster numbers
It broke even on day one

Why the hell did it take so bloody long?

It's not even like they threw loads of money at it. It sounds like it was just a tiny team?
 

Zedark

Member
Does this mean that they needed those 5 million units reported on day one to break even on dev costs? That would mean a 120-150 million dollar dev cost approximately, right? Pretty expensive still. Please correct me if my numbers/deductions are wrong.
 

aadiboy

Member
It didn't exactly sell blockbuster numbers
It broke even on day one

Why the hell did it take so bloody long?

It's not even like they threw loads of money at it. It sounds like it was just a tiny team?
So a game has to sell COD levels to be a blockbuster now? Didn't it sell 6+ million?
 
Does ''development cost'' include crazy stuff like Kingsglaive ect doe.

Less stuff like that in the future the better, even if I enjoyed the film somewhat. Put that money into actual marketing instead.
 
Versus XIII, however.....

Jokes aside, I'm glad this has turned out to be a success, the series needed the win after a rocky few years. Congrats to Tabata and the team for taking on a huge task and getting it done!
 
Just for additional context, Square Enix has already reach 17 billion yen net income for april-december 2016, and they are in great position to break their fiscal year record (19 billion yen last year).

So if some still want to imagine that FF15 has been a financial disaster, go for it, but the numbers are here ;)
 
Excellent. Now let's just close this chapter and move along. The Versus XIII/XV ride has been a long one, too long in fact.
Time to begin XV-2 or XVI SE.
 
Does this mean that they needed those 5 million units reported on day one to break even on dev costs? That would mean a 120-150 million dollar dev cost approximately, right? Pretty expensive still. Please correct me if my numbers/deductions are wrong.

No, just that they sold what they needed to break even on Day One. I seem to remember an interview from Tabata where he mentioned that when he came onboard in 2013 they gave themselves 2016 as the release year, so they'd have roughly a 24-36 month development cycle, and also gave themselves a budget. He mentioned that while everyone would expect that the game would be incredibly expensive to make an approaching GTA style numbers (but not for the same reasons ofc) it was actually far far cheaper because Versus XIII had basically never had a full development staff behind it.

Does ''development cost'' include crazy stuff like Kingsglaive ect doe.

Less stuff like that in the future the better, even if I enjoyed the film somewhat. Put that money into actual marketing instead.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Kingsglaive was included in the budget, but I could be wrong.
 

RalchAC

Member
I-dont-believe-you.gif


They must be discounting when the project was Versus XIII, I would be very surprised if this is true.

It's been stated that Versus XIII was just a small pre-production team creating art, some assets, and the CGI trailers that were shown in various conferences.

If you really want to believe there has been a team of over one hundred people working in the game since two years before the first trailer was shown, you are free to believe it, honestly. But I don't understand why people keep pushing this narrative when there is an official stance that says that the bulk of the game started in 2012-2013.

Some people may have chosen not to believe it. And it's okay. But every thread about FFXV is a continuous spread of misinformation and conspirancy theories.
 
No, just that they sold what they needed to break even on Day One. I seem to remember an interview from Tabata where he mentioned that when he came onboard in 2013 they gave themselves 2016 as the release year, so they'd have roughly a 24-36 month development cycle, and also gave themselves a budget. He mentioned that while everyone would expect that the game would be incredibly expensive to make an approaching GTA style numbers (but not for the same reasons ofc) it was actually far far cheaper because Versus XIII had basically never had a full development staff behind it.



I seem to remember reading somewhere that Kingsglaive was included in the budget, but I could be wrong.

This all sounds right to me, including the part about Kingsglaive. The fact that Versus XIII never truly entered full development is a big thing that's key to remember. I'm not sure if Brotherhood was counted as part of the budget or not but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

Well done SE.
 

UrbanRats

Member
It didn't exactly sell blockbuster numbers
It broke even on day one

Why the hell did it take so bloody long?

It's not even like they threw loads of money at it. It sounds like it was just a tiny team?

Clearly it hasn't been in development for 10+ years.
Those people were used for other projects in the mean time (fixing FFXIV, and such).
 
『Inaba Resident』;229871463 said:
Someone will try to spin this as negative
Too late

This all sounds right to me, including the part about Kingsglaive. The fact that Versus XIII never truly entered full development is a big thing that's key to remember. I'm not sure if Brotherhood was counted as part of the budget or not but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

Well done SE.
Brotherhood looked very cheap to produce judging from its animation.
 

Rymuth

Member
It's great to see but let's not pretend things weren't looking dicey back there. 10 years in development...Tabata and his team needed to deliver. The pressure must've been off the charts.

Anyway, I'm glad we can put this game behind us. The fact that SEnix made money is cherry on top.

I'm so looking forward to see what they can muster without Fabula Crystallis/Versus/Luminous baggage weighing them down.
 
6+ million is good sales but it's nowhere near the heights some other titles reach

It's good - not a blockbuster

You can say that about most games...and it isn't going to stop selling, it is at 6 now, it will end up with more lifetime. It is going to end up one of the better selling FF games in the franchise.
 
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