Due to a misunderstanding, a lot of outlets reported that Square Enix would have to sell 10 million copies of Final Fantasy XV to turn a profit. This was in part due to a statement from Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata which stated that they’d need to sell 10 million units which was than interpreted as the likely cost of the entire endeavor. In some ways, seeing how long FFXV has been in development (10 years for those playing at home), I wouldn’t be surprised if they did need to sell that much. However as it turns out, it’s mostly been a misunderstanding of what that number really represented.

A clarification from Square can be found after the jump.

 We’d like to make a comment on the news reports that state Hajime Tabata, Director of FINAL FANTASY XV, commented that FINAL FANTASY XV needed to sell 10 million copies to recoup the investment at the press conference held yesterday in LA.

We believe there was a communication problem during the conference. In fact, Tabata was referencing 10 million copies only as a high goal which the development team set to realize their ambition to make the ultimate FINAL FANTASY game. And the comment was never meant to be referred as a recoup line of the investment. 

While needing to sell 10 million copies seems plausible, due to the lengthy development time associated with the game, Square is likely betting on all the surrounding content to help drive extra revenue from the game like Justice Monsters Five, a mobile game for iOS and Android. Square is also putting out a movie, animated series, soundtrack, various collectors editions, and other merchandise like figurines which all come with high profit margins.

With that said, I can’t help but think that Square would be disappointed if the game doesn’t eventually cross the 10 million mark sold between PS4 and Xbox One. Frankly, they should cross 5 million units by year’s end. For comparison, the terribly-received Final Fantasy XIII did a little over 7 million units with the PS3 snatching up a majority of the sales with just over 5 million copies sold.

Discuss:

Do you think FFXV can sell 10 million copies?