Final Fantasy XV sells over 8.9 million copies

Square Enix's massive investments in Final Fantasy XV have paid off big time.

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Final Fantasy XV has sold-in more than 8.9 million copies worldwide on all platforms since its release in 2016, 4Gamer confirms.

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After 10 years of development, Square Enix's massive investment into Final Fantasy XV is paying off. The game has managed to push nearly 9 million copies shipped and sold digitally, putting it behind series greats like Final Fantasy VII, the current long-running online MMORPG, and Yuna's colorful PS2 adventure.

Here's how FFXV fits into the mainline series sales charts:

  • FF7 - 19.1 million
  • FF14 - 10.9 million
  • FFX - 9.25 million
  • FF15 - 8.9 million
  • FF8 - 8.8 million
  • FF13 - 7.7 million

The story behind Final Fantasy XV is an interesting one. Starting out as an extension of the Final Fantasy XIII series, the game had been in development hell for years before it was soft rebooted. Square Enix took losses and put lots of cash into R&D for the project, forming a team and a brand new set of tools to make something different and unique.

FFXV wasn't just a game: It was the doorway to all future Final Fantasy games. That's a big reason why it took so long to make and why it was so expensive.

A team led by Hajime Tabata not only built an entirely new game, but they also created the massively powerful Luminous Engine, a potent high-def engine framework that will power all future mainline Final Fantasy games (it's synonymous with Capcom's RE Engine). The Luminous Engine was so advanced that the team had a hard time optimizing Final Fantasy XV for consoles--the game was simply too robust to run on older-gen PS4 and Xbox One consoles without some serious downscaling.

The game ran at dynamic resolution to drop visual fidelity in order to maintain consistent frame rates, and at the beginning, it barely ran at even 30FPS on both consoles thanks to their limited hardware.

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Read Also: Final Fantasy XV PC Review

Final Fantasy XV's true potential would only be unleashed with its PC release in 2018.

After its release, Final Fantasy XV became a nexus for lots of transmedia content. After spending so much on the game, Square Enix wanted to use the Final Fantasy XV Universe as a hub for new content, including a galaxy of DLC, anime, an amazing CGI movie, and even an online-based Comrades game-withing-a-game.

Read Also: Final Fantasy XV: How to master attacks and combos

This initiative was so ambitious that I called FFXV the new Skyrim.

Here's a breakdown of Final Fantasy XV's big transmedia universe:

  • Final Fantasy XV - 2016
  • A King's Tale - Final Fantasy XV - 2016
  • Kingsglaive Final Fantasy - 2016
  • Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV - 2016
  • Final Fantasy XV Comrades - 2017
  • Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition - 2017
  • Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV - 2017
  • Final Fantasy XV - King's Knight, Wrath of the Dark Dragon - 2017
  • Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition - Early 2018
  • Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition HD (Switch) - September 2018
  • Four Final Fantasy XV DLC expansions - Gladiolus, Prompto, Ignis, and Ardyn - Finished in 2019
NEWS SOURCE:4gamer.net

Derek joined the TweakTown team in 2015 and has since reviewed and played 1000s of hours of new games. Derek is absorbed with the intersection of technology and gaming, and is always looking forward to new advancements. With over six years in games journalism under his belt, Derek aims to further engage the gaming sector while taking a peek under the tech that powers it. He hopes to one day explore the stars in No Man's Sky with the magic of VR.

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