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Director Hajima Tabata has revealed that Final Fantasy XV broke even after just one day on shop shelves. According to DualShockers, who visited Square Enix in Tokyo, Tabata said the 5m units Final Fantasy XV sold on Day One was enough to cover the game’s entire development costs.
The game has since shipped 6m units, but Tabata originally stated the game would need to sell around 10m units over its lifetime in order to be considered a success. However, it seems now he might have been over-estimating.
Of course, it’s not yet clear how much Square Enix spent marketing the game, but as Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad has pointed out on Twitter, the company will no doubt be "evaluating what needs to change for Final Fantasy XVI title and whether the level of investment for XV was worth it."
Tabata also revealed that Square Enix is currently using Final Fantasy XV’s graphics engine as a test bed for future game experiments. DualShockers reports it saw a couple of these technical experiments in the flesh and the resulting demos sound very impressive.
It’s not currently known what these technical experiments will be used for, but given that Tabata’s recently spoken about his hopes for a graphically superior PC version of Final Fantasy XV, it’s possible these experiments might make their way into a potential PC release as well as future Square Enix titles.
Tabata also said that 70 per cent of the Final Fantasy XV dev team are still working on free updates of the game, its DLC episodes and its PSVR section. The other 30 per cent, meanwhile, have been moved to other development divisions.
Final Fantasy XV sold 5m units worldwide when it launched on November 29th, making it the fastest-selling game in the franchise to date. It also enjoyed the second-best launch for a Final Fantasy title in the UK behind Final Fantasy XIII.
The company also released a new trailer for the game today detailing all the upcoming spring updates, which you can view below:
