Journalist's Mistake Sparked Storm About Final Fantasy XVI Success

According to Square Enix's most recent financial report, Final Fantasy XVI had sold over 4 million copies globally by early 2025. Since the following developments have disproved this claim, there has been a general consensus for months that Final Fantasy XVI was a commercial disaster on the PlayStation 5. The controversy peaked when a journalist admitted to misreporting sales figures, sparking discussions on exclusivity and the veracity of the game once more.

It can be difficult to overcome when a game represents failure. Concord, too, had a bad release and underwhelming response from both gamers and critics. The level of criticism directed at Final Fantasy XVI has been less severe, although some critics and fans still believe that the game failed to meet expectations. Even though we believe Final Fantasy XVI was one of the best games of 2023.

A comment from a Square Enix developer implying that the low adoption rate of the PlayStation 5 was to blame for the system's sales performance gave the argument that the game was a failure momentum. Even though there were delays in releasing the game in 2023 due to a lack of stocks, industry observers have noticed that PlayStation 5 sales have been on par with PC sales.

Early this month, the argument got hot when the Japanese financial news source KABUTAN published a story asserting Final Fantasy XVI had only sold 3.5 million units thus far. This result showed that, after its release in 2023, the game had sold only 500,000 more copies than its first 3 million sales, even with a second PC version in 2024.

Quickly catching up on the disclosure, Western media sources claimed it as evidence to support earlier claims that Final Fantasy XVI failed because of limited PlayStation 5 exclusivity. Critics said that Sony's strategies had reduced the game's possible reach and pointed to these numbers as evidence that exclusive arrangements were detrimental to game sales.

In an unexpected turn of events, though, KABUTAN subsequently issued a statement acknowledging that Square Enix's CEO had never provided the stated sales figures. Toyo Securities' own estimations produced erroneous material, which the initial account misattributed to Square Enix's financial results briefing. KABUTAN produced an official statement with these lines:

"The original article stated that the president of Square Enix said at the financial results briefing the number of copies of Final Fantasy XVI, but this was based on Toyo Securities' own estimate and was an incorrect statement by the author." The publisher owned its error and expressed regret for the false information. Still, the damage had already been done since many individuals supported their resistance to timed exclusive deals using falsified figures.

The reversal generated intense discussion in the gaming sector as many questioned how such false information gets so quickly. Some gamers contended that the first figure should have raised red flags since it appeared improbable that Final Fantasy XVI had sold just 500,000 additional copies over two years—including on PC. Given that the game sold three million copies in its first week, such a substantial decline in sales would have been quite unusual.

Many detractors of Sony's exclusivity deals still felt that limiting Final Fantasy XVI to the PS5 for the first year degraded the game's long-term performance, even with the update. Others considered the incident as an illustration of how misinformation may be weaponized in online discourse; some people used misleading narratives to forward their objectives.

The Final Fantasy XVI sales debate begs more general issues about the production and distribution of gaming news. In a time when false information can travel quickly, a company has to guarantee accuracy before stories go out of hand. Square Enix, for its part, leaves room for more conjecture as it has not explicitly told the public the game's overall sales numbers.

The retractions of the inflated sales figures highlight the need for fact-checking since not all game journalists publish content with proper analysis. Maintaining journalistic integrity by publishing fair and factual information is crucial to influencing gamers as digital media is rapidly evolving.