Yesterday, we reported on Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles’ impressive sales milestone, and the somewhat intriguing comment made by director Kazutoyo Maehiro on the matter. A million copies in just a few months is nothing to scoff at for a modern remaster of a decades-old title which, while it bears the name of a major franchise, belongs to a subgenre that’s seldom lit the financial world aflame.
It was promising stuff, hinting at the strong possibility that Square Enix themselves are presumably pleased. This is important for those of us who are hoping that Maehiro gets his wish with an eventual sequel. Now, the director’s thoughts have been compounded by an excellent little analysis from none other than Final Fantasy Tactics’ original creator, the supremely talented Yasumi Matsuno, who contributed to the 2025 revisit and seriously underestimated The Ivalice Chronicles’ commercial mileage.
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“With the premise that this is purely my personal opinion and not the view of SQEX company,” wrote Matsuno on Twitter, “let me talk seriously about [the sales figures]. Remasters and remakes generally do not exceed the sales figures of the original version in principle (the original version sold about 2.5 million copies worldwide). The sales of the remake version “Lion War (PSP version)” are around 1.1 million copies worldwide. However, for the North American and Japanese markets, it’s estimated that 60-70% of buyers had played the original version).”
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So, right off the bat, that’s several data points to consider. Now, I could be wrong, but I don’t think we’ve ever known the precise numbers that the original FFT pulled in. 2.5 million seems pretty good! But, next to the towering digits seen with FF7, FF8, and even the somewhat more initially sluggish FF9, it’s easy to see that there was something of a hard cap on a strategy-RPG’s own potential. 1.1 million for the PSP remaster also sounds solid.
Remarkably, Matsuno was even candid about the controversial decision to remove The War of the Lions’ PSP-exclusive content. More importantly, he gave his personal estimation of The Ivalice Chronicles’ trajectory:
“Taking the above points into account, for this remastered version, even though it’s multi-platform and supports 4 languages, it removes some elements that were added in “Lion War” (*1), so I predict it might sell around 800,000 to 1 million copies over about 3 years from release. Note that “about 3 years” is because, unlike in the past, things now tend to sell steadily over time.”
So. 800,000 to one million. Over three years. Instead, it hit one million in about three months. That’s rad! It speaks to the hope that more is yet to come from Ivalice, or at least, from the Final Fantasy Tactics subseries in general. And as a lifelong Matsuno fan, nothing here gives me greater joy than to know that he’s delighted by these early results. As he notes, “things now tend to sell steadily over time,” so while it’s probably a long shot to hope for two million or so from The Ivalice Chronicles, just knowing that a million in a quarter seemed unlikely in his eyes is solace enough to celebrate.
Back when The Ivalice Chronicles launched, I wrote that its slight ending tweaks hint at a possible sequel. I’m holding firm to that, but even if it doesn’t come to pass, it’s a great remaster, and I’m damned glad to own it.
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