FFXIV is not a failure, never was.

[Abriael]

FFXIV was and is a failure .The project was huge and didnt live to the expectations based on many factors .

Failure and success aren't measured on your expectations.

The game went from Pay to play to free to play in the first month , so not calling that a failure wouldnt be realistic.

Actually the game didn't become free to play. They are just temporarily waiving the monthly fees, which is an entirely different situation than going free to play.

The situation can be fixed

Which contradicts the very definition of "failure".

In that very case, I am pretty certain that SE expected a better start for this title, therefore we can say that the launch of Final Fantasy XIV was a failure. Almost no income at all beside retail sales, how isn't that a failure?

You forget the little detail that this game had several branding deals in Japan in place even before release, which means that it made SE money (and not small money) even before the first box reached the shelves.
Fact is that we don't know the numbers. For what we know the whole operation can easily still be on the green. Again, branding deals aren't small money, and SE had them in place with basically every major PC manufacturer in Japan.