The new Nomura?

[CNitsah]

Sales in Japan are so far the worst of the entire mainline series (most of which weren't multiplatform entries), and it was beaten by Pikmin 4 in a single week.
Square Enix claimed the sales were strong after one week, but it barely sold any copy since. It seems the game hasn't convinced anyone who didn't already bought it day one.

From what I got, despite the being a deception in japan, the worldwide number are on par with FFXV (adjusted to to the pool of consoles) .

The only reason it's even above 80 is because of Soken's music, the stunning primal fights, the great early game story with a complex political narrative (that they basically wasted after Titan) and CBU3 fanboyism.

I think they even failed at CBU3 fanboyism. Outside of Japan, FFXIV is mainly played on PC. Making it a PS5 exclusives cut a good part of those fanboys. Most people won't pay 600$/€ for ONE game. The FFXIV playerbase was the most easy sales they could make, and they prefered to take the money for exclusivity. With the lukewarm reception the game got, I'm not sure those people will buy to the game in a year when it release on pc (pretty sure the 18 month plan is linked to that PC release). Reception was good enough, but as some said, it's not acclaimed like TotK or BG3 are. The FFXVI hype is already dead, and it feels like it's gonna be remembered as an "honorable mention", more that a game one of THE games of this year.