Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was a major hit last year on PS5, and it's continuing that trend with its PC port, as one analyst concludes the JRPG "had a fantastic Steam launch" last month.
Circana games industry analyst Mat Piscatella has shared some info from Circana's own retail tracking service on Bluesky, and says that, across both physical and tracked digital game purchases, "Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was the best-selling game of the week ending Jan 25 in the US market ($ sales), while the FF7 Remake and Rebirth Twin Pack ranked third." That's a huge week for Final Fantasy, especially considering we're now approaching almost a year since Rebirth's initial release on PS5 – it goes to show that PC ports are seriously valuable for getting more players on board.
Responding to this info, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier adds his own thoughts, concluding that "Steam has become a bright spot for many game-makers as console sales have flattened," and arguing that "console exclusives will become obsolete soon, especially for third-party publishers." The latter is an interesting suggestion, and it'd tie into Xbox's recent efforts to make more of its prior exclusives available on other platforms. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, one of Xbox's biggest 2024 games, is set to be playable on PS5 this spring, and it'll be joined by Forza Horizon 5.
Anyway, given Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's success on PC, it makes you wonder if the third and final part of the remake trilogy could see a simultaneous release across PC and console. The wait between Rebirth's console and PC release was shorter than it was for Remake, but those without one of Sony's current-gen consoles still had a pretty long time to wait. At the very least, it's been confirmed that the next game won't be exclusive to the as-of-yet unannounced PS6, so we shouldn't need to worry about securing yet another new console in order to play it.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth PC players are already using mods to control all 9 playable characters, including Sephiroth and Zack, at the same time
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's award-winning Aerith actor once worried she wasn't "cut out" for the role, but was reassured by a co-star that Square Enix "cast you for a reason"
