Final Fantasy VII director warns streaming makes RPGs harder to sell

Naoki Hamaguchi is putting a blunt name to a problem that has been creeping through big narrative RPGs for years: if the plot is easy to absorb on a stream, some players will do exactly that instead of buying the game. His point is not that streamers are the enemy. It is that modern RPGs have to justify themselves as something you do, not just something you watch.

That warning lands harder because Square Enix is already feeling the squeeze on its biggest story-driven releases. At its May 13, 2024 fiscal-year briefing, president Takashi Kiryu said Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth did not meet expectations, adding that “profits unfortunately did not meet our expectations” and that “initial sales were not as strong as expected.” The company reported FY2024/3 consolidated net sales of ¥356.3 billion, operating income of ¥32.5 billion, and profit attributable to owners of parent of ¥14.9 billion. Its HD Games sub-segment posted an operating loss of ¥8.1 billion, while Square Enix also booked ¥22.0 billion in loss on disposal of content and related impairment losses.

That matters because Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was not some niche experiment. It launched on PlayStation 5 on February 29, 2024 as the second story in Square Enix’s remake project, and Square Enix has since lined up a wider release on Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X|S in 2026. The original Final Fantasy VII Remake already surpassed 7 million shipments and digital sales worldwide, proof that the brand can still pull serious numbers even as the economics around blockbuster RPGs get harsher.

Hamaguchi’s argument also fits the way people actually consume games now. The Entertainment Software Association says 61% of Americans ages 5-90, about 190.6 million people, play video games. Twitch, meanwhile, accounted for more than 60% of the global live game-streaming audience in 2024 and logged 15.6 billion hours watched, which means game discovery increasingly happens through someone else’s playthrough. Research published in 2024 and 2025 suggests streaming can lift interest and purchase intent, but it can also make a linear RPG feel complete before a buyer ever boots it up.

That is the real pressure point behind Hamaguchi’s comments. The genre is not dying, and story is not dead. But if a game’s biggest selling point is its narrative, publishers now have to make the case that the controller matters too, with more decision-making, more variability, and campaign structures that preserve enough discovery to make watching feel like second best.