The PlayStation3 has had a pretty rough-and-tumble time in the market. It went from having the best exclusives out there, such as BioShock and Grand Theft Auto IV, to losing nearly all of them to Microsoft in either exclusive or multiplatform fashion. PlayStation fans held on to two near-absolute truths: Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XIII. These have been the cruxes of the pro-PS3 argument for years now, ever since we knew that both games existed. However, only one of those cruxes has held (that crux being MGS4), with Final Fantasy XIII having gone multiplatform in an E3 shocker that won't soon be forgotten. There have been a multitude of claims about the PS3's future issued in light of this major event, with the most popular being: "There is no longer a reason to buy a PS3."

Before anybody makes any assumptions about the fate of the PS3, let's begin looking at the FFXIII impact by looking at some earlier sales figures.

Final Fantasy XII, a PS2 exclusive, sold 5.09 million copies worldwide. This is a significant decrease from Final Fantasy X, the first Final Fantasy on the PS2, which sold 7.95 million copies worldwide. Final Fantasy wasn't the only Square-Enix franchise to see a significant sales decrease in light of a sequel. Kingdom Hearts sold 5.50 million copies worldwide -- its sequel, Kingdom Hearts II, sold 3.69 million units worldwide. The PlayStation2, in the mean time, was usually selling in excess of 200,000 units per month in North America (according to NPD numbers) during 2006, the year when both KH2 and FFXII came out. Between October and November of 2006 -- FFXII having come out on 10/31/06 -- PS2 sales spiked in North America to over 400,000 units. Yet, a very small time before the biggest holiday shopping season of the year, FFXII ended up falling 2.86 million copies short of its predecessor. FFX was the sixth-best selling game on PS2 and FFXII was (appropriately enough) the twelfth-best selling game on the PS2.


Sure, it was big, but not as big as Final Fantasy X. The trend is one of shrinkage for SquareEnix's sales.

FFX, FFX-2 (5.21 million sold, 11th best seller) and FFXII together average 6.08 million copies per game.

For the record, the best-selling game on PS2 was GTA San Andreas, which sold 17.26 million copies worldwide. The next best-selling game, Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec, sold 14.87 million copies worldwide.

On the Xbox 360, Blue Dragon -- Mistwalker's first RPG on the platform -- sold 0.49 million copies worldwide. Mistwalker's second attempt, Lost Odyssey, sold 0.76 million copies worldwide. Conversely, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion sold 2.51 million copies worldwide and Mass Effect sold 2.01 million copies worldwide. Oblivion is the 8th best-selling game on the Xbox 360 and Mass Effect is the 16th-best selling game.

For reference, the best selling game on the Xbox 360 to date, Halo 3, sold 8.10 million copies worldwide. The next best-selling game, Call of Duty 4, sold 6.25 million copies worldwide (Editor's Note: 360 version sales only). Also for the record, Gears of War is the fourth best-selling game on the Xbox 360, selling 5.30 million copies worldwide.



Call of Duty 4 is by far the highest-selling game of this generation, but it still has moved only about half as many units on two platforms as GTA: San Andreas moved on just the PS2.

The best-selling game on PlayStation3 is GTA IV, which sold 4.18 million copies worldwide. The next closest is Call of Duty 4, which sold 3.43 million copies worldwide. Also for the record, Metal Gear Solid 4 is the sixth-best selling game on the PS3, having sold 2.58 million copies worldwide.

The last multiplatform best seller, GTA IV, sold 4.18 million copies on PS3 (as mentioned above) and sold 5.71 million copies on 360 (both worldwide). One million more copies seems pretty significant and it absolutely is to the bottom line, but not so much when the 360 has a five million unit plus lead on the PS3 and has 19.88 million units sold total. 28% -- more than a quarter -- of all PS3 owners purchased GTA IV, perhaps paradoxically the same amount of 360 users who also purchased GTA IV worldwide. Also, keep in mind that while 360 did get the edge in hardware sales, both consoles moved much more hardware units after the release of GTA IV.