Would FFVII Remake Save The PS3?

There's no point in denying that the PS3 has done less than expected in the sales department, it's stuggling behind the 360's 6 month mark and is outsold 2:1 by the Wii. The biggest reason for this is lack of software. It's an expensive system and gamers don't want to pay without a good title to back it up. At E3 2005 when Sony unveiled the PS3 they showed a short tech demo of what Final Fantasy VII would look like re-built on a PS3. Since then fans of the Final Fantasy series, and gamers in general, have been begging for a realisation of this.

Final Fantasy VII is inarguably one of the most popular RPGs of all time, and has swarms of fans worldwide. A remake of this game would logically be a must-have for anyone with a love of games. There are a few interesting facts to look at however, a 1080p FFVII may not be as popular as some may think.

Although the amazing Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children grossed almost $2,000,000 in it's first to weeks on DVD, the incredibly not-amazing Resident Evil grossed over $17,000,000 it's opening weekend. This helps illustrate the point that fan-power for the game may not be enough. The fan base for the game was not enough to make it a comparably successfull DVD movie. The same can be noted for Dirge of Cerebus, an entirely new game based of the FFVII storyline, shipped a measly 392,000 units. With FFVII's previous releases it's hard to believe that it would really be a blockbuster title instead of a moderate release.

Without fan-power being strong enough to make it a triple-A title, we have to look at it's draw on new gamers, people that aren't attached to the FFVII legacy and would still buy a $699 console to play it. In theory most people in this category would fall into two seperate categories; people who have heard of the game before but never got a chance to play it and people who have no idea what the hell I am talking about right now.

It's hard to say whether or not a remake of the game would still captivate a new audience the way the original did, but in such a saturated market the odds of it happening are slimmer than I think we realise. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see an FFVII remake on the PS3, but I can't help but remember a great truth about consumerism; something better and new is alway better than something better and old.