If you ever doubted the ridiculous popularity of Square Enix's Final Fantasy franchise, then now's the time to sit up and pay attention. Kotaku relates that as part of a large corporate strategy meeting (presumably something to do with the recent Eidos deal) lifetime sales figures for the company's top three franchises were revealed.

Final Fantasy games to date have sold over 85 million copies worldwide, while the Dragon Quest series has shifted over 47 million copies. Not bad for a set of games (DQ) that have had reasonably small exposure outside of Japan. Third up is the Kingdom Hearts franchise, which has done an impressive 12 million unit sales to date.

With Final Fantasy XIII on the horizon it's safe to assume that those lifetime figures will get another healthy shot in the arm sooner rather than later. The Final Fantasy series spans over 20 years at this point and shows no signs of slowing down in the future, even after series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi left Square Enix to form Mistwalker Corporation.

Sales figures that are almost as impressive as Sakaguchi's moustache.



Bryn says: Flipping heck. That's a lot of money travelling through the coffers of Square Enix and no mistake. I've personally shied away from Final Fantasy games; I'm not a JRPG kind of person. But there's a high level of charm associated with the production values of these games. Rarely do you find CG cut-scenes as good as those from a Final Fantasy game.

Okay, Metal Gear's up there in that respect. And so is Blizzard. Still, gratz to Hironobu Sakaguchi for kicking it all off in the first place.