Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reaches 2 Million Units Sold Milestone

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide, which is quite an impressive task considering that PSP games don't usually perform well on the market. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII has plenty of factors going for it. The biggest of which is the fact of having the Final Fantasy VII brand name. Final Fantasy VII was released on the original Playstation in 1997. Before the landmark title, RPG was a niche genre at that time. The seventh title in the long-running series managed to bring it into the mainstream market.

What makes Final Fantasy VII especially special at its time was its incredible presentation. The game visually blew people away with its pre-rendered backgrounds, incredible CG cinematic, and awe-inspiring battles. Everything else, from the engaging story to the stirring music, fell into place. As a result, Final Fantasy VII became, and arguably still is, the most popular RPG in the video game industry.

Publisher and developer Square Enix decided to milk Final Fantasy VII by creating a compilation to expand upon the popular game's universe. While this may have resulted in a few duds like Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII along the way, the compilation also has a few success stories. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII may be the most successful one yet.

The PSP exclusive game was released in North America on March 25, 2008. Despite being released more than a decade after the original, Crisis Core is actually a prequel to Final Fantasy VII in terms of storyline. Aside from the expected fan service from this exclusive PSP game, the action-based combat system also drew rave-reviews. The great graphics and soundtrack wraps up this excellent package.

So while Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII may have sold plenty of units based on the brand name, it also won many consumers over with its unquestionable quality. To date, the PSP exclusive game has sold over 2 million copies across the three big regions: Japan, North America and Europe.

It managed to do so despite the being on the PSP. Although Sony's handheld system sells well in terms of hardware, it struggles with software sales. Many put the blame on the high piracy rates of PSP games as the handheld system in easy to modify. Whatever the reasons may be, the sluggish PSP software sales hasn't affected Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII yet.

With one game already with more than 2 million copies sold, Square Enix is already bringing another Final Fantasy game to the PSP. Dissidia: Final Fantasy will be released in late August and is expected to be one of the biggest games on the system in 2009.