Square Enix and Nintendo make Asia’s most expensive and highest grossing games

Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can most certainly buy you video games, as well as help create them. Whether or not that equates to happiness is entirely for you to decide.

An infographic by Graphs.net lists the most expensive video games in history, as well as the highest grossing titles of all time. If you’re interested in seeing how Asia fared on that list, look no further, as we found five titles just for you. So without further ado, here are two of the most expensive video games and three of the highest grossing video games hailing from Asia.

Most Expensive: Square Enix’ Final Fantasy

Whether you are a new gamer or an old gamer, if you like this hobby enough, you probably know of the popular Final Fantasy series by Square Enix. Interestingly, Final Fantasy was supposed to be the last game for designer Hironobu Sakaguchi. Had the game not sold well, he would’ve just given up and returned to university. We all know what happened after that. Final Fantasy became so successful that it now spans fourteen major installment titles with many of them having prequels and sequels across various platforms. As it turns out, two Final Fantasy titles have made it to the list of the most expensive games of all time:

Final Fantasy XIII – Over $65 Million

Final Fantasy XIII was released in 2009 for the PlayStation 3 and the XBOX 360. The story has thirteen chapters each focusing on a different protagonist in order to portray director Motomu Toriyama’s idea of “characters at the mercy of a predetermined, unjust fate that belong together but collide heavily.” He also stated in an interview that he wanted it to become the ultimate single player RPG. On its first day on sale in Japan, Final Fantasy XIII sold over one million copies. By the end of 2009, it had managed to sell 1.7 million copies for the PlayStation 3 in Japan alone.

Final Fantasy VII – $45 Million

If you’re thinking of the amazingly rendered, almost-human Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy: Advent Children, you’re not exactly wrong, but that’s not the Final Fantasy VII this list is talking about. In fact, the $45 Million version is made up of square figures that might remind you of Lego. It may not look as awesome as today’s rather realistic games in terms of graphics and other elements, but I believe one of its key features was its amazing story and characters.

Final Fantasy VII is probably one of the most popular titles not only in the Final Fantasy series, but also among many RPGs. First released for the Sony PlayStation in 1997, the game sold 2.3 million copies in the first three days in Japan alone. It was also the first Final Fantasy title on the PlayStation. And was the most expensive video game of its time. Final Fantasy VII became so popular that other game titles and movies were created based on its story and characters.

Nintendo holds the highest grossing titles

Now who doesn’t know Nintendo? Seeing as how three of its games are part of the list of the highest grossing video game titles of all time, it isn’t surprising that it is one of the largest gaming companies in the world. And of course, the company’s mustachioed Italian plumber Mario is arguably more famous as Nintendo itself. As a testament to this popularity, two titles based on the Super Mario series made it to the list of the highest grossing titles of all time.