Short answers, pulled from the story.
Final Fantasy VII was released in Japan on the 31st of January, 1997. It reached North America on the 7th of September, 1997, and Europe on the 17th of November, 1997, making it the first Final Fantasy game to receive a PAL release.
Development of Final Fantasy VII cost an estimated 40 million dollars, which adjusted for inflation amounted to $61 million in 2017. The worldwide marketing budget was also estimated at 40 million dollars, with $20 million spent in North America, $10 million in Europe, and $10 million in Japan.
Square abandoned the Nintendo 64 version after tests showed that rendering a single large enemy required 2000 polygons, causing unacceptable frame rates. Storing the complete game would also have required an estimated thirty 64DD discs. The PlayStation's CD-ROM format offered far greater storage capacity, and Square shifted all planned projects to that platform.
Nobuo Uematsu composed, arranged, and produced the entire score. He had served as the sole composer on all six previous Final Fantasy games. The soundtrack was released in 1997 on four compact discs through Square's DigiCube subsidiary and had sold nearly 150,000 copies by January 2010.
As of September 2025, the original version of Final Fantasy VII has sold over 15.3 million units worldwide. The game sold over two million copies in Japan within three days of its January 1997 release, and reached one million copies in North America by early December 1997.
The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII is a multimedia subseries that expands the world of the original game. It includes the mobile prequel Before Crisis, the CGI film sequel Advent Children set two years after the game, the third-person shooter Dirge of Cerberus, and Crisis Core, an action role-playing game focused on Zack Fair's backstory released for PlayStation Portable.