Final fantasy still has a niche fanbase, sadly, and released so late in the year that most awards don't even count it. Unfortunate.

The game sold over five million copies on its first day, and the series as a whole is one of the most ubiquitous RPGs of all time. The only unfortunate thing here is your lack of knowledge pertaining to videogames.

I know it sold a lot, but it still a niche'd game that many people just wornt bother with given its style. At least not people in the west.

I'd ask you to cite that, but I already know that you can't. On your own admission, it's not a niche title, which makes your contradiction a mere five words later all the more comical. It's no secret that console sales in Japan began to stagnate quite some time ago, now facing a stringent decline. The majority of global console sales come from western and european countries; given the aforementioned information, it can immediately be inferred that a console exclusive title saw the bulk of its sales from console-heavy consumer regions, i.e. America, England, Germany, Scandinavian, Australia (technically Oceanic, though falls under the European videogame marketing region). To be perfectly blunt, dubbing Final Fantasy a "niche" title is completely nonsensical ― again, it's one of the most predominant ips in the industry.

Predominant, sure. But it's still a niche game. It's far more prominent than the rest of it's genre, but as a whole never has the same impact in the west as most western RPGs or even shooters/adventure games do.