As I've mentioned before, Sony themselves stated that the sales of their April-June quarter were very low. Down to 6 million units worldwide for all first party games. Down from 10.6 million the year before in the same quarter when MLB the Show sold 2 million in three months.
Here is where the 2 million figure for MLB comes from. It was not in your link.
SIE also achieved additional milestones across its portfolio of PlayStation Studios games, including:
- Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales from Insomniac Games has sold more than 6.5 million copies* since releasing on November 12, 2020
- MLB® The Show™ 21 from San Diego Studio is the fastest-selling title in franchise history with more than 2 million copies* sold across all platforms. The game has reached more than 4 million players since releasing on April 16, 2021
- Returnal from Housemarque, a new IP that launched to critical acclaim, has sold more than 560,000 copies* since releasing on April 30, 2021
- Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart from Insomniac Games has sold more than 1.1 million copies* since releasing on June 11, 2021
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So we have Sony selling 10.6 million first party games with Returnal selling just 500k, Ratchet selling just 1.1 million and MLB selling 2 million plus. Spiderman like sold another 2 million in that quarter. Bringing us to around 5 million with another 5 million presumably going to older first party games. With total sales down to just 6 million despite Horizon and GT7 launching just a month before that quarter started, we can assume that the sales for all of these games did not meet expectations. Otherwise, Sony wouldve put out a bulletin point just like they did in July 2021.
I really dont like the guessing game. It is very hard to prove anything. A lot of inferring on both sides. I'd rather Sony just release numbers. Id rather NPD finally fucking release numbers so we dont have to wonder why Mario Kart is beating out GT7 in its 9th year of release especially considering it retails for $50.
You are assuming that if Horizon outsold MLB, it must have sold more than 3 million copies and that worldwide total must be 3x that. I just dont buy it even if it sold 3 million in the U.S. It took TLOU2 3 days to sell 4 million units then another two years to hit 9 million according to Naughty Dog last year. And we think Horizon which did not do TLOU2 numbers is going to get there in under a year? Especially when data from Sony themselves shows there was a huge drop in sales in its second quarter affecting both MLB sales and HFW/GT7 estimates you are gleening from 2021 sales figures. Lets not forget last year the software sales were down every single month compared to 2021. Trying to apply inflated covid era 2021 numbers to 2022 is a mistake.
Remember, Sony had no problems admitting GOW sold 5 million units in a week and that TLOU2 sold 4 million in three days. the fact that we got no such numbers from Sony for HFW, TLOU and GT7 means that they either underperformed or Sony's just waiting for them to hit 5 million or another milestone. Regardless, Jimbo's secrecy withholding game reveals and game numbers is getting very frustrating because we are all now in a guessing game in a thread that should have hard fucking data.