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Who could have predicted that so many PlayStation 1st Party games would be selling 10 , 15 & 20 million copies?

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onQ123

Member
This has got to be the most pitiful thread OP I have ever seen.

OK? Can we get some figures and stats to see for ourselves or? Some info that compares it to previous releases or sequels?

This feels like a tiktok amount of effort lol.


From 2 years ago The Last of Us over 20 million & Uncharted 4 over 16 million



From a few days ago God of War 19.5 million https://blog.playstation.com/2021/10/20/god-of-war-2018-is-coming-to-pc/

From 2 years ago Horizon Zero Dawn 10 million sold https://blog.playstation.com/2019/0...anniversary-10-million-copies-sold-worldwide/

From a year ago Spiderman over 20 million sold https://www.vg247.com/spider-man-ps4-20-million-sales
 

yurinka

Member
"Worried about" would indicate a future state. We are talking about Sony not green lighting a sequel to Days Gone. Maybe learn to read.
Maybe you're the one who needs to learn to read. Sony wins many GOTY awards, get great reviews and sell a ton with open world games. Same goes for other top publishers.

Nothing points to current or future open world fatigue. The opposite, several other genres and series have been/are moving to open world.
 
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bender

What time is it?
Maybe you're the one who needs to learn to read. Sony wins many GOTY awards, get great reviews and sell a ton with open world games. Same goes for other top publishers.

Nothing points to current or future open world fatigue. The opposite, several other genres and series have been/are moving to open world.

We are talking about Days Gone and why it didn't get a sequel. No one is discounting Sony's other stable of open world game of the year hits. Had Days of Gone been a critical and commercial success, a sequel would be in the works. Being an open world game (something Sony has a lot of) and a zombie game (something another massively popular first party IP has covered), most likely works against Bend and that IP.
Should I draw you map?
 
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onQ123

Member
Not likely. We would’ve had incremental numbers for TLOU2 if it was trending that high. GOT might do well, but 10 million at this point is pretty unlikely. I expect the sequel might push those numbers if it’s received as well. S:MM won’t get that high simply because it’s a short expansion for the original game that already sold crazy good numbers within spitting distance of its release.

We will see
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
Not likely. We would’ve had incremental numbers for TLOU2 if it was trending that high. GOT might do well, but 10 million at this point is pretty unlikely. I expect the sequel might push those numbers if it’s received as well. S:MM won’t get that high simply because it’s a short expansion for the original game that already sold crazy good numbers within spitting distance of its release.

Ghost of Tsushima and Spider-Man: Miles Morales should easily pass more than 10 million copies sold. Neither game had a major discount and it's bound to happen sooner or later.


This is not even counting the potential PC releases.
 

yurinka

Member
We are talking about Days Gone and why it didn't get a sequel, not Sony's other stable of open world game of the year hits. Had Days of Gone been a critical and commercial success, a sequel would be in the works. Should I draw you map?
You're the one who needs the map, calm your robotits.

I said the new IP Bend Studio is making after Days Gone is also going to be an open world that will use the systems and mecanics built for Days Gone, so Sony has zero issues with their game being open world game.

I also said the co-director said (when interviewed by David Jaffe) that Days Gone outsold pretty quickly all the previous Bend Studio games combined (this means way above 5M, probably 7-8M and we should add what it sold since then and maybe another million from the PC version) and that Sony was happy with the game. The other director, who left before watching the sales, when interviewed by Jaffe also mentioned Sony was happy with the game and always was very supportive with the game results and reviews even if obviously not super happy because it didn't have great reviews.

And there are many other reasons that could lead to them not greenlighting the sequel. One could be that its codirector -before leaving the studio- wanted to make the sequel using Unreal Engine 5 as he said when interviewed by Jaffe, and the full UE5 version still isn't ready so they would need to wait. Other possibility would be that Sony was already working on a ton of sequels so they prefered to have a new IP instead. Another one could be that with the two main guys of Days Gone out of the studio, the new studio management would prefer to do a new IP.

And when you said "Maybe Sony are worried about open world fatigue with their first party offerings?" you were opening to the other open world games and specifically the Sony ones.
 
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Every console comes with minimum 3 games bundles. Never seen one without games. So yeah, more PS4 sold means more games sold.



h4EVNsx.jpg
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
It's not surprising to me now, hindsight being 20/20 and all. Sony started ramping up their production of first party productions in the later half of the PS3's generation. They accelerated it during the life of the PS4, a time in which they also came to dominate their main competition and therefore grew their install-base.

So here we now, all of those franchises and more are now mature and well known, with plenty of fans around the globe owning a PlayStation console capable of playing them. Or going back and trying out what they may have missed in years past.
 
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It’s not though. Best selling PS4 ‘exclusive’ is God of War, at 19m. Nintendo have MK8D at 37m, Animal Crossing at 33m and Smash, BotW, Sword/Shield and Mario Odyssey all sitting between 20 and 25m copies sold.
Also have to consider the prices. God of War sold its copies at an average of maybe 30 bucks over time. Nintendo sells its stuff at an average of 50+ bucks. Nintendo is still in its own league with regards to first party sales.
 
That's what you get when you spend a shit ton of money on marketing, never seen that amount of ads in the PS3 era. Day Gone also would have sold much more copies if they went all in like they did with the other games.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Honestly, it's not surprising to me. Sony makes the best games, hands down. It was only a matter of time gamers realized that. Coincide that with the downfall in third-party quality of games (Ubisoft, Activision, etc.), and you're bound to get these sales.

I suspect these numbers will be even higher this generation, as the PlayStation Studios games quality is improving with each new release.
 

TrueLegend

Member
Never in history of a company it has ever happened that a company reaches this point, and SJW propaganda and politics doesnt start meddling in. I mean we had controversy over femininity of a Lambax. I dont think Sony Developers could avoid that bait of hollywood approval. Santa Monica and Rockstar are in the mix now so not much is left.
 
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winjer

Gold Member
It's not all that surprising.
Like many have already said, these are good games. And good games tend to sell well.
But also consider that the PS4 sold 116+ million units. This is a huge install base.
Selling 10 million copies means that only 9% of users bought that game.
 

Assaulty

Member
Absolutely no suprises here. I am still planning to pick up a PS5 down the road because I've missed all the great games the PS4 had to offer. Doesn't seem like the Ps5 will drop price soon if ever tho, so maybe a Ps4 pro will have to do. Also, it seems like Sony drops the prices of their games fairly agressively at a fairly good rate. Basically: if you own a Ps4/5 there is realy no reason to skip any of the mainstream PS exclusives. They are just that good.
 

Butch_0451

Member
Yes and in the process they gravitate towards a similar format because that model seems to be working for them. I despise this format. I miss PS2 Sony.
 

FrankWza

Member
That's what you get when you spend a shit ton of money on marketing, never seen that amount of ads in the PS3 era.
Or it could be the quality of games that has the biggest platform install base begging for as many PS games as they can get as quickly as they can get them.
Otherwise, deathloop would sell 10 million:)
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
Many people seem to think their PS would be wasted playing pleb indies and second-choice multiplats ever since the PS4 took back the lion’s share of the market. Nobody should be surprised exclusives sell those numbers.
 
Nintendo RE-releases their games each gen which inflates those numbers….Sony do it as well and don’t look like changing with their directors cut focus
 
Or it could be the quality of games that has the biggest platform install base begging for as many PS games as they can get as quickly as they can get them.
Otherwise, deathloop would sell 10 million:)
The quality of the games was super high in the PS3 era too with a userbase of almost 90m too and not even 10% bought those games. Deathloop is no massmarket 3rd person cinematic and marketing wasn't even close to the big Sony games. I haven't even seen a single Deathloop billboard in my town while i had 3 TLOU2 billboards within a radius of 2km around my house.
There is a reason why Sony spends so much on it. I mean would they make a 10m dollar Spider-amn tv spot (USA) if it wouldn't pay off? Imagine this worldwide with radio, internet, tv, billboards and so on. Insane amounts of money.
 
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ripeavocado

Banned
PS3 games didn’t sell so much because it had a lower install base and many of the potential buyers were on Xbox.

PS4 dominated and there were less third party competitors so they sold a lot.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
It's very shocking considering how pathetic the sales of the first 3 PlayStation consoles and the Bita (meaning life™) were.
 
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Swift_Star

Banned
Considering the amount of competition PS games have with the third parties on PS platforms, that number is nuts. They go toe to toe with blockbusters like AC nonetheless.
 
That's because there were a lot more games to choose from, and internet viability wasn't a thing.

I'd gladly take games selling less if we got more of them.
I miss those days of going into the game store and discover that there was a treasure trove of new PS2 games that weren’t even on my radar. A lot of variety was a nice problem to have! I get the online store/indie market is the substitute for that but it doesn’t have quite the same punch…
 

Shubh_C63

Member
I always saw Sony blockbuster strategy risky, business wise, but when the reward is this big...damn.
But its still a risky strategy and thank god they made it.

Can you imagine these number if they struck gold with their "cinematic multiplayer" AAA game route, if even one of them struck gold.
 

DeepSpace5D

Member
There seems to have been a shift starting around the time of Uncharted 2 where first-party games started getting more anticipated and known for a certain level of quality, and that only further increased in the PS4 era until now.

That one recent Jim Ryan interview is pretty enlightening where he says the big first-party games from Sony have 10-20mil potential these days, but he wants that number to be much larger in the future.
 
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FrankWza

Member
The quality of the games was super high in the PS3 era with more than 80m user base too. Deathloop is a new ip, no massmarket 3rd person cinematic and marketing wasn'nt even close to the big Sony games. I haven't even seen a single Deathloop billboard in my town while i had 3 TLOU2 billboards within a radius of 2km around my house.
There is a reason why Sony spends so much on it. I mean would they make a 10m dollar Spider-amn tv spot (USA) if it wouldn't pay off?
Your point was, these games are reaching these sales levels because they’re marketed more than others. Deathloop has been shoved down our throats at every turn. It ain’t selling 10 million and it has nothing to do with marketing.
Sonys Spider-Man game isn’t the highest selling superhero game of all time because it’s a Spider-Man game, it because it’s INSOMNIACs Spider-Man. Despite being on one platform, it’s the highest because the quality is there. You’ll see the same thing with Wolverine vs the origins game that was multiplat (and I actually liked that game)
 

cormack12

Gold Member
God of war is the big success story considering they moved away from the old fixed camera style.

I don't think its sensible to bring licensed games into the fold, especially given the popularity of the license and the starving of the game market for what its worth.

Guerilla and SSM are much better studio's than insomniac and Zero Dawn is a better comparison case. I'd say Insomniac are probably just below Sucker Punch given Ghost of Tsushima. But that's how Sony generally work, Insomniac will improve over time and the experience behind them will help them make the same steps Sucker Punch did.
 

FrankWza

Member
God of war is the big success story considering they moved away from the old fixed camera style.

I don't think its sensible to bring licensed games into the fold, especially given the popularity of the license and the starving of the game market for what its worth.

Guerilla and SSM are much better studio's than insomniac and Zero Dawn is a better comparison case. I'd say Insomniac are probably just below Sucker Punch given Ghost of Tsushima. But that's how Sony generally work, Insomniac will improve over time and the experience behind them will help them make the same steps Sucker Punch did.
If we didn’t have a reference to compare then maybe. But in Spider-Man and now Wolverine we will be able to compare the multiplat vs the single console since Spider-Man was only on PS4 and Wolverine will be exclusive to PS5. Activision Spider-Man was multiplat and so was Wolverine origins. I think gamers are a little more savvy nowadays when it comes to tie-ins and know which is a cash grab and which isn’t. Didn’t the avengers game bomb for this reason?

edit: also, yes, the GoD of war move was ballsy of Sony. They should get a lot of credit for delivering on that.
 
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cormack12

Gold Member
If we didn’t have a reference to compare then maybe. But in Spider-Man and now Wolverine we will be able to compare the multiplat vs the single console since Spider-Man was only on PS4 and Wolverine will be exclusive to PS5. Activision Spider-Man was multiplat and so was Wolverine origins. I think gamers are a little more savvy nowadays when it comes to tie-ins and know which is a cash grab and which isn’t. Didn’t the avengers game bomb for this reason?

edit: also, yes, the GoD of war move was ballsy of Sony. They should get a lot of credit for delivering on that.

Wolverine had a 5 second tease and is nowhere near ready so I don't think we can bring that into the debate honestly until we see more.

Regarding the dates that's exactly the point I'm making. People have been starved of a game for a very popular licensed IP. So it will always sell well. I imagine exactly the same would happen if someone released a new Matrix game as well. With regards to volume the gaming market has grown since then so you'd need to do some clever extrapolation from data none of us will have.

re: Avengers. Outriders can be considered the same and that isn't licensed. The only real benefit is that it was free for lots of people on gamepass. People are swerving off GaaS in general these days or are more wary. You would need an apple to apples comparison there (big budget, popular license, single player).

I just think Spider-Man is an outlier and does not speak to the quality of the game as much as you think. Reason being that both Ghost of Tsushima and Zero Dawn were a much higher standard by those respective studio's. Arkham Knight looks better than Spider-Man for instance.

That's not having a go at any issue in particular just that its probably better to focus on the titles that fall outside the gaming licenses/ips in my opinion. If your position has merit then surely Miles Morales would have outsold Spider--Man if it has nothing to do with the license? It was cheaper, made by the same studio, had better tech and was one two platforms (and excluding the bundle of SM:R)

Forbidden West will make the point better I feel as it's much better and refined and there is no way it won't outsell Zero Dawn imo.
 
It’s not though. Best selling PS4 ‘exclusive’ is God of War, at 19m. Nintendo have MK8D at 37m, Animal Crossing at 33m and Smash, BotW, Sword/Shield and Mario Odyssey all sitting between 20 and 25m copies sold.
Isn’t Spider-man the best selling exclusive with over 20m?
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
Isn’t Spider-man the best selling exclusive with over 20m?
I think that was technically a third party exclusive at the time, but even with Spidey it’s a stretch to say the numbers are comparable to Nintendo (although they still extremely high and respectable).
 
Your point was, these games are reaching these sales levels because they’re marketed more than others. Deathloop has been shoved down our throats at every turn. It ain’t selling 10 million and it has nothing to do with marketing.
Sonys Spider-Man game isn’t the highest selling superhero game of all time because it’s a Spider-Man game, it because it’s INSOMNIACs Spider-Man. Despite being on one platform, it’s the highest because the quality is there. You’ll see the same thing with Wolverine vs the origins game that was multiplat (and I actually liked that game)
Exactly that`s my point. Deathloop wasn't even close to the Sony games when it comes to the expensive non internet advertisement. I didn't see a single billboard, i didn't see a single tv spot, no radio ads, no Sony truck, no nothing. Please explain me why high quality PS3 games only reached like 5-7% of the user base while some high quality PS4 games did >15%. Marketing sells games, more marketing sells more games. It's that simple, that's why marketing exists.
 

clarky

Gold Member
If you have an install base of 110m a 10m sales is about right. 10% attach rate of one of your flagship games is expected I'd imagine
 
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Spiderman was pretty easy predict when it got those crazy youtube views after the 2017 gameplay trailer.

It didn't stop buffonish morons saying it would top out about 5 million because that's what arkham did😘

Also remember when those same buffonish morons thought Monster World couldn't do 10 million units even when darks souls was really taking off as a franchise!
 

FrankWza

Member
Wolverine had a 5 second tease and is nowhere near ready so I don't think we can bring that into the debate honestly until we see more.
That’s kind of what I said as far as waiting but it’s being done by insomniac so it is relevant. It’s not being done by one of the other studios.
It will pretty much cement what I was saying IF this does the same or better increase to origins that insomniacs Spider-Man did to activisions then we know their production as a studio has a lot to do with it. We’re not chalking it all up to people buy more and want more. Not entirely. Credit will be due there for their work on the game.
Regarding the dates that's exactly the point I'm making. People have been starved of a game for a very popular licensed IP. So it will always sell well. I imagine exactly the same would happen if someone released a new Matrix game as well. With regards to volume the gaming market has grown since then so you'd need to do some clever extrapolation from data none of us will have.
But insomniacs Spider-Man reached these numbers on one platform. Multiplat games with bigger IPs aren’t coming close. We’re not even needing to go back that far. Just 3-4 years. If a Matrix game was made exclusively by a top studio I guess you could compare that.
re: Avengers. Outriders can be considered the same and that isn't licensed. The only real benefit is that it was free for lots of people on gamepass. People are swerving off GaaS in general these days or are more wary. You would need an apple to apples comparison there (big budget, popular license, single player).
I’m not sure what this has to do with what I said. Avengers is the combination of some of the biggest IPs in the world and it bombed. There may have been more than one reason why. But the quality of the game itself was one of those reasons. And speaking to your growth point, it released when people were buying games more than ever(not long after pandemic lockdown)
I just think Spider-Man is an outlier and does not speak to the quality of the game as much as you think.
Maybe. But maybe it speaks to how bad the activision Spider-Man man games were and why they probably didn’t sell as many copies combined as a multiplat as Insomniacs did on one platform. Yes, we would need to adjust that for the way game sales have grown. That’s why I mentioned Wolverine as a way to break the tie so to speak.
If your position has merit then surely Miles Morales would have outsold Spider--Man if it has nothing to do with the license? It was cheaper, made by the same studio, had better tech and was one two platforms (and excluding the bundle of SM:R)
This makes the game sound like a failure. I’ll take a wait and see on this. It’s a year old and has sold really well on PS5 with an excellent attach rate. I think it’s been discussed here more than once that there is a strong possibility people are waiting for a PS5 to play the game.
 

kyliethicc

Member
I remember when only Gran Turismo could sell close to 10 million copies now they have:

God of War

Horizon Zero Dawn

Spiderman

Last Of Us

Uncharted 4








Update:

From 2 years ago The Last of Us over 20 million & Uncharted 4 over 16 million



From a few days ago God of War 19.5 million https://blog.playstation.com/2021/10/20/god-of-war-2018-is-coming-to-pc/

From 2 years ago Horizon Zero Dawn 10 million sold https://blog.playstation.com/2019/0...anniversary-10-million-copies-sold-worldwide/

From a year ago Spiderman over 20 million sold https://www.vg247.com/spider-man-ps4-20-million-sales


Don't forget Spider-man Miles Morales has already sold over 6.5 million a while ago and is consistently charting, so its well on its way to selling 10 million or more.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
Where's Ghost of Tsushima at? That game deserves to be near the top of Sony first-party games.

Definitely. This game was just an example of when everything came together. The sum of all its parts, and the parts were all very high quality.

This makes the game sound like a failure. I’ll take a wait and see on this. It’s a year old and has sold really well on PS5 with an excellent attach rate. I think it’s been discussed here more than once that there is a strong possibility people are waiting for a PS5 to play the game.

No, not saying its a failure just saying that Spider-Man has an enormous pull factor in purchases. Like Spider-Man 2 would eclipse Miles in a very short space of time (and probably overtake SM1 over time). Wolverine will be a solid game but I still wouldn't expect that to outsell SM (even if its Insomniac). But I'd expect it to outsell even Forbidden West as an example (SM2)

Anyway we shall see. Its a good problem for Sony to have ultimately and I'm not complaining about playing them lol
 
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Lognor

Banned
It’s not though. Best selling PS4 ‘exclusive’ is God of War, at 19m. Nintendo have MK8D at 37m, Animal Crossing at 33m and Smash, BotW, Sword/Shield and Mario Odyssey all sitting between 20 and 25m copies sold.
Holy shit! I had no idea. Multiple titles over 30m? That's insane!
 
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