ChrisDeku

@TruestoryYep He’s made hundreds of comments across multiple websites, always with the same name and always 100% negative about any game Sony made. He’s a known xbox mega fanboy, so him claiming to have a PlayStation is pretty wild.

@Toot1st Dude, you don’t have a PS5, you’re an Xbox fanboy troll and I see you on every website in the world it feels like. I’m pretty sure I even seen you fanboying in the comments section of metro gaming the one single time in my life I visited that website.

Go do something positive with your time on this earth.

@Rmg0731 only 6 games have broken 1M players in 20 years of Steam

It seems unlikely anything else Sony ports to PC will ever be able to beat the record set by Helldivers 2

I’m pretty sure something like Marathon could hit a million concurrent players if the game is very good. Any live service game launching day one that’s multiplayer and about shooting things has a good chance of beating 450k.

@carlos82

How many genuine exclusives (not on last gen or PS3) does the PS5 really have? 10 maybe.

Spider-Man 2, Returnal, Ratchet and Clank: Rift apart, Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade, Helldivers 2, Dragons Dogma 2, FFXVI, FFVII Rebirth, [Demons souls Remake], Plague Tale: Requiem, Hi-Fi Rush, Remnant 2, Alan Wake II, Baldur’s Gate 3, Deathloop, Ghostwire Tokyo, Talos Principle 2, Sea of Thieves, Forspoken, Cyberpunk 2077(effectively), Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, Robocop: Rogue City, Sker Ritual, Suicide Squad, Lords of the Fallen, Pacific Drive, Wild Hearts.

I’m sure there’s more

@PuppetMaster it looks to have launched at around 1-1.5m sales from extrapolating the data from third party sites tracking things like playtime and player numbers among sample populations.

@Tecinthebrain It’s starting to look like a lot of these switches are being bough purely to export. The Yen is very weak right now and switch sales in Japan are very peculiar, even week to week they tend to not follow a particular pattern.

Japanese RRP prices converted

Switch Lite - $128.67
Switch OLEd - $244.59

They were even doing promos recently

@Zenos she was only the lead writer of season one though, bud

Why would I be triggered by something I perceive to be positive? That makes zero sense.

@McDosy I guess you better phone Sony and tell them their publically released financial accounts don’t meet the standards of your key word definitions and that you currently find their reporting to be fraudulent.

Or maybe you don’t get to just make up terms and you need to accept industry standards. Sony is the party, they publish the game then it’s a first party product. I mean do you think iPhones are produced in a factory by Apple employees? I guess the iPhone is a third party product too. Also basically every consumer electronic product.

@Zenos You’re first comment was about wokeness = you’re already triggered before you even know a single detail of the show.

TV shows in which she was the lead writer:

Fleabag Season 1 - 88 on Metacritic
Fleabag Season 2 - 96 on metacritic
Killing Eve Season 1 - 83 on metacritic

But yes, she was acting in a bad Indiana jones movie that she has no writing credit for and that’s 100% relevant here 🤪

I love Phoebe Waller-Bridge, great writer and she triggers a certain kind of people that are always good for a laugh.

@Ralizah

Two full games releases since 2018. Two Horizon games since 2017, plus DLC expansions. TLOU Part II, TLOU Part I, and now TLOU Part II Remastered since 2020.

I generally find the people that complain about this kind of thing are the same people who will declare their love for the Nintendo Switch when it’s top 20 selling games are 8 games with the word Mario in the title(+1 colour swapped Mario in Mario’s Mansion)and 5 Pokemon games(9 releases technically). Has Nintendo released a single major new IP in the last decade?(I think Splatoon just makes it into that timeframe). People seem to be enjoying the Switch though. Isn’t that strange?

@Sifi

It's not a First Party game, Arrowhead Game Studios who developed the game are not part of Sony, Sony only published the game.

Games published by Sony are First party, games not published by Sony are third party. This is how Sony(and Nintendo, and Xbox if they bothered with actual accounting releases) treat them in their accounts. Just like Pokemon or Metroid Dread would be considered first party but are developed by Studios Nintendo don’t own.

Also of note, Sony own helldivers IP in totality, it’s their game.

@breakneck

It isn't once upon a time FF7 in HK would've been HUGE but now it is a whimper while people get excited for Persona and Yakuza instead which have built a base with a younger audience

No Yakuza game has broken 2m copies yet I believe and Persona 5 which was a massive hit took 7 years across every format(PS3, PS4, PS5, Xbox one, Series X/S, PC, Switch) and 2 different versions of the game to reach 7.2m copies. Thats about the same as FF7 Remake has sold in 3.5 years and is not considered particularly successful.

When you compare to other Japanese games FF is still very successful but they’re looking for the massive breakthrough.

@get2sammyb I have talked about this exact point in other websites before. Making these games multiplatform will sell some more copies but that won’t address the issue that these games fundamentally underachieve relative to their quality/critical reception and production values.

Why does a game like FFXVI struggle to sell compared to Sony first party titles of similar quality and production values? These games are struggling to keep up with Days Gone’s sales figures, let alone thinking about the 20m+ territory the first party big boys get into.

They’ve tried different things with the Remakes and XVI and neither seems to have been able to penetrate the broader markets they were aiming for while alienating some of the existing fanbases.

The answer is very likely not to return to more traditional turn based games as a lot of people want though, as there is a pretty low ceiling on how successful turn-based JRPGS can be these days and its not close to the 20M numbers they are dreaming of I’m sure.

They seem to have backed themselves into a corner a little bit where a lot of people are not wanting to play a FF games because of what they think a FF game is, or dislike in general for JRPGs and at the same time the traditional fan base is being turned away with the games moving in a new direction.

Just checked, Bayonetta 3 did 51,715 in its first 2 weeks on a console with 5x the install base and a much higher physical sales userbase.

Stellar blade is disappointing? How many non-Japanese games make first place in the entire year?

@GeeForce Those are for completing the game to the credits, they are probably a little bit of the fast side though. Speedrun world record for Mario Bros. Is 4 minutes and 54 seconds though.

I got the wrong Metal Gear though, apparently Metal Gear Solid(2000) is the Gameboy game. PS game was 11 hours, which sounds about right.

@Ainu20 I do tend to agree, in that I find most average completion times to be quite short, I always assumed I was a slow player but perhaps others are just playing every game like it’s a speedrun.

@Kienda

They clearly sold the game to players in those countries but then took features away from them (or made it more difficult).

They didn’t take anything away, the announced change was still like a month away. After Steam delisted those games they were still playable in those regions.

Sony announced the change on Friday, went home for the weekend and by Monday morning in the office they’d seen the reaction and changed course. They never even had time to announce what the plan was for people in official unsupported territories(again please note that anyone anywhere in the world can create a psn account without a VPN or any restrictions)

@PercyVee You can replay games as many times as you want, but that doesn’t change the amount of content they have.

Lots of classic games were very short. From HowLongToBeat.com :

Super Mario Bros. - 2 hours
Sonic the Hedgehog - 2 hours
Meta Gear Solid - 5 hours
Resident Evil - 6 hours
Super Metroid - 7.5 hours
Portal - 3 hours
Doom - 5 Hours
Castlevania - 3 hours

Only RPGs were giving you the same kind of playtimes in those days

@silverspeed

I kind of miss "old times" when I just bought a game and played:no cheeky microtransactions(pay to win, or other cosmeticnonsense), creating accounts for nothing, no linking everything to everywhere, no paying for multiplayer etc.

Choosing to conveniently forget that in the good old days games lasted an average of about 5 hours, got no updates or patches and games in Pal territories played games with black borders on the screen and at 25 FPS if it hit the framrate target.

@Kienda

I didn’t care about the requirement until Sony went authoritarian mode and blocked the sale of this game to 170 countries. Then I was pissed.

This has been confirmed to be a Steam decision I believe, not Sony. They were just covering themselves due to the number of complaints.

@Sakai There’s no trust to begin with, most vocal people on Steam hate all big corporations and can’t wait for any opportunity to attack them and sink the knife in

@Sakai Why would Sony have a hard time when none of the other big publishers that get attacked on Steam ever suffer any longterm consequences? Look at the average review scores and backlash for EA, Microsoft, any Call of Duty Game etc.

Take Microsoft as an example as the most similar comparison, being a console manufacturer and giant publisher. MS require you to sign-in to their accounts for all online play on Steam too. Their 3 games last year have all been destroyed in hate review campaigns(some just, some iffy) and Redfall(33.68%), Forza Motorsport(40.82%) are even lower than Helldivers 2 at peak review bomb status. Starfield(59.05%) is only marginally ahead.Do you think anyone will remember any of that when the next successful game comes out?

The recent Call of Duty game has been destroyed in reviews, it’s even lower than Redfall. Do you think that will have any bearing on the sales of the next CoD?

Steam players love to moan and hate everything. They will still buy the stuff they claim to hate though. Still buy from all those same publishers.

@Sakai

Sony really kneecapped all their goodwill on PC and destroyed their entire growth strategy as outlined by their CEO.

The negative reviews represented about 2% of the total playerbase(10m+). They will all be filtered out of the Steam score as a “period of off-topic reviews” like all steam review bombs, and the score will go back to very positive.

Huge mistakes were made by Sony, and I feel sorry for Arrowhead who have been torn to shreds for a publishers boneheaded decision.

I know some people just love to attack Sony here but AH have acknowledged that they were informed on the PSN requirement 6 months before launch and it was solely their decision to pause it when their backend code couldn’t handle the player count.

The only real issue is that there’s not an official response as to what people in countries that don’t have PSN are supposed to do. (You can create an account for any supported country without a VPN but its technically against the Terms of Service)

Next Month:

Free Warbond for everyone who links their account to PSN

The people who already bought it in these regions can still play the game btw.

It’s more likely this move was done by Steam, not Sony. They probably made it unavailable until the situation is clarified.

@Mortal People’s names and phone numbers are widely available. No one is hacking PSN to get them. If you want small fish there’s a million ways to get that info.

People hack big companies because they want actual bank account info and they want to be paid a ransom. Not for a list of names and email addresses.

What you’re saying is utter nonsense.

With just a name and phone number she took over his account in 4 minutes.

So just use a Phone Book then. Skip the hacking a giant corporation part.

@Mortal

Hackers don't need your credit card details to attempt to breach other accounts that you have. They just need your name and email address, both of which the majority of people have on their accounts.

You can literally google people and get the names and email Adresses of top company CEOs, Lawyers, Bankers etc. etc. Or walk into a Lawyers office, bank etc. and request a business card.

You’re saying their big plan is to hack PSN so they can get the name and email address of “BigJimLovesPie69” and hope it’s not a fake name and he isn’t as poor as he sounds. That’s some real big brain thinking right there, son.

@gipsojo

Sadly this one is going to go the way of the dodo.

Yeah, less than 2% of the userbase(over 10m) gave it a negative review on Steam. Game’s dead.

@BacklogBrad You don’t need to log-in. You link your steam account to a PSN account and then thats it. For every single Sony game you play on Steam your accounts will be linked. You will never need to link them again, nor to log-in each time you play. It’s once per account too, not per game. If you buy Ghost of Tsushima you will not need to log-in or link.

@Mortal You do not require to add bank account details for playing a game you bought on Steam

@Flaming_Kaiser It should also be noted that Steam has had around 5-6 Major security breaches since 2011.

@Specky On the Steam Store page it states it clearly in large coloured text with a background highlight box.

@Intr1n5ic Lots of people clearly don’t understand what linking your account means in this context. It’s also a Steam level link so you only do it once, not even once per game. Theres people that think it’s a whole new game launcher being installed, or that you need to sign-in to your account every time you lunch the game.

@Intr1n5ic Anyone creating an account to play Helldivers 2 on Steam would have no reason to link a bank account though

BTW this whole security/data breach angle is a total joke. Even if you use your real name and email, what are they going to do with that? OMG now they know my username is “Otaku69”. Yeah, so?

When people talk about people’s data being valuable what the mean is in a broad analytics way. They can work out how people consume things and when and what affects their consumptions habits, in order to be better at selling people things. They don’t actually care about you. You’re just part of a giant data set.

Unless your bank details are getting leaked then it’s all nonsense.

@Ralizah No one is region barred because if you live in a country that doesn’t have PSN you can just create an account linked to any country in the world, without a VPN or anything.

@Jaz007 I clearly said half the population understands satire. I’m sorry you’re part of the half that doesn’t understand basic sentences(and probably satire)

Also. Can we just not use PlayTracker as a source for game sales? Because there are several trackers on internet and for example VG Insights is showing 15 million copies sold of Baldur's Gate 3 on PC.

VG insights also says that Helldivers 2 has sold 12.77m copies on steam which is nonsense. PlayTracker is the only accurate one, as long as the game has never been free or given away etc. Larian also revealed the game had sold around 8m copies across all formats at the end of last year when they showed how many people had completed the games(cross referenced with game completion percentage from achievements).

You’re right that all formats are dominated by multi-player games, but steam is skewed even more than normal since it doesn’t just have all the big western games, it also has all the big non-japan Asian games and they’re basically exclusively multiplayer games.

Games that sold or will sell 20m on PS only:

God of War(2018)
God of War: Ragnarok(sold 15m+ in 12 months, easily 20m+ lifetime)
The Last of Us(26m+ over PS3 and PS4)
Horizon: Zero Dawn
Marvel’s Spider-man
Marvel’s Spider-man 2(10m in 3 months)
Uncharted 4 (16m 5 years ago)

Games like Last of us Part 2, Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon: FW all broke 10m officially years ago and probably close to 20m+ or will eventually. Miles morales is over 14m as of early 2023 from the insomniac leaks.

Also, out of all the big single player games you mention on Pc, basically every single one is a western RPG. That’s because PC is the home of the CRPG, so you can add the caveat that PC is multiplayer and CRPG skewed if you want.

@Godot25 Total nonsense, PC is way more multiplayer skewed, this is a basic fact.

Single player Games on PlayStation and switch will regularly sell 20m and sometimes 30m+ copies.

Theres practically zero single player games on Steam that sell 20m copies. BG3(which has multiplayer btw) sells phenomenally well buts it’s still at only 6.83m sales on steam according to Playstracker estimates.

Steam is not only dominated by big multiplayer games(Counter-strike 2 had 10x as many players as the highest single player game, fallout 4, in the last 24 hours) but random multiplayer games will be all over the top 30 games: War Thunder, Rust, Lost Ark, Crab game, Team Fortress 2, Grey Zone: Warfare. Naraka: Blade Point was the 5th most played game in the last 24 hours.

Steams biggest userbase is Asia, and they almost only play multiplayer games.

@Godot25 for live service games yes, and they already committed to that before the release of Helldivers 2.

PC is still a multiplayer dominated medium though. Single player games are doing better these days buts it’s still a lot behind consoles.

@Kienda

I think the culture is trying to out morality into everything when they don’t need to. The perception of the player in Helldivers is we are the good guys and we are blowing everything up, including ourselves, and it’s all for the greater good

The game is satire, you're playing an expendable farm kid from iowa sent out to die on foreign soil by a hyper militaristic authoritarian government to secure your supply of oil(bugs), fight communisn(bots), secure Weapons of Mass Destruction that don't exist(illuminate).

Your point highlights why the game is successful in America though. It manages to appeal to both "sides". The Right take it at face value and love blowing stuff up and shouting about Democracy and liberty and the Left understand satire.

Have people worked out that this whole thing was a fake manufactured Controversy(in order to generate publicity) by the devs yet, or are we still all arguing about this nonsense?

Secondary Point: Ghost of Tsushima grossed more in America than games like Horizon: Zero Dawn, Uncharted 4 and the Last of us remastered.

@NEStalgia I don’t recall any territory where helldivers was 70% on PC.

The first 1M sales were roughly even across both platforms as per Arrowhead CEO.

The first month UK sales were 58% on PS5 if I remember correctly and euro wide sale was slightly higher on Pc, somewhere in the high 50’s.

Helldivers 2 is “ the seventh highest ranked Sony published title in the US in terms of lifetime US dollar sales after just two months”

Only 6 Sony published games have grossed more revenue over their entire lifetime than Helldivers 2’s first 2 months! What in the world? This doesn’t even include microtransactions(does include super citizen edition presumably though).

@carlos82 66% is very high. That’s also units, not revenue. A publisher doesn’t actually care about units, they care about revenue. A Physical games will net them about 60% of the revenue of an equivalent digital sale. So 66% of units is around 80% of the revenue.

Accessing that 20% of revenue also opens you up to other issues, like second hand market and easier game sharing. These will reduce overall sales and revenue to the publisher.

So at 66% units physical is probably still worth it but it’s pretty questionable. AWII is a multi-platform game however. Xbox is way higher than 66% digital and PC is 100% digital if you count codes in a useless box as digital. For a multi-platform game the worldwide digital rate might be like 80-90% lifetime. Well over 90% revenue.

AWII is not only multi-platform but they are not a company with strong ties to PS and there is not a big userbase there. Control(which was the first remedy game to release on PS since Max Payne 2 twenty years ago) never even charted in the PSN top 20 charts in its debut month. Control was over 90% digital in 2020 which was it’s peak sales year(both stats from Remedy)