Horizon Forbidden West climbing the Steam top sellers list. |UP| Releases on Steam with lower player count than Zero: Dawn.

Cool hand luke

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This is kinda funny but, if you add up all the reviews and do that 25x multiplier that people like to use to try calculating Steam sales, HFW: Complete Edition has sold a whopping 26,375 copies on Steam as of right now.

If you want something a bit better, there's this estimate website based on a newer method. They peg it at 82,600 copies having been sold. Still anemic, but better than the x25 reviews method would give otherwise.



DD2 hasn't had much in the way of marketing from what I've seen. The price of a game should reflect its quality, hence why many high-quality games retain their launch prices (or near-launch prices) years after they've come out. Part of that is also on publishers training the customer base to accept those prices for that particular content.

To say Sony have failed to do that with PC gamers is an understatement. But hey, these are all their problems to sort out.
That low end estimate would make it the 20th best selling PC title in France in 2023, just from launch sales alone! The 20th best selling title for a year...in the world's 7th largest economy, in a single day. Yeah. Traditional gaming on PC has no future.
 

Firefly

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That low end estimate would make it the 20th best selling PC title in France in 2023, just from launch sales alone! The 20th best selling title for a year...in the world's 7th largest economy, in a single day. Yeah. Traditional gaming on PC has no future.
Only way I see pc dying is if NVIDIA decide to just ditch the gaming gpu market in full pursuit of AI on top of ending driver updates. Or valve makes a catastrophic move and steam commits seppuku.
 

Polyh3dron

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Wow it's almost as if it's a new game with an active marketing push, communal discussion everywhere and a price which appropriately reflects its age.
yup.

HFW's price has been slashed quite a few times on PS5, and wasn't it even free on PS+ for a month?

To turn around and charge full price on PC all this time later is a difficult ask.
 
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Firefly

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yup.

HFW's price has been slashed quite a few times on PS5, and wasn't it even free on PS+ for a month?

To turn around and charge full price on PC all this time later is a difficult ask.
They will always charge full price on pc otherwise they wouldn't bother porting at all.
 

Polyh3dron

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They will always charge full price on pc otherwise they wouldn't bother porting at all.
Well, if Sony wants to continue to start off charging full price on their PC titles and wants them to sell really well, there's an easy answer here.

Day and Date.
 

DForce

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The Last of Us Part I peaked at 36k on Steam and sold 368k copies in the first month.

It generated $15.5m in revenue. Based on the leaked data from Insomniac, it takes less than 3 million to port the game over to PC.

Their PC ports don't have to put up major numbers to be profitable.
 

Gods&Monsters

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The Last of Us Part I peaked at 36k on Steam and sold 368k copies in the first month.

It generated $15.5m in revenue. Based on the leaked data from Insomniac, it takes less than 3 million to port the game over to PC.

Their PC ports don't have to put up major numbers to be profitable.
Is that how other publishers count profitability? They put all the game budget on 1 Sku and the rest is free money?

Is Capcom counting only the PC sku to cover Dragons Dogma 2 full budget and the rest just need to cover the actual porting cost?

I've never heard it explained this way besides Sony ports. 50k is a mega success because it paid those 10 employees at Nixxes 🙄

Every publisher should fudge the numbers the same way to fool the shareholders.
 

anonpuffs

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The Last of Us Part I peaked at 36k on Steam and sold 368k copies in the first month.

It generated $15.5m in revenue. Based on the leaked data from Insomniac, it takes less than 3 million to port the game over to PC.

Their PC ports don't have to put up major numbers to be profitable.
You think Sony is happy tasking a studio to make a port for over a year and end up with only $12m in profit? They won't fucking invest in AA games anymore because they're not profitable enough, and those can easily sell a couple million copies at full price = $100m in profit
 

Yurinka

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Is that how other publishers count profitability? They put all the game budget on 1 Sku and the rest is free money?

Is Capcom counting only the PC sku to cover Dragons Dogma 2 full budget and the rest just need to cover the actual porting cost?

I've never heard it explained this way besides Sony ports. 50k is a mega success because it paid those 10 employees at Nixxes 🙄

Every publisher should fudge the numbers the same way to fool the shareholders.
Depends if it's a multiplatform release or a late port of an old game.

In a multiplatform release, the budget of the project is the costs of the development in all versions, and count the money made in all these versions until they recoup the budget, and starting from that the rest if profit.

In the case of a late port for a separated platform, the cost to recoup is the cost of the port. In this case, a couple millions (just a few guys working a few months plus some minor marketing & PR). Once it's recouped, whatever this version does is profit.

Well, if Sony wants to continue to start off charging full price on their PC titles and wants them to sell really well, there's an easy answer here.

Day and Date.
For Sony the PC market is only a secondary and minor revenue source. As of now only around half a billion of around 25 billions they make per year are from PC.

They won't risk the business that gives them over 20B just to improve a bit the business that gives them half a billion.

They will only release day and date the GaaS. For the SP games, you'll have to wait some years from the original release to get a PC port/remaster/remake. If it ever gets ported.

If you want all the games and day one, there's the PS5 for that.
 
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Polyh3dron

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You think Sony is happy tasking a studio to make a port for over a year and end up with only $12m in profit?
Yes. Yes they are. Otherwise, the CEO of PlayStation wouldn't be talking about wanting to do more of them.

Mind you, they haven't announced any plans to go day & date with them and I don't think that would be smart, but their sales expectations appear to be in check with their late release strategy, unlike those of some in this thread.
 
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Muddasar

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Yes. Yes they are. Otherwise, the CEO of PlayStation wouldn't be talking about wanting to do more of them.

Mind you, they haven't announced any plans to go day & date with them and I don't think that would be smart, but their sales expectations appear to be in check with their late release strategy, unlike those of some in this thread.

12 million profits on PC is peanuts considering how much the brand is being damaged long term.

How many gamers who were going to buy a PS5 to play these games simply bought the game on PC.

The same gamers would have bought PS Plus subscriptions.

Then you have 30% being given to Valve and the loss of 30% revenue from 3rd party games being bought on PlayStation.
 

Polyh3dron

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For Sony the PC market is only a secondary and minor revenue source. As of now only around half a billion of around 25 billions they make per year are from PC.

They won't risk the business that gives them over 20B just to improve a bit the business that gives them half a billion.

They will only release day and date the GaaS. For the SP games, you'll have to wait some years from the original release to get a PC port/remaster/remake. If it ever gets ported.

If you want all the games and day one, there's the PS5 for that.
I know this. I'm responding to the people who are saying that the sales for the PC version aren't good enough compared to the sales of the PS5 version and saying what it would take to put them more in line with something like a Dragon's Dogma 2 and the only thing that would do so is a Day & Date release. And yes, you've laid out why they shouldn't do it and I agree.

But Muddasar sorry to break it to you, the late PC ports are going to keep coming and I've been trained to wait for them now, even though I have a PS5 and my PS+ Premium subscription isn't up until something like 2027. I didn't buy Ragnarok on PS5 because of this. Valve is getting 30% of that transaction whenever it comes out.
 
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DForce

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Is that how other publishers count profitability? They put all the game budget on 1 Sku and the rest is free money?

Is Capcom counting only the PC sku to cover Dragons Dogma 2 full budget and the rest just need to cover the actual porting cost?

I've never heard it explained this way besides Sony ports. 50k is a mega success because it paid those 10 employees at Nixxes 🙄

Every publisher should fudge the numbers the same way to fool the shareholders.

Who said they put all the game's budget on 1 SKU?

Horizon Forbidden West was already profitable on PlayStation consoles and porting the game over to PC is just extra revenue.

That's how it works. Do you think Capcom is looking at Xbox to cover a good portion of the budget? No. PC and PlayStation is already enough, but they can still make more money by porting the game to Xbox.

You think Sony is happy tasking a studio to make a port for over a year and end up with only $12m in profit? They won't fucking invest in AA games anymore because they're not profitable enough, and those can easily sell a couple million copies at full price = $100m in profit

That's 12 million in profit in just under a month, not for the entire year.


They released a lot of small games last generation that were unsuccessful. If they were profitable then you would see them on the list of games being ported to PC.
 

John Elden Ring

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Yesterday was the official launch of Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition on PC, which is now available through Steam and the Epic Games Store, but the game had a poor launch on Steam. According to data shared by SteamDB, Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition reached a peak of 25,258 simultaneous players 16 hours ago (the number may rise over the weekend).

With this result, Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition failed to beat the first game, Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition, which registered 56,557 simultaneous players at launch. Forbidden West was even behind Days Gone, with 27,450.

105524.png

On the other hand, Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition managed to beat Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves, which had 10,851 simultaneous players at launch.
 

JAHGamer

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Yesterday was the official launch of Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition on PC, which is now available through Steam and the Epic Games Store, but the game had a poor launch on Steam. According to data shared by SteamDB, Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition reached a peak of 25,258 simultaneous players 16 hours ago (the number may rise over the weekend).

With this result, Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition failed to beat the first game, Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition, which registered 56,557 simultaneous players at launch. Forbidden West was even behind Days Gone, with 27,450.

105524.png

On the other hand, Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition managed to beat Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves, which had 10,851 simultaneous players at launch.
Sony PC port guarantees:

1. It will be cracked instantly
2. It will flop miserably
 

Killer_Sakoman

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With skyrocketing development cost, I don't think porting games is as cheap as people claims it to be. Sony sees the sales of these games vs Helldivers 2 and they probably already made the decision on which type of games are going to PC in the future.
 

Kokoloko

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Oh is it now? Most physical games now don't even house all the data required to even play them, it has to be parsed from the internet. Secondly your game disc is no longer a game disc, it is a key to access a digital license that can be revoked the same as any other digital game.
You can play most games offline. Most games you can put into a PS5 that has no internet connection and it will work. Now and in 10 years time
 

Yurinka

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12 million profits on PC is peanuts considering how much the brand is being damaged long term.
The thing is that their first party games combined are making $400-500M per year outside PS, being a most of that profit, not $12M. And every year they make way more than the previous one.

This while they keep improving their metrics on PS, where as an example they have a record active userbase with a record spend per user, record software sales or record game subs revenue.

With PC they are growing their brand reaching to millions of new customers and fans, they aren't damaging it.

With skyrocketing development cost, I don't think porting games is as cheap as people claims it to be. Sony sees the sales of these games vs Helldivers 2 and they probably already made the decision on which type of games are going to PC in the future.
A late port only needs a few people working during a few months and minimal marketing. Which according to the leaked Insomniac docs costs around $2M.

Sony already took their decision time ago: some of their GaaS will be day one on PC. For the rest of their games, those who would be ported would be relesed as a port/remaster/remake in PC minimum around a couple years after their original (not the one of the remaster/remake) release date.
 
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24 Jun 2022
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yup.

HFW's price has been slashed quite a few times on PS5, and wasn't it even free on PS+ for a month?

To turn around and charge full price on PC all this time later is a difficult ask.

But I was told PC gamers are a different audience. So if that's actually true...why would price cuts and PS+ inclusion for the game on PS5 have any relevance to the PC customer? Those are things outside of their ecosystem, right?

Unless you mean to tell me...that PC gamers view things outside of their ecosystem because at some level they see them as a competing offering for their time and money? Which would make the most common-sense of arguments. The funny part is many people will outright deny that PC (platforms like Steam specifically) are a competitive element to platforms like PlayStation in the very same breath, because that part becomes an inconvenient truth.

Let's just ignore that consoles (well, PlayStation and Xbox specifically) share between 90% - 100% of their library with PC platforms like Steam, alongside those same PC platforms having tons of exclusives not on any console. You've got 99% crossover in 3P software (Vanillaware games being one of few exceptions), anywhere between 80% or so (PS) to 100% (Xbox) 1P title crossover....yet fools still want to deny there is any customer base crossover between platforms.

Or, act like owning a competent PC for "premium" gaming these days is as laborious or exclusive as having an arcade machine in the home, or even having competent gaming PCs/microcomputers in the '80s or '90s (and knowing how to set them up for gaming, which wasn't straightforward or easy to the average person at all, unlike PC gaming today).

But yeah, let Sony continue digging their own grave insofar as console priority and growth is concerned. Microsoft are already in their grave, but at least they have several major vested interests in PC, and even bigger shares in markets like cloud and business software. They can afford to let their console hardware become irrelevant. Sony are not in that same boat and selling off parts of the company like the financial unit will guarantee they never are.

But, it's their choice to make.

An even better solution:-

Buy a Sony console and get that preferential treatment.

What preferential treatment?

They've been a lot slower at it, but Sony have been gradually shifting PlayStation into what Microsoft's done with Xbox. With the news of GOT's PC port and the PSVR2 PC compatibility (but nothing new functionality-wise being announced for it on console), I took a step back to see how many actual 1P exclusives were still exclusive to the console, and I got:

-GOW Ragnarok​
-GT7​
-Spiderman 2​
-Demon's Souls Remake​
-Astro's Playroom​

...and that's it. I'm not counting GAAS titles, so no Destruction All-Stars (which is a dead game anyhow). Every other game released so far this gen has either been ported to PC already, or other consoles (MLB The Show). And going by the Nvidia leak, we know that GOW Ragnarok, GT7 and Demon's Souls are probably going to be getting PC ports either this year or by early next year, leaving just Spiderman 2 and Astro's Playroom. Considering the other Spiderman games already are on PC, Spiderman 2's port is inevitable.

So considering non-GAAS 1P games we can for sure say at this time will still be exclusive to PS5 for the foreseeable future, the only one you can really count on is Astro's Playroom. Unless Sony officially address the nature of port status for the other and future releases 1P-wise, and considering the Nvidia leak's been 100% accurate so far for Sony's games, we should be operating on the basis of when games like GT7 or Demon's Souls Remake get ported to Steam, not if.

And this is all before the PS5 Pro even launches, halfway into the generation.

THAT'S the messed up part, I feel. Not the ports in themselves, but the fact there have been SOOO many of them in the span of just half the generation so far, where now if we're counting the number of 1P exclusives on PS5 you can do so on one hand and, knowing the high likelihood of some additional ports, less than one hand. So, how does that make PlayStation significantly different in the current context, from Xbox's situation when it comes to 1P exclusives on that system? There is, materially, no difference. Optically, there's a lot of difference because Sony haven't been doing Day 1 for non-GAAS titles, but in a market saturated with so many games to play from other publishers & devs, especially if you're on PC, do you even need Day 1 for Sony's games? Or is waiting 2 years, 1 year, six months even in some cases, negligible?

And if Sony's read is to literally do Day 1 for non-GAAS titles, what are the people who've been dunking on Microsoft for that strategy to Xbox going to say now? Because not only would there be no material difference, there wouldn't even be optical differences any more between the two platforms. Which would look especially sad for PlayStation IMHO, because it'd be the ultimate indignation on the core customer demographic for the platform. "You aren't good enough for us to prioritize you with preference even though some of you've been supporting us for years or even decades. Sorry." That's what it would effectively be saying quietly, even if it's masked with the same corporate speak of "more games for more people" or whatever.

Instead of making their own platform more competitive for a changing market where indirect competitors are doing more than ever, it'd just be them throwing in the towel because they've lost the spark, the hunger to prove themselves and push the brand to its full potential. I don't just mean sales either, although those'd take a hit. I really mean this from a creative POV, both in the software and business synergies that favor both innovation and growth.
 
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