Returnal: Very small release on Steam, with peak players below 6,000

[John Elden Ring]

On launch day, Returnal recorded a peak of 5,700 contemporary players on Steam, according to data collected by SteamDB. This is a decidedly slow start compared to other titles launched by PlayStation on the platform.

For instance, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves, notoriously bad on PC, peaked at 10,851 players at launch, Days Gone hit 27,450 players, Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition hit 56,557 players, and God of War hit 73,529 players. . Only Sackboy: The Great Adventure did worse than Returnal, peaking at under a thousand concurrent players.

The data of the current players is also interesting: Returnal has 2,554, Horizon Zero Dawn 1,953, Days Gone 2,126 and God of War 2,205, i.e. the Housemarque title appears in line with the others, although it has only been available for a few hours.

It should be emphasized that Sony has made a marketing very little for the arrival of Returnal on PC, so much so that some did not even remember that it would be released yesterday. Paradoxically, she was more committed to promoting the release of The Last of Us Part I, which will arrive at the end of March.

 

[TubzGaming]

Well did not help that it had been cracked within 24 hours and everyone was sharing links to torrent's online lol

 

[nongkris]

Sony's PC strategy will never not be embarrassing. Dilute your brand from feeling exclusive all for meager sales and pirated games. It's the one stain on Jim Ryan's otherwise fine leadership. He'd be wise to pump the brakes on further PC releases and pretend like Sony never went that route.

Mind you it's not just Returnal, high profile first party like Uncharted also flopped on PC, as well as Sackboy. It's just such a pointless business move that doesn't make sense for any non multiplayer games.

 

[Summer Nightmares]

Im really interested in playing it. The problem is the release date between Hogwarts Legacy, Resident Evil 4 Remake and The Last of Us part I so I'll wait.

 

[Darth Vader]

PC Port Beggars only want these ports so they can illegally download the games. That's all. Even GoW, which sold ok-ish, has been pirated millions of times.

 

[nongkris]

PC Port Beggars only want these ports so they can illegally download the games. That's all. Even GoW, which sold ok-ish, has been pirated millions of times.

Have they not heard of Denuvo which has pretty much solved the launch window piracy problem? It's also crazy to me that Sony doesn't at least even try to make some sort of PSN launcher to at least boost their MAU with these PC releases. Just all around bird brain moves

 

[Puff]

Very good news!

PlayStation needs to maintain exclusivity. Else why would people buy a console?

Want to play Sony Exclusives? Buy a PlayStation.

 

[Yurinka]

On launch day, Returnal recorded a peak of 5,700 contemporary players on Steam, according to data collected by SteamDB. This is a decidedly slow start compared to other titles launched by PlayStation on the platform.

For instance, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves, notoriously bad on PC, peaked at 10,851 players at launch, Days Gone hit 27,450 players, Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition hit 56,557 players, and God of War hit 73,529 players. . Only Sackboy: The Great Adventure did worse than Returnal, peaking at under a thousand concurrent players.

The data of the current players is also interesting: Returnal has 2,554, Horizon Zero Dawn 1,953, Days Gone 2,126 and God of War 2,205, i.e. the Housemarque title appears in line with the others, although it has only been available for a few hours.

It should be emphasized that Sony has made a marketing very little for the arrival of Returnal on PC, so much so that some did not even remember that it would be released yesterday. Paradoxically, she was more committed to promoting the release of The Last of Us Part I, which will arrive at the end of March.

I assume its CCU will peak during this or the next weekend. In addition to this, please notice the sentence painted in red:

It's too early to take conclusions, but seems it wasn't very smart to release it now. Everyone is playing Hogwart's Legacy, or will get RE4, TLOUP1 PC or the new Destiny 2 expansion very soon. In addition to this, seems it was too niche or that maybe the main character wasn't too appealing to the Steam players.

Also, being a next gen requires bigger specs to play it in proper conditions. For recommended they ask for Intel i7-8700, 16 GB RAM and RTX 2070 Super, which I assume is higher than what the majority of Steam players have.

In any case, in PC many games make most of their sales when heavily discounted, so let's wait and see.

It's also crazy to me that Sony doesn't at least even try to make some sort of PSN launcher to at least boost their MAU with these PC releases.

They have a team working on it.

PC Port Beggars only want these ports so they can illegally download the games. That's all. Even GoW, which sold ok-ish, has been pirated millions of times.

A full priced port of a 4 years old game selling millions of copies (until now, will keep selling) is a big and very profitable success, not to sell ok-ish

Sony's PC strategy will never not be embarrassing. Dilute your brand from feeling exclusive all for meager sales and pirated games. It's the one stain on Jim Ryan's otherwise fine leadership. He'd be wise to pump the brakes on further PC releases and pretend like Sony never went that route.

Mind you it's not just Returnal, high profile first party like Uncharted also flopped on PC, as well as Sackboy. It's just such a pointless business move that doesn't make sense for any non multiplayer games.

Bullshit. The PC ports require little effort, gives them several dozens of millions /hundreds of millions in profit per year and don't negatively affect their console hardware or software sales. In fact, it's the opposite: they are seling more console hardware and software than ever before.

 

[Gediminas]

Have they not heard of Denuvo which has pretty much solved the launch window piracy problem? It's also crazy to me that Sony doesn't at least even try to make some sort of PSN launcher to at least boost their MAU with these PC releases. Just all around bird brain moves

denuvo can't stop anything. it all depends on crackers, if they want to crack that said game day 1 or not.
so not only you can't stop picary, you basically handicap the whole game, because denuvo tanks said game performance. so actual buyers suffers.

 

[ethomaz]

I don't think it was suppose to move a lot of sales.
It is not a Spider-man, TLOU or GoW.

Even on PS5 it is what these games with lower budget usually do... 1-2 million... I believe PS5 may be between 1 and 2 million right now.

Anyway I don't expect it cross 1 million units on PC... around 500k is more reasonable imo.

 

[Darth Vader]

denuvo can't stop anything. it all depends on crackers, if they want to crack that said game day 1 or not.
so not only you can't stop picary, you basically handicap the whole game, because denuvo tanks said game performance. so actual buyers suffers.

That's wrong. Some games released back in 2021 still have no crack because of Denuvo. AAA games.

 

[ethomaz]

denuvo can't stop anything. it all depends on crackers, if they want to crack that said game day 1 or not.
so not only you can't stop picary, you basically handicap the whole game, because denuvo tanks said game performance. so actual buyers suffers.

There are very few exceptions of games cracked in day one and from my mind I only remember Warhammer II and Rage 2... these either used a old Denuvo already cracked for another game or the crackers had the hands on the game with Denouvo weeks before launch... so it was easy to crack because all the work was already done before the game launches.

The average time is more like a month with some faster being cracked one or two weeks... there are games (yes) that never got cracked even after years.

 

[Gediminas]

That's wrong. Some games released back in 2021 still have no crack because of Denuvo. AAA games.

denuvo can't stop anything. it all depends on crackers, if they want to crack that said game day 1 or not.

i am talking about all games, not just few. there is whole market beyond AAA.
but maybe i need to recheck, maybe situation changed. didn't play PC for ages.

 

[Vertigo]

I’ve said this for HiFi Rush and probably any single player release on steam not some giant tentpole release… they will not do anything notable. Piracy is rampant on PC. That’s why these ports should always come ways after retail and PS5 run is over.

Concurrent isn’t a good stat for single player games. It’s excellent to determine the health of online games tho.

At least people have moved away from Twitch views. Now that… that’s worthless.

 

[Muddasar]

Sony should NOT release these single player games without a Denuvo like DRM.

Otherwise it will just be pirated.

When will Sony and others realise these PCMR gamers simply want these games on their platform to pirate just to soothe their ego after blowing their entire bank account on a PC rig.

They don’t buy the games in the millions. The majority pirate the game and they don’t even buy PlayStation Console from Sony.

Yet these morons think Sony should release Day 1 on PC.

God the entitlement from this deluded bunch.

 

[VillaiN]

Sony ll not release on day 1. How ll they explain same games s 80/70 on ps5 and 60 on pc? Doubt it.

Usual from PC port beggars. Spends 3k on pc, but only plays f2p or pirated versions.

Sony needs to reconsider pc ports at this points. Its not worth it to devalue single player games. Multiplayer, mmo etc.s fine for pc.

Steam/pc market s highly overrated. Even bigger multiplats like Souls sell few millions on platform. Same with capcom, ubisoft etc.iirc from financial reports. I guess for some pubs, even 1M s good. Which s fine.

GAAS, mmo, f2p re big on pc.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

More flops coming their way

 

[Summer Nightmares]

I don't think Sony releasing games on Steam is a bad idea, especially since they release them years after being on console. I only play on pc but now that I get to play God of War and Spiderman I'm really interested in purchasing a Playstation. Those games were awesome, and the idea of playing on a giant tv instead of my monitor is really tempting.

 

[Bryank75]

I don't think it was suppose to move a lot of sales.
It is not a Spider-man, TLOU or GoW.

Even on PS5 it is what these games with lower budget usually do... 1-2 million... I believe PS5 may be between 1 and 2 million right now.

Anyway I don't expect it cross 1 million units on PC... around 500k is more reasonable imo.

Then why even bother porting?

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My post:

This is the fourth game in a row with a poor launch on PC... I see lots of people on the Resetera thread about 'main platform' saying they moved to PC from PS recently but I see low game sales on PC for these ports on the other hand.... This strategy has been a LOSE:LOSE situation.

They gave people the excuse to move to PC as their main platform by porting and the sales are so low that Sony is making crap money on there too.

What now? Go day and date and erode your platform even more because you can't admit the strategy is shit?

 

[KiryuRealty]

Then why even bother porting?

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My post:

This is the fourth game in a row with a poor launch on PC... I see lots of people on the Resetera thread about 'main platform' saying they moved to PC from PS recently but I see low game sales on PC for these ports on the other hand.... This strategy has been a LOSE:LOSE situation.

They gave people the excuse to move to PC as their main platform by porting and the sales are so low that Sony is making crap money on there too.

What now? Go day and date and erode your platform even more because you can't admit the strategy is shit?

Because FUCK YOU, that’s why!
/Alec Baldwin mode

It’s an experiment.