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Has Sony shared any sales data from Demon's Souls (PS5, 2020)?

Marty-McFly

Banned
I'd say it sold low enough that we'll be getting a PS4 and PC version before long. It's definitely a niche entry and was massively bettered in every way by Dark Souls, obviously the remake is gorgeous, but it's inferior design and gameplay-wise to what came later, only those that played Demon Souls first could possibly see it as the best, pure nostalgia.
I'll probably hit it up on PS4 if that's the case.

I plan to get a PS5 eventually but I want to see how things pan out with all this.
 

Sorcerer

Member
Can't we attribute poor sales, to Demons Souls being a launch game when most people could not get the console? And interest in the game dying as time went on? Also it is the second time around for the game, many Sony fans may still have their PS3 copies.
 
What’s up with all this sudden surprise that games infamously known to be difficult not selling like big blockbuster numbers? Has this ever been the case?

”Oh shit, only 5-10% of people owning a PS5 bought this game?”

Same thing with the Returnal thread.

These games weren’t made with the intent to be sold to all and everyone.
Exactly this!
Sony knows why they made the remake, and they probably could estimate how it will sell.
Also they know who are the gamers that will buy this game and why it's a good game for the start of the generation.
 

reksveks

Member
29116a81-e5f9-4f30-8c41-82430c19705e.gif

Remake of the game that gave birth to its own gategory of games.
It sold well enough.

It might be that Sony is deliberately quiet on the sales numbers due to upcoming acquisition of BluePoint.
I go (In my opinion) for the simplest explanation but if you think that Sony aren't saying the sales numbers cause they don't want the value of Bluepoint to be increased in an acquisition war, you do you.

Also a 10% attach rate would be great for a game like demon souls but it doesn't mean it's great in comparison to the other releases. What attach rate do you think demon souls has?
 
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tommib

Member
Considering it wasn't a big budget game like TLOU2 or Ratchet, it probably didn't sold as well.

Also, most Demon's Souls fans know that the original is a million times better and is the definitive edition.

Not sure about the budget. While I was playing I remember honestly thinking that this must’ve been one of the most expensive games ever made. The endless credits that go on and on are also a good indicator I guess.

I’ll give you that it’s an inferior experience to the original version due to the music and some monster design. It’s still, for me, the definitive AAA experience. For my taste anyway.
 

reksveks

Member
Well let's say it like this, if it were on another competing platform....
we would know It would have sold ~90% ( physical in UK) on PlayStation. :messenger_weary::messenger_ok:
I keep asking people but never get an answer but what percentage of game revenue comes from physical game sales in the UK?

£3.8 billion digital, £638.5 million physical so 86.65% is digital.
 
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Rivet

Member
Not sure about the budget. While I was playing I remember honestly thinking that this must’ve been one of the most expensive games ever made. The endless credits that go on and on are also a good indicator I guess.

I’ll give you that it’s an inferior experience to the original version due to the music and some monster design. It’s still, for me, the definitive AAA experience. For my taste anyway.

Agreed. It was incredible. The first real next gen game, miles better than the original.

I disagree music was better in the original, just less epic and a bit darker. It's a matter of taste. Design for fat guys though, yes, I prefer the original.
 
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Marty-McFly

Banned
That just means it had more stuff outsourced than done internally.

The bad sound and art design are just proof of a lower budget than AAA.
In no way they let these issues happen in AAA games. Heck, even the original Demon's Souls didn't have those issues that the remake has.

Sony knows how to polish graphics and sounds in their games. They knew that Demon's Souls Remake was no system seller and gave it a lower budget.
If you had fun, good for you.
I'm not sure about this at all. Sony wouldn't drop it as a their premier launch exclusive if they didn't think it was a system seller.

I believe they were trying to recapture the same magic as Bloodborne early in PS4's lifecycle.
 

AmuroChan

Member
Perhaps Sony wants to reveal the sales number when they officially announce the Bluepoint acquisition.

This is obviously not exact science, but on PSNProfiles there are more than twice the number of gamers who have earned a trophy in Demon's Souls compared to Returnal.
 

tommib

Member
That just means it had more stuff outsourced than done internally.

The bad sound and art design are just proof of a lower budget than AAA.
In no way they let these issues happen in AAA games. Heck, even the original Demon's Souls didn't have those issues that the remake has.

Sony knows how to polish graphics and sounds in their games. They knew that Demon's Souls Remake was no system seller and gave it a lower budget.
If you had fun, good for you.

I said that I agree the music was inferior but the sound design? That shit blew my mind and I totally also remember thinking that I never heard anything as high-tech. It’s cutting edge stuff. Did you play it with 3D audio?

Different art direction has nothing to do with budget. They made choices I don’t agree with with some creatures. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t look expensive as hell for the scope of the game.

What you mean outsourcing? It was outsourced to Bluepoint?

I have the feeling you have no idea what you’re taking about. They poured money into that game as much as they could and saved no expenses. Shit, it would be cheaper to keep the original soundtrack than to recompose it for a 100 player orchestra:

 
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Dream-Knife

Banned
Regardless of how well it did or didn't sell, Demon's Souls is definitely the worst Souls game and was only "surprisingly decent" in comparison to the "HD is hard" trash coming out of Japan at the time. I have no idea how or why they chose it for a AAA remake, its fanbase has always been super niche and it was never a 10 out of 10 or greatest game of all time to anyone. The game's on a similar tier to Folklore. It's like someone meme'd it into existence by constantly tweeting Shuhei with an army of bots or something.
Until the remake, people always said it was the worst Souls game. Is that actually true?
 
Not seen any numbers but in December last year it was apparently the fifth bestselling downloaded PS5 game across Europe and America for that year. I suppose if you're really interested in numbers you could put time into working it out for 2020 from the published numbers of the games above and below it, not really sure why anybody would want to though.

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In reality, as a launch game competing with Spider-Man a game of that type will always struggle. Spider-Man is such a massive franchise that is as close to free money as there is for Sony.
Due to it being a launch game which wouldn't have sold that much they likely won't give numbers until they acquire Bluepoint Games, that gives them a reason to mention it which isn't the usual "it sold billions of copies" which makes companies usually give numbers like those.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
Yoshida has said in the past that most of their games don't make a profit. The ones that do fund the ones that don't. I expect Sony knew going in that neither Returnal or Demon Souls Remake were going to sell crazy number especially considering neither are cross-gen. Sony's output of games has not been a problem at all.
 

tommib

Member
Tell me what else they had available at launch to sell along with the PS5. It was the only thing available along with Miles Morales, as other projects were postponed due to COVID.
This gen had one of the worst console launches of all time (Xbox was really bad too).


Yeah, especially the spell casting effect, so cutting edge that it looks like a plasma gun firing off.


It's not different, it's just bad.
And yes, it has *everything* to do with budget. The smaller the budget, the more they have to shift priorities to deliver a product.


Oh wow, so much wow. That probably just shows how much LOVE and CARE was poured into the game. Sony really knows what they're doing.
You don't need an orchestra to make music sound good. You just need competent people that understands and respects the source material



See, I agree with mostly of what you’re saying but it doesn’t fit your narrative that they were cutting corners for budget reasons. It’s the exact opposite. They could’ve not recreated the sound effects and sound design and keep the original compositions to save money. But no, they recreated everything from scratch with sky rocket production values. It’s like saying that Marvel movies should use art house production methods. They did pour all the money they could into Demon’s Souls to make it as mainstream as possible.
 

Marty-McFly

Banned
For me, it wasn't an exciting purchase like Bloodborne, it's just same old. I think it was a miscalculation by Sony to do a remake instead of appoint From to make a new game like Bloodborne was for PS4, but the option was probably not available to them and costly because From has become big, big and want to bring in a mutliplat blockbuster like Elden Ring.

I'm not confident Demon's did as well in sales as even Returnal.

Souls is suffering from a little franchise fatigue to me so I didn't find Demon Souls with better graphics very compelling. Elden Ring is looking to be the much more robust evolved Souls experience so I'm glad we have that as gamers.
 
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Yoboman

Member
Tell me what else they had available at launch to sell along with the PS5. It was the only thing available along with Miles Morales, as other projects were postponed due to COVID.
This gen had one of the worst console launches of all time (Xbox was really bad too).


Yeah, especially the spell casting effect, so cutting edge that it looks like a plasma gun firing off.


It's not different, it's just bad.
And yes, it has *everything* to do with budget. The smaller the budget, the more they have to shift priorities to deliver a product.


Oh wow, so much wow. That probably just shows how much LOVE and CARE was poured into the game. Sony really knows what they're doing.
You don't need an orchestra to make music sound good. You just need competent people that understands and respects the source material


Nobody is buying your concern
 

tommib

Member
For me, it wasn't an exciting purchase like Bloodborne, it's just same old. I think it was a miscalculation by Sony to do a remake instead of appoint From to make a new game like Bloodborne was for PS4, but the option was probably not available to them and costly because From has become big, big and want to bring in a mutliplat blockbuster like Elden Ring.

I'm not confident Demon's did as well in sales as even Returnal.

Souls is suffering from a little franchise fatigue to me so I didn't find Demon Souls with better graphics very compelling. Elden Ring is looking to be the much more robust evolved Souls experience so I'm glad we have that as gamers.

They did what everyone wanted. There are hundreds of threads and petitions from fans asking for a demon’s Souls remake by bluepoint. They did what fans wanted.
 
I mean, the vocal minority who make online petitions is usually a pretty small audience relative to the mass market.

Bluepoint are pretty good with remakes and remasters. I don't think it was wrong for Sony to give them work. And I'm sure plenty of people appreciate them doing that with a franchise like Demon Souls.

Nothing wrong with Sony giving PS5 owners a solid launch titles for those that want it. If it was a half assed game I would agree with you with it being a bad thing.
 

tommib

Member
Yoshida has said in the past that most of their games don't make a profit. The ones that do fund the ones that don't. I expect Sony knew going in that neither Returnal or Demon Souls Remake were going to sell crazy number especially considering neither are cross-gen. Sony's output of games has not been a problem at all.

And this is the right model taking cinema as an example, until Hollywood was swallowed by Disney/Marvel. Production companies would invest in blockbusters but also in prestige dramas balancing the profit sheet. We really don’t want Sony making all bets in blockbusters and discarding their more alternative and hardcore fanbase. And they know that as well.

They take expensive left-field risks like in Returnal and Demon’s Souls knowing well that other mainstream titles will balance the sheet.
 

crozier

Member
I brought this up several times in the ot but i had a lot of trouble finding players to coop. Never had this much trouble.
This is why I’m waiting for it to either a) go PS+, or b) go on sale for $30. I figure either scenario gives the population a boost for awhile.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
In the case of Xbox yes, they hide their numbers because compared to Sony and Nintendo the amount of games and consoles they sell are crap. This is the reason of why are they leaving Xbox and moving to other platfroms, specially PC, and also leaving game sales to replace them with a subscription. To see if at least they can shine there.

In the case of Sony they only share sales numbers of a few games from time to time, and they don't need to be the most successful ones. As an example, in their latest PR they included a game from last year: Miles Morales. But they didn't include 2 other games they also released in H2 2020 that are way more successful: TLOU2 and GoT.

Does it mean TLOU2 and GoT tanked? Not at all. It just means that Sony only includes a handful games in the press releases, those that in that moment make sense in PR terms. This time they decided to share sales of the PS5 1st party games, and Demon's Souls isn't one of them.

Pretty likely somewhere soon they will announce the acquisition of Bluepoint, and they mention Demon's Souls sales in that press release. Or maybe they will wait until the game reaches certain milestone, like 3 or 5 million units sold.


The press release included the sales of their 1st party games, not sales of 2nd party or 3rd party ones. Demon's Souls not being there doesn't mean it had bad sales.


To guess they were around 10M was easy, and they have been wrong constantly always. Obviusly from time to time after making a gazillion guesses eventually some of them may end being accurate.


They were niche when the original Demont's Soul was released. But Bloodborne, the Dark Souls games and Sekiro had very good sales and Elder Ring has been the most hyped game of E3. Soulsborne aren't Fortnite, but they have a great sales potential. Bloodborne 2 or their next IP could easily achieve over 5M copies, and maybe even may end reaching 10M, something only a few Sony games achieved.

Nah theyve been right a good few times. Id like some more proof to when they were wrong recently. Even late in the PS3 cycle they were right alot.
 

Azurro

Banned
I'm not sure about this at all. Sony wouldn't drop it as a their premier launch exclusive if they didn't think it was a system seller.

I believe they were trying to recapture the same magic as Bloodborne early in PS4's lifecycle.

It really wasn't the premier launch exclusive, that was Miles Morales. Or rather, Sony had a next gen game for the mainstream buyer in Miles and had Demon's Souls for the hardcore fans at launch.

It will sell well, not an instant megahit, but it will sell a couple of millions over time. It's not a mega huge budget game either, so.
 

tommib

Member

You shouldn’t be. Exclusives can be more risky since devs don’t need to worry as much for their sales. Look at Demon’s Souls 2009. Also an exclusive that could only have happened with Sony money. Look how far that took From Software. Same with Returnal.
 

Tchu-Espresso

likes mayo on everthing and can't dance
I bought it out of morbid curiosity, having never played a game in the series before. It’s definitely not a game for everyone, but it being a launch game will enjoy a certain level of success.
 

SlimeGooGoo

Party Gooper
Nobody is buying your concern
Exactly. We should just pay for expensive $70 games and not get concerned about quality at all.
Consume and don't complain, that's how it should be.

They could’ve not recreated the sound effects and sound design and keep the original compositions to save money. But no, they recreated everything from scratch with sky rocket production values.
Well, you can't sell a game as a remake and simply put the original music with it.
Honestly, music is probably the least expensive part of any game project, and Sony/Playstation has a music division, it's not *that* expensive for them.

Like I said, If you had fun, good for you, no one can take that fun from you.
I've played the original Demon's Souls and believe some things were lost in the process.
My main concern is that future generations will disregard the original for this Remake, which is simply not as good as the original vision.
 

leo-j

Member
Regardless of how well it did or didn't sell, Demon's Souls is definitely the worst Souls game and was only "surprisingly decent" in comparison to the "HD is hard" trash coming out of Japan at the time. I have no idea how or why they chose it for a AAA remake, its fanbase has always been super niche and it was never a 10 out of 10 or greatest game of all time to anyone. The game's on a similar tier to Folklore. It's like someone meme'd it into existence by constantly tweeting Shuhei with an army of bots or something.
Nah, I disagree. And this coming from someone who played dark souls 3 all the way through and blood borne. Demons Souls ps5 was one of the best games I’ve played. And I will argue a better experience to me than dark souls 3 was.
 
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