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[SlimySnake]

The Growing Future of The Last of Us

The latest on the upcoming online experience, The Last of Us on HBO, and The Last of Us Part I.

blog.playstation.com

I stand corrected. I dont know why that 9 million number was still in my head. Probably confused it with GoT.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Also bundle sales typically aren't counted in these sales numbers. So counting bundles it's well over 11 million.

Has this actually been confirmed? I figured the 11 million included bundles. The funny part is with people trying to use bundles to discredit the sales milestone, but that's a completely different topic.

If this DOESN'T include bundles though, then damn, this game is an absolute monster.

So we’re looking at roughly 500M in revenue…damn

Wonder how much dev cost and marketing spend was - 250M to 300M?

Should have more than 200M in profit that Jimbo can waste on GaaS

At least $660 million in revenue, actually. And if the split is 70:30 PS5/PS4, then it's closer to $737 million in revenue.

These are MCU numbers, easily.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

a stated $100k salary costs a company a lot more than $100k. General rule of thumb is like 2x salary in the USA. Might be even higher in Europe. It’s in flux these days but that’s the general rule. But there’s also voice acting, testing, outsourcing, localization, etc that all add to the costs beyond the core dev team salaries

https://www.mobygames.com/game/playstation-5/returnal/credits

Right, that’s why I ballparked 150k originally

Ragnarok’s budget exceeds 200M by factoring that in

 

[DForce]

If it's anything like other crossgen titles, it's probably about 70/30 PS5 to PS4.


Also bundle sales typically aren't counted in these sales numbers. So counting bundles it's well over 11 million.

Sony counts bundles in their overall sales. It's stated in their quarterly reports.

 

[Mr Moose]

Has this actually been confirmed? I figured the 11 million included bundles. The funny part is with people trying to use bundles to discredit the sales milestone, but that's a completely different topic.

If this DOESN'T include bundles though, then damn, this game is an absolute monster.

Bundles aren't included in NPD sales, but they are most likely included in WW sales figures like this.

 

[SlimySnake]

Has this actually been confirmed? I figured the 11 million included bundles. The funny part is with people trying to use bundles to discredit the sales milestone, but that's a completely different topic.

If this DOESN'T include bundles though, then damn, this game is an absolute monster.

They said sold THROUGH in the tweet. That typically means sold to customers instead of shipped to retailers. Doubt they will count bundled units as SOLD THROUGH.

There was a thread about Horizon's bundled sales and it was like 16%. That would still put GOW at around 9.5+ million in just 2 months.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Bundles aren't included in NPD sales, but they are most likely included in WW sales figures like this.

That's what I was thinking. Even so, boss numbers regardless.

 

[mortal]

I can't believe people are in here arguing how one critically and commercially successful 1st party title isn't as critically and commercially successful as another critically & commercially successful 1st party title.
Sony is ultimately the winner here, regardless.

Of course a thread topic celebrating the success of GOWR turns into a TLOU part 2 thread...

 

[DeepEnigma]

I can't believe people are in here arguing how one critically and commercially successful 1st party title isn't as critically and commercially successful as another critically & commercially successful 1st party title.
Sony is ultimately the winner here, regardless.

Of course a thread topic celebrating the success of GOWR turns into a TLOU part 2 thread...

Obsessed.

 

[Gaiff]

Right, that’s why I ballparked 150k originally

Ragnarok’s budget exceeds 200M by factoring that in

And we know your formula doesn't even work.

Guerilla Games number of employees as of June 2018: 250

Horizon Zero Dawn took 6 years to produce: 100,000x250x6 = $150,000,000

The game cost around $50M. A third of what your formula produces. We're not even in the same ballpark here.

 

[TGO]

How is that even relevant? lol

One of Game of The Year Edition and the other is The Greatest Hits version.

Spider-Man is technically 19.99 with all of the DLC. God of War was $19.99. So regardless of the label that's on the box, it was still 9.99 or lower.

What makes them different?

Greatest Hits are reissues that are released for £19.99/$19.99 to celebrate a milestone in sales
Most retailers will sell them cheaper like 14.99 and as time goes one they will get discounted more
Even with the Greatest Hits release the original release is usually still higher priced.
So it makes a massive difference of selling for RRP vs Discount against RRP.
In this case the game has been heavily discounted against RRP.
If the retailer had both versions they would want to sell you the Hits version because they be profiting more because it's less discounted or not and cost them less as well per unit.

 

[Archaic101]

Just beat it this week. I felt like it got better the longer it went on (I wasn't terribly fond of the walk-and-talk sections in the first half, but they paid off). It's obvious a lot of care was put into the story and design sections of this game, and the combat was slightly improved; next time, I just hope they pull the camera out of Kratos's scalp during fights against multiple enemies.

 

[TGO]

I can't believe people are in here arguing how one critically and commercially successful 1st party title isn't as critically and commercially successful as another critically & commercially successful 1st party title.
Sony is ultimately the winner here, regardless.

Of course a thread topic celebrating the success of GOWR turns into a TLOU part 2 thread...

We could compare it to Spider-Man? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Most was just continuing the where the topic was at that point when we posted.

 

[Topher]

Greatest Hits are reissues that are released for £19.99/$19.99 to celebrate a milestone in sales
Most retailers will sell them cheaper like 14.99 and as time goes one they will get discounted more
Even with the Greatest Hits release the original release is usually still higher priced.
So it makes a massive difference of selling for RRP vs Discount against RRP.
In this case the game has been heavily discounted against RRP.
If the retailer had both versions they would want to sell you the Hits version because they be profiting more because it's less discounted or not and cost them less as well per unit.

Seems like Sony has decided against releasing Greatest Hits any longer. Very well could be they are just continuing to reprint the original releases and discount them instead. Probably to push digital sales instead of physical.

We could compare it to Spider-Man? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, but Spider-man doesn't trigger folks like TLOU 2 does.

 

[Thirty7ven]

TLOU2 was my GOTY and i love the franchise, but it's silly to stick your head in the sand and pretend that a game that sold 4 million in 3 days and topped out at 9 million after 2 years did not underperform. Ragnorak is showing how to take an insane opening weekend and then explode into 11 million sales in just under 3 months. TLOU2 almost flatlined in comparison.

I really dont understand why we cant simply talk about this stuff without being labeled concern trolls or salty. This is a 37 million selling franchise. It's huge. The fact that the sequel sold just under 9 million is something that bears pointing out at the very least.

I really hope Neil and ND dont ignore all the concerns people had with the game. There are real issues with the narrative structure and the lack of likeable characters. If they are going to ignore user reviews on metacritic as troll reviews, and ignore the lack of legs in sales then they are going to continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.

And I say this as a die-hard MGS fan who disliked then loved MGS2 but was sad to see Snake Eater sell well below what MGS2 did despite being a much better game. Backlashes do hurt these games.

There aren’t real issues with the game narrative or the characters.

Pacing? Sure. But at the end of the day not every game has to be for everybody. People who hated/avoided TLOu2 because of the story or the characters are of no interest, because nobody wants ND to dumb it down for these people, fuck em

 

[balls of snow]

It depends on what "quite happy" means to Sony and Naughty Dog.
10 million is a spectacular achievement that surely means the project turned a profit.

However, TLoU1 had sold 17 million copies after 5 years whereas TLoU2 sold 10 million after 3. It does look like TLoU2 will end up selling less copies than TLoU1 despite launching in a more favorable market (85 million PS3 users + PS4 remaster vesrus 110 million PS4 users + PS5 BC).
If Sony and Naughty Dog planned for lower sales of the sequel then they're quite happy. If they planned for higher sales then they're probably not as happy as they'd like to be.

These games are focus tested to an insane degree. Just look at the credits for gow ragnarok.

They knew exactly how people would react to tlou2. They probably adjusted forecast and did it anyway. Thats commendable.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

And we know your formula doesn't even work.

Guerilla Games number of employees as of June 2018: 250

Horizon Zero Dawn took 6 years to produce: 100,000x250x6 = $150,000,000

The game cost around $50M. A third of what your formula produces. We're not even in the same ballpark here.

Horizon zero dawn was not made during the same time gowr was

Different costs due to inflation

I have never seen zero dawn’s budget disclosed or number of employees back then

 

[TGO]

Seems like Sony has decided against releasing Greatest Hits any longer. Very well could be they are just continuing to reprint the original releases and discount them instead. Probably to push digital sales instead of physical.

Good, I hated those Greatest Hits.
Platinum was better.

 

[SlimySnake]

I can't believe people are in here arguing how one critically and commercially successful 1st party title isn't as critically and commercially successful as another critically & commercially successful 1st party title.
Sony is ultimately the winner here, regardless.

Of course a thread topic celebrating the success of GOWR turns into a TLOU part 2 thread...

Celebrate? You want this thread to be people posting gifs, high fiving each other and jerking each other off? That would be a very boring thread and wouldve died by page 2. it's a sales thread and we are discussing sales. It's only natural we compare it to the other Sony IP that sold very similar number of units in its first three days.

 

[Gaiff]

Horizon zero dawn was not made during the same time gowr was

Different costs due to inflation

I have never seen zero dawn’s budget disclosed or number of employees back then

Horizon Zero Dawn was made in 2017, not in the 70s. Your formula simply doesn't add up. No amount of inflation will turn $50M from 5 years ago to $150M now.

The 250 employees figure and $50M budgets are from Dutch papers.

 

[Pedro Motta]

Are people really comparing God of War to TLOU2?

TLOU2 got spoiled with leaks, got thrashed to the ground by every major youtuber, it's R rated and not as accessible as GOW. Still sold 10M+ copies?? That's a major win in my book.

What next? Comparing TLOU2 with Spiderman?

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Horizon Zero Dawn was made in 2017, not in the 70s. Your formula simply doesn't add up. No amount of inflation will turn $50M from 5 years ago to $150M now.

The 250 employees figure and $50M budgets are from Dutch papers.

No, it was made in 2013-2017

Ragnarok was made 2018-2022

Amsterdam is cheaper than Santa Monica. Santa Monica had 400 employees, not 250

Post the $50M receipts

 

[DForce]

Greatest Hits are reissues that are released for £19.99/$19.99 to celebrate a milestone in sales
Most retailers will sell them cheaper like 14.99 and as time goes one they will get discounted more
Even with the Greatest Hits release the original release is usually still higher priced.
So it makes a massive difference of selling for RRP vs Discount against RRP.
In this case the game has been heavily discounted against RRP.
If the retailer had both versions they would want to sell you the Hits version because they be profiting more because it's less discounted or not and cost them less as well per unit.

They're reissued to promote the discounted price of the game and The Last of Us Part II was never officially dropped to $19.99. This is probably due to the fact that they want to re-release the PS5 version higher than the PS4's MSRP and offer an upgrade path for PS4 users.

If what you're saying is true, then that would apply to all games that don't receive the greatest hits release, which most video game releases out there.

It makes little to no difference.

 

[Yoboman]

Isn't it funny how a certain group is always in these threads, and by necessity they need to compare sales of Sony games to other Sony games.

Desperately sad. Oh no the game only sold really well instead of really, really well

Also consistently wrong about everything. Just a quick recap or the classics:

- Niche-man won't sell
- Uncharted not popular, Max potential 5-6 million
- God of War not popular will sell like Ascension
- Ghost of Tsushima is outselling TLOU2
- TLOU2 is selling slower than the original
- Miles Morales flopped in sales won't have lrgs
- Horizon flopped in sales won't have legs

Stick to player counts and number of bullets fired since launch guys, you're embarrassing yourselves in a sales thread

 

[mortal]

We could compare it to Spider-Man? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Most was just continuing the where the topic was at that point when we posted.

Comparing it to how well it relatively performed to all of Sony's 1st party output would at least prove to be more informative.
It's the fixation with TLOU part 2 that I find strange.

Celebrate? You want this thread to be people posting gifs, high fiving each other and jerking each other off? That would be a very boring thread and wouldve died by page 2. it's a sales thread and we are discussing sales. It's only natural we compare it to the other Sony IP that sold very similar number of units in its first three days.

Wait I don't understand. Why do you think celebrating requires the posting of gifs?
I don't know why you'd frame it as such, just seems a bit unnecessarily cranky and antagonist of you lol.

Some people love to see a game they enjoyed and admired being so well-received. I don't think it's considered to be abnormal behavior.
After all, actual people invested a great deal of their time and labor into creating it, so naturally, fans of said game like to see those efforts rewarded.

 

[TGO]

Yeah, but Spider-man doesn't trigger folks like TLOU 2 does.

I think people just need to stop being so defensive with it, the game is like marmite.
I mean there was a lot of people that didn't want a sequel and gave the game a chance and there's some that just didn't want to know, especially after leaks
Some people love it, some hate it.
and I think both have good reasons for their opinion.
I think the game sold really well but not as much as it should have for the reason people bag on it.
It doesn't help that ND & SMS are the top Sony Studios so comparison is going to happen.
If we were to be fair based on sales we'd compare it to GoT.

 

[Gaiff]

No, it was made in 2013-2017

Ragnarok was made 2018-2022

Amsterdam is cheaper than Santa Monica. Santa Monica had 400 employees, not 250

Post the $50M receipts

Source in Dutch behind a paywall

Interview with a Dutch national news paper for the release of the game today some info that might be new but at least thread worthy if not discussed before:

(at least) €45 / ~$47 mil production cost peak team 250 people + 100 china (outsource for art I assume) 6 years in total to make incl pre-production with 20 staff.

Guerrilla is the only Dutch studio playing in the Champions League of the global gaming industry. The studio makes blockbuster games "being played by millions of gamers around the world. With a production budget of more than 45 million - Guerrilla does not mention the exact amount - Horizon Zero Dawn is the largest Dutch media production ever.

In 2013, after the publication of the fourth volume of Guerilla's Killzone series, the rest of the studio plunges on the project, 250 people in the Netherlands and another hundred in China sculpt the parts into a whole. "We talk constantly to know what everybody is doing," says Wolterbeek Muller.

 

[SlimySnake]

Comparing it to how well it relatively performed to all of Sony's 1st party output would at least prove to be more informative.
It's the fixation with TLOU part 2 that I find strange.

I did exactly that in my original post on the matter.

Some other sales figures to show just how impressive this is:

1. Demon Souls - 1.3 million in 10 months.
2. Returnal - 500k in 3 months.
3. Ratchet - 1 million in 1 months
4. TLOU2 - 4 million in 3 days
5. TLOU2 - 9 million in 2 years.
6. GOWR - 5 million in 7 days.
7. GOWR - 11 million in 2 months.
8. Ghost of Tsushima - 2.4 million in 3 days.
9. Ghost of Tsushima - 9.73 million in 2 years.
10. Horizon FW - ??
11. GT7 - ??
12. TLOU Remake - ??

TLOU2 was clearly far more divisive and likely cost itself sales. It also hit bargin bin prices far sooner than other games on this list. It sucks because i like that Neil tried to do something different with the game and I hate to ask him to appeal to the masses but he might have gone too far in some places.gif.

No idea why Sony wont announce HFW, GT7 and TLOU sales. HFW and GT7 hit the NPD top 12, and TLOU charted at number 2 in the first month. Should we way better than DS, REturnal and Ratchet. HFW was even bundled and should be over 5 million easily.

P.S Hope Phil sees this and realizes that Sony got nearly $770 million in revenue from just one game in 2 months. Even if we assume that sales split was 90:10, you are still looking at $700 million in revenue. Putting Starfield on Gamepass is going to cut into that initial revenue by hundreds of millions.

If Sony had released the numbers of HFW, TLOU and GT7, we would likely be comparing it to those games.

Wait I don't understand. Why do you think celebrating requires the posting of gifs?
I don't know why you'd frame it as such, just seems a bit unnecessarily cranky and antagonist of you lol.

Some people love to see a game they enjoyed and admire being so well-received. I don't think considered to be abnormal behavior.
After all, actual people invested a great deal of their time and labor into creating it, so naturally, fans of said game, like to see those efforts rewarded.

I am not saying you cant celebrate. Just that it will be boring and will likely die off. The reason why this thread is still on the first page is because of the last of us sales comparison and James' formula for billion dollar game budgets. If it wasnt for us sales nerds, you probably wouldnt have even seen the news.

 

[Bragr]

Maybe God of War Ragnarok just sold better and it's the more popular series?

Why didn't people call God of War (2018) a flop?

God of War sold 3.1m in 3 days.
Spider-Man sold 3.2m in 3 days.

Spider-Man sold 13.5m in 10 months and 21 days
God of War sold 10m in 13 months.

The legs weren't nearly as strong as Spider-Man, but it's completely fine, right? lol

I don't understand your point. You are showing that both God of War and Spider-Man sold considerably less at launch than The Last of Us 2, yet sold twice as fast after launch.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Source in Dutch behind a paywall

At least, it says

Not very informative

 

[SlimySnake]

I think people just need to stop being so defensive with it, the game is like marmite.
I mean there was a lot of people that didn't want a sequel and gave the game a chance and there's some that just didn't want to know, especially after leaks
Some people love it, some hate it.
and I think both have good reasons for their opinion.
I think the game sold really well but not as much as it should have for the reason people bag on it.
It doesn't help that ND & SMS are the top Sony Studios so comparison is going to happen.
If we were to be fair based on sales we'd compare it to GoT.

Funny thing is Neil said he wanted the game to be divisive so it is, but people dont like that it is divisive and want to shut down all discussion.

It's basically his MGS2, but I remember talking about MGS2 for years after it came out on forums. It was far more hated than TLOU2. People think Abby got a lot hate, Raiden was massacred by everyone until he was redeemed half a decade later. Kinda odd that people get so defensive about the game and its performance. You'd think fans of the game would perk up at the chance of discussing it. After all, no one talks about GoT anymore.

 

[Fake]

That's crazy.

But I wonder if it don't put Naughty Dot at a awkward position. They needed almost two years to sell 10 million copies of TLOU2 on console that sold 120 million.

Good point. ND now englobe all the TLOU series sales too, so not a good looking anw.

It took 2 whole years for The Last of Us 2 to reach 10 million, where almost half of which had been pre-orders.

With make me wonder if Santa Monica make a step back about killing Kratos, since the 2016 say that Kratos would die anw. Sony probably make a good call not doing so.

Kratos is still one of the most popular character in the Playstation franchise no matter how people love to spin.

 

[DForce]

I don't understand your point. You are showing that both God of War and Spider-Man sold considerably less at launch than The Last of Us 2, yet sold twice as fast after launch.

The point is that the popularity of the title matters, and it doesn't matter how many copies it sold in the first 3 days.

You guys are also looking at the number of copies sold number without factoring in bundles. We know God of War received 3-5 bundles within the first year of its release while The Last of Us only received 1. Spider-Man launched with a typical PS4 Pro bundle and then a $199.99 bundle.

This is not to say The Last of Us Part II would have sold just as much, but God of war would have not reached 10 million in 13 months without it, and Spider-Man would have not reached 13.5 million within that time frame without the $199.99 bundle, which was selling out during the holiday season due to the price point.

 

[mortal]

I did exactly that in my original post on the matter.

Well great! I take no issue with that.

I am not saying you cant celebrate. Just that it will be boring and will likely die off. The reason why this thread is still on the first page is because of the last of us sales comparison and James' formula for billion dollar game budgets. If it wasnt for us sales nerds, you probably wouldnt have even seen the news.

Of course, sales are a relevant aspect of the topic, but the source tweet is quite literally celebratory in nature, so naturally, that would be the general tone of the thread.

Also, why are you even assuming that I wouldn't read past the first page? lol

 

[Yoboman]

Funny thing is Neil said he wanted the game to be divisive so it is, but people dont like that it is divisive and want to shut down all discussion.

It's basically his MGS2, but I remember talking about MGS2 for years after it came out on forums. It was far more hated than TLOU2. People think Abby got a lot hate, Raiden was massacred by everyone until he was redeemed half a decade later. Kinda odd that people get so defensive about the game and its performance. You'd think fans of the game would perk up at the chance of discussing it. After all, no one talks about GoT anymore.

Yeah but the reason Raiden existed was far stupider. If I recall correctly it was because Snake didn't appeal to Japanese school girls they had surveyed

 

[SlimySnake]

Yeah but the reason Raiden existed was far stupider. If I recall correctly it was because Snake didn't appeal to Japanese school girls they had surveyed

lmao. that sounds so stupid it has to be true.

Also, why are you even assuming that I wouldn't read past the first page? lol

I meant the thread itself would fall off the first page of the forum.

 

[Topher]

I think people just need to stop being so defensive with it, the game is like marmite.

That works both ways. No need for folks to instigate and derail these conversations either. You've got a guy who contributed two words to the topic and then went sideways....

That's crazy.

But I wonder if it don't put Naughty Dot at a awkward position. They needed almost two years to sell 10 million copies of TLOU2 on console that sold 120 million.

 

[mortal]

I meant the thread itself would fall off the first page of the forum.

And? A thread on the second page would still be just as new to me if I haven't read it yet.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Excellent. Santa Monica is no doubt using the bulk of these profits to build a premier GAAS team. They've begun their slingshot process. The natural order is beautiful to see. Robert Frost is smiling down from heaven.

 

[Topher]

Excellent. Santa Monica is no doubt using the bulk of these profits to build a premier GAAS team. They've begun their slingshot process. The natural order is beautiful to see. Robert Frost is smiling down from heaven.

 

[SlimySnake]

And? A thread on the second page would still be just as new to me if I haven't read it yet.

Ah. I dont scroll to the second page. if a thread falls off the first page, its all but dead to me.

 

[Represent.]

Goddamn, another TLOU 2 thread.

They need to start releasing NDP's for "most talked about games after release". Because Part II would be number 1, by a large margin, this decade.

No one even talks about Ragnarok anymore. Theres been a TLOU 2 thread on the front page every day for the past 2+ years lol. It gets brought up in threads aout Gran Turismo, Elden Ring, and Pokemon.

This game has had a larger impact than games that sold twice as much.

 

[AmuroChan]

No, it was made in 2013-2017

Ragnarok was made 2018-2022

Amsterdam is cheaper than Santa Monica. Santa Monica had 400 employees, not 250

Post the $50M receipts

If Callisto Protocol can cost $162m to make, is it that far-fetched to think that budgets of far better AAA games can be in that vicinity?

 

[Yoboman]

lmao. that sounds so stupid it has to be true.


I meant the thread itself would fall off the first page of the forum.

Sorry it's even dumber than that, not a Survey group, just one fan letter

"Kojima received much fan mail; one letter from a girl stated she did not want to play a game with an old man. Kojima took this into consideration; he and his team designed Raiden to be more appealing to women.[7]"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raiden_(Metal_Gear)

 

[mortal]

Ah. I dont scroll to the second page. if a thread falls off the first page, its all but dead to me.

Fair enough. For me, page 5 is past the event horizon.

 

[ZehDon]

"GOW:R sold 11 million copies? And there's a 5 page thread on the front page already? Wow - must be a big info dump! I wonder what amazing statistics and numbers the community is discussing, I'll probably learn a lot about digital and physical breakdowns..."

 

[ANDS]

That's a lot of chicken dinners.

. . .gotta go back to the game at some point. Played on GMGOW and made it past the awful, AWFUL first encounters to getting the fire whip and having to blast through armor and was like "I'm out." I'll get back and play on HARD, but after trying GMGOW on the first game and not even getting past the first troll, I thought I would be able to do it here after getting past the opening (which while epic, was awful, AWFUL. . .mostly due to my lack of skill for this level of difficulty).

 

[Bragr]

The point is that the popularity of the title matters, and it doesn't matter how many copies it sold in the first 3 days.

You guys are also looking at the number of copies sold number without factoring in bundles. We know God of War received 3-5 bundles within the first year of its release while The Last of Us only received 1. Spider-Man launched with a typical PS4 Pro bundle and then a $199.99 bundle.

This is not to say The Last of Us Part II would have sold just as much, but God of war would have not reached 10 million in 13 months without it, and Spider-Man would have not reached 13.5 million within that time frame without the $199.99 bundle, which was selling out during the holiday season due to the price point.

Sony sells a lot of games through bundles and online sales, but it's impossible to make any sense of it without numbers.

I am not saying it flopped, it obviously didn't, it was huge, but whether you look at Spider-Man or God of War 2018, none of those games stagnated as much as TLOU2.

Those games sold maybe 5 million in the first month and spent the next year getting that 10 million mark. The Last of Us 2 however, seems to have sold 6-8 million at launch, and then spend almost 2 years selling the next 2 million.

That's why this conversation is dredged back up, Ragnarok is a pretty good comparison point hence the similarities in marketing and focus, yet it only highlights even more how The Last of Us 2 completely stagnated for some weird reason.

 

[AmuroChan]

No, it was made in 2013-2017

Ragnarok was made 2018-2022

Amsterdam is cheaper than Santa Monica. Santa Monica had 400 employees, not 250

Post the $50M receipts

Also, instead of comparing two different studios in two different cities, let's simply look at Santa Monica Studio. The cancelled sci-fi game that Stig Asmussen was working on had a production budget of over $100m at the time of its cancellation. So they hadn't even finished the game yet and had already burned through $100m. That game was presumably being developed around the same time that GoW 2018 was.

Art from Sony Santa Monica's Cancelled PS4 Game Surfaces

Make of it what you will

www.pushsquare.com

 

[DForce]

I really wonder how many God of War bundles they sold. I have not seen a single non bundled PS5 in November and December.

Their quarterly reports should be released soon. I think we can guess based on shipment numbers. They're all not going to be God of War units, but most of them probably will.