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[DForce]

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.

God of War stagnated compared to Spider-Man
Last of Us Part II stagnated compared to God of War and Spider-Man.

People say it was due to the backlash but by how much? If people can bring up the backlash due to the sales being low, then people shouldn't completely ignore bundles.

Sony to launch new PS4 Pro God of War Bundle and PS4 Pro with 2TB storage - techcoffeehouse.com

Sony Interactive is set to launch the new PS4 Pro God of War Bundle and PS4 Pro 2TB in Singapore starting 11 January 2019.

techcoffeehouse.com

PlayStation 4 bundles get massive discounts in Southeast Asia

A great time to get a new console

www.gadgetmatch.com

Sony releases new PS4 bundles ahead of Christmas, includes God of War, Detroit: Become Human, and The Last of Us Remastered - The Tech Revolutionist

Sony Interactive Entertainment Hong Kong Limited Singapore Branch (SIES) announced that it will release two PlayStation®4 (PS4TM) bundles on 15th November 2018: “HITS” and “PlayStation®4 Party Bundle”. HITS Bundle @ $449 HITS (SRP: SGD 449) will include a PS4™ system (Jet Black, 500GB) with...

thetechrevolutionist.com

That's at least 4 or 5 bundles within the first year of its release. One is a holiday bundle.

I did not include limited edition bundles because both The Last of Us and God of War released one.

God of War would have not reached 10 million in sales in 13 months without it.

 

[Azurro]

Why are we talking about TLOU2's obvious sales underperformance in a God of War Ragnarok sales thread? Even the trolling that 11 million is not good enough is more on topic.

 

[TLZ]

people trying to use bundles to discredit the sales

It's just stupid. It's the game that sells the console, not the other way around. They look foolish.

 

[FalsettoVibe]

God of War stagnated compared to Spider-Man
Last of Us Part II stagnated compared to God of War and Spider-Man.

People say it was due to the backlash but by how much? If people can bring up the backlash due to the sales being low, then people shouldn't completely ignore bundles.

http://[URL]https://techcoffeehouse...d-of-war-bundle-and-ps4-pro-with-2tb-storage/

[/URL]

http://[URL]https://www.gadgetmatch.com/ps4-sale-bundle-december-2018/

[/URL]

http://[URL]https://thetechrevoluti...come-human-and-the-last-of-us-remastered.html

[/URL]

That's at least 4 or 5 bundles within the first year of its release. One is a holiday bundle.

I did not include limited edition bundles because both The Last of Us and God of War released one.

God of War would have not reached 10 million in sales in 13 months without it.

You are trying way too hard. Just say congrats SSM and leave it alone. What are you trying to accomplish?

 

[Vyse]

Amazing game. Well deserved.

 

[DForce]

You are trying way too hard. Just say congrats SSM and leave it alone. What are you trying to accomplish?

Maybe you should try reading the conversation.

 

[JaksGhost]

Naughty Dog just supplied the overall Sony family with two successful IPs in entertainment in the past year. It’s time to get off of TLOU2’s nuts with this faux concern over what Sony thinks about them.

 

[Die Namek Ability]

Holy Fuk. Would never of made it without my purchase so really you all should be congratulating me. I mean common does 10,999,999 sound that impressive to you?

 

[thismeinteil]

Congrats SSM.

And yes, as others have pointed out, this just points out the obvious TLOU2 underperformance. When all of Sony's older franchises are selling more on PS4/5, and incredibly more in the case of GOW, TLOU remained stagnant, requiring discounts to get to where it's at. BTW, going by sales, TLOU had the potential to be a much bigger franchise, as GOW's biggest seller before the 2018 PS4 game only did 6M. TLOU PS3 did 10M+.

And people want to bring up bundles. Did its stans ever ask, why isn't TLOU2 in more bundles? I'll give you the answer. Sony knows TLOU2 was a divisive game and isn't going to push as many console sales as GOW and SM will.

 

[Die Namek Ability]

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

Or enough to buy a studio like Insominac for perspective.

 

[VolticArchangel]

Has Phil congratulated on twitter, yet?

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)

Never doubt even one second that Kojima would do this. Lmfaooooo

 

[ByWatterson]

Assuming an average gross price of $65, that's $715 million in revenue on a budget of what, $150 million? Insane profit.

Is Day 1 Gamepass a mistake?

 

[sachos]

Always happy seeing big single player games like this or Elden Ring do so well. Insane numbers. Jimbo please don't fuck this up with you GaaS love.

 

[Pedro Motta]

Assuming an average gross price of $65, that's $715 million in revenue on a budget of what, $150 million? Insane profit.

Is Day 1 Gamepass a mistake?

 

[PixelatedBeast]

Congrats SSM.

And yes, as others have pointed out, this just points out the obvious TLOU2 underperformance. When all of Sony's older franchises are selling more on PS4/5, and incredibly more in the case of GOW, TLOU remained stagnant, requiring discounts to get to where it's at. BTW, going by sales, TLOU had the potential to be a much bigger franchise, as GOW's biggest seller before the 2018 PS4 game only did 6M. TLOU PS3 did 10M+.

And people want to bring up bundles. Did its stans ever ask, why isn't TLOU2 in more bundles? I'll give you the answer. Sony knows TLOU2 was a divisive game and isn't going to push as many console sales as GOW and SM will.

I guess you missed the part where it been proven in this thread that TLOU2 didnt receive discounts sooner than any recent Sony exclusive has 3 months after release. TLOU2 has sold over 10 mill, new show on HBO out renewed for a second season and Factions multiplayer comming soon. This franchise is doin fine.

It may have underperformed relative to the hype and expectations people had, but I think that had more to do with the story plot being leaked, the reluctance for some people to look past Ellie's sexual preference and the the "woke agenda" people think exist to take precedence over a good story to make a political statement.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Though I still haven't finished it

Same lol

 

[Carmen Winstead]

Now go and spend the profit on the exclusive rights for Forspoken 2 Sony.

 

[lh032]

11 million copies!!!???? while the PS5 is recovering from stock disease!!!???????

Becarful jimbo Microsoft going to bring this up to FTC!!!!

Remember to counter with HIFIRUSH!!!!!

 

[Vick]

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

Wow.. the lack of awareness of Part II stans will never cease to amuse me.

No similarities at all with Joel and Ellie being replaced because of certain trends with two characters (who borrowed the same gameplay mechanics) made entirely to appeal to a certain crowd.

Not at all. Not in the slightest.

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

There's nothing to dumb down in Part II. Game does a stunningly good job itself as is.
Three years passed and I'm still not sure if I should envy easily pleased/tasteless people like you.

 

[Woggleman]

IF TLOU2 was such a flop then Sony would not be leaning in so hard on promoting Neil Druckman and funding his projects.

 

[diffusionx]

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.

After this number was mentioned in this thread I tried to research it… $50M but it is so out of step and such an outlier with what is going on in the rest of the industry I would want to hear more about how they calculated it. My first guess is that they didn’t factor in the cost of coding the engine or didnt factor in marketing or whatever. Like, Dead Space 2 cost $60M almost a decade before, on older consoles. And that was the number that was getting very common that gen, it is why so many devs got wiped out then.

Dead Space 2 dev recounts harsh reality of game budgets

An ex-Visceral Games developer highlights just how harsh the realities of the video games industry can be, especially when sales don't meet targets.

www.tweaktown.com

IMDB has a mention of Forbidden West costing $110M but even that, I couldn’t find any other reference anywhere. So, I dunno. These Horizon numbers don;t make sense quite frankly.

 

[SeñorOsky305]

Didn't death stranding sell like 8 million within the first 3 months kind off expected Ragnarok to do double those numbers ... Would have been better if they killed off kratos but I guess money talks so they gone keep putting them out

 

[SlimySnake]

Didn't death stranding sell like 8 million within the first 3 months kind off expected Ragnarok to do double those numbers ... Would have been better if they killed off kratos but I guess money talks so they gone keep putting them out

Nope. Ds did 5 million a year after pc launch so 5 million in a year and a half.

 

[Kurimao]

Ok now show us a NEW game.

 

[tmlDan]

Ok now show us a NEW game.

dude it just came out......

 

[Skifi28]

Still haven't bought it. I guess this news means no discount any time soon.

 

[Wesleyalucard]

I don't think a live action gow series can work like tlou, it's very dificulty

 

[gokurho]

small number LOL
Halo Infinite/Forza Horizon have over 20m user.

 

[Gobjuduck]

For comparison of brand power, Pokémon scarlet and violet sold that in less than 4 days.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

The first game took nearly a year to sell 10 million though came out much earlier than the holidays.

This game is also 70 dollars though.

At least an extra 170 million dollars give or take bundle pricing

 

[ChiefDada]

11 million in 2 months!!!???

 

[Unknown?]

The first game took nearly a year to sell 10 million though came out much earlier than the holidays.

This game is also 70 dollars though.

At least an extra 170 million dollars give or take bundle pricing

$70 in today's dollars is equivalent to $60 in 2018, don't let numeric value fool you for real value.

$60 in 2018 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $70.88 today https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/2018?amount=60

 

[Zekra Dezivad]

God of War is a longer running franchise, going back almost 20 years, with over 10 releases.
One had leaks. The other had none. One was bundled the other wasn't.
Of course it'll sell more.

So there are 8 God of war releases that sold few millions copies each, that makes the sales o 2018 and Ragnarok way more impressive. The brand grew to the sky.
TLoU2 didn't set the world on fire despite being the sequel of the best selling (at the time) Sony ever. If the sequel ends selling less that the first game wich was a new unproven IP I suppose we can take some conclusions.
Another interesting release will be Spiderman 2, since the first should be the actual best selling sony game. If it doesn't disappoint then Part2 will be the only between the big three with slowing sales, and that just after two games.

 

[FalsettoVibe]

Now go and spend the profit on the exclusive rights for Forspoken 2 Sony.

Wouldn't mind at all. The game is fun. Just needs a new engine.

 

[Zekra Dezivad]

I guess you missed the part where it been proven in this thread that TLOU2 didnt receive discounts sooner than any recent Sony exclusive has 3 months after release. TLOU2 has sold over 10 mill, new show on HBO out renewed for a second season and Factions multiplayer comming soon. This franchise is doin fine.

It may have underperformed relative to the hype and expectations people had, but I think that had more to do with the story plot being leaked, the reluctance for some people to look past Ellie's sexual preference and the the "woke agenda" people think exist to take precedence over a good story to make a political statement.

I don't think the general public knows or care about twitter rants and forum discussions. You will see once Hogwarts Legacy will be released how much little impact fanatics have on a multi billion market.
If TLoU2 underperformed (ie selling way less than the first game) it wasn't due the leaks or the woke agenda (if you look around you'll see a lot of similar themes in mainstream entertainment, or are we living on mars?).

 

[Nydius]

Halo Infinite/Forza Horizon have over 20m user.

 

[Gobjuduck]

Wouldn't mind at all. The game is fun. Just needs a new engine.

You repped Frey on your gaf profile until the demo dropped. You better think the game was fun.

Needs new writers too btw.

 

[Exentryk]

Didn't buy it even though I wanted to play it because no PS5. Might as well wait till it launches on PC now.

 

[DeepSpace5D]

Pretty crazy numbers for Ragnarok. They can add +1 to that this month because I’m finally going to pick up a copy myself. Loved GoW 2018 and got the platinum so I’m excited to play it.

 

[FalsettoVibe]

You repped Frey on your gaf profile until the demo dropped. You better think the game was fun.

Needs new writers too btw.

Its great. Really enjoying the combat and traversal. People are giving it too hard a time...lol

 

[Thief1987]

For comparison of brand power, it took more than a year for Zelda BOTW to reach 10 million and half a year for Mario Odyssey.

 

[Three]

Fastest selling ever? Impressive

Edit: Ok, the official Playstation account has removed the tweet? What’s going on?

They're scared Lulu will see it.

 

[Kurimao]

dude it just came out......

i mean a complete new game not always GOW.

 

[3liteDragon]

Fastest selling ever? Impressive

Edit: Ok, the official Playstation account has removed the tweet? What’s going on?

They reposted it, they tagged the wrong Twitter handle lol.

 

[Ronin_7]

TLOU PART 2 actually outsold Ragnarok on December PSN Charts.

Wonder why people think it underperformed?

https://blog.playstation.com/2023/01/12/playstation-store-december-2022s-top-downloads/

 

[SlimySnake]

TLOU PART 2 actually outsold Ragnarok on December PSN Charts.

Wonder why people think it underperformed?

https://blog.playstation.com/2023/01/12/playstation-store-december-2022s-top-downloads/

On ps4. No one is buying ps4 game anymore. The vast majority of gow sales are on ps5 and all tlou sales are on ps4. Hence they difference.

Gow has outsold tlou2’s 2 year total in just 2 months. It isn’t being outsold by it.

 

[AncientOrigin]

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

No that is to much.The game probably didn’t cost more than 100 million to make Marketing is cheap it’s mostly social media which is free a bit YouTube here and there and maybe tv ads.Marketing is max 50 million for this game.So all in all around 150 million

 

[RPS37]

It’s an amazing game, barring optional side bosses.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

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

Dunno how you got 500M.

The game is less than 3 months old, Still retailing at full price. Even if we are looking at an average retail price of $70, that pegs it at around $770M in revenue.

I would say $200M - $250M sounds about right for dev and marketing. $180M for dev and $70 for marketing.

That's like $520M - $570M of profit in just under 3 months!!!

 

[DForce]

The numbers seemed very high for it reach 11 million so fast. The shipment numbers from this past quarter would explain why it