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Metaphor: ReFantazio has sold over 1 million copies worldwide

Fat Frog

I advertised for Google Stadia
People ? Who actually ? Everybody agrees to say that Atlus games were good before and are still good today.

How their releases are managed has totally changed in terms of timing and translations, and this can be witnessed by everybody as well. And this is thanks to SEGA.
Also
In 2012-2013, Sega and Atlus (before the acquisition) were both (separately) at 69% on Metacritic.

Now, they're both TOGETHER at 80% (most of the time) on Metacritic...

Sega (Atlus is a real part of the group working now within the very same building, discussing at lunch with RGG, AM2...) overall improved this past few years:

The entire company cutted the crap (Hyenas), funding the best (New Alien Isolation).

Yeah, Atlus was good but like the other Sega Studios they reached new highs...together.
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Also
In 2012-2013, Sega and Atlus (before the acquisition) were both (separately) at 69% on Metacritic.

Now, they're both TOGETHER at 80% (most of the time) on Metacritic...

Sega (Atlus is a real part of the group working now within the very same building, discussing at lunch with RGG, AM2...) overall improved this past few years:

The entire company cutted the crap (Hyenas), funding the best (New Alien Isolation).

Yeah, Atlus was good but like the other Sega Studios they reached new highs.

Sega has become one of the better publishers in the last few years.
 

Fat Frog

I advertised for Google Stadia
Metacritics:

2012-13
Sega: 70%
Atlus: 70%
(about the same, Sega was 0,1or 0,2% above Atlus)

2024
Segatlus: Over 80%


Sega has an influence over Atlus, Creative Assembly (Hyenas cancelled, Alien Isolation 2 greenlighted, Sega also hired hundreds of employees for both of them...)

Atlus has higher highs than Sega West or Sega of Japan but less consistency.
For instance, Soul Hackers 2, Persona 5 Tactica are under 75%.
The other Sega Studio are pretty solid, most of the time at 80% for Sega West (TCA, Sport Interactive, 2P Studio), in Japan Colorful Tone (AM2) is at 85%, Valkyria 4 (Team Skies of Arcadia/Valkyria) at 85%, Infinite Wealth at 90% (better than previous entries)
And like i said, Atlus didn't have better Metacritic than Sega before the acquisition... they improved together withing the same building, with the same infrastructures:

All Sega Studios are producing better games now (Atlus included) because Sega has a fantastic CEO called Shuji Utsumi, the man who launched the Dreamcast and came back at Sega in the 2020................

Shuji Utsumi brought back high quality games (Sega will be in the MC top 3 publisher again, possibly #1 with a tremendous year) without forgetting the past. (Shinobi, Crazy Taxi, Streets of Rage, Alien Isolation new Projects)


Blue blue bluuuuuue sky
 
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Magister

Neo Member
But in my country dudebros in their mid-30s on the radio podcast said that the game is shit despite the metacritic acclaim and told me not to buy it. And the funny thing is that a video game shop asked them to advertise it, but they did the opposite.

According to them superior taste games are Call of Duty, Borderlands and Starfield.

Dudebros, lol. The only anime stuff they like is Dragon Ball.
 

Edellus

Member
I'm currently playing the demo and I'm starting to see why it would sell well.
It's been a while since I've been into a JRPG like this one. But I'm finding the the political story and the archetypes lore very interesting so far. The animation and flashiness of it all doesn't look bad either. I might end up buying it and play my first turn based JRPG in a very long time.
 

cireza

Member
But in my country dudebros in their mid-30s on the radio podcast said that the game is shit despite the metacritic acclaim and told me not to buy it. And the funny thing is that a video game shop asked them to advertise it, but they did the opposite.

According to them superior taste games are Call of Duty, Borderlands and Starfield.

Dudebros, lol. The only anime stuff they like is Dragon Ball.
I can already sense the potential for an amazing console warrior in this post.
 

Mayar

Member
I highly doubt that Atlus will post sales statistics, it's not their style, they've never done this in their entire history. They just always indicated the total number. Also, don't forget that this game is sold on two Sony consoles at once - PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and both consoles have very large player bases (PS4 is still very popular and sells very successfully). In any case, I would just be happy for Atlus, because in the end, what difference does it make how many games the game sold on which platform, the main thing is that they launched a new IP (and studios really don't like to take this risk now, we'd rather make 20 remakes than new games) and the launch was successful, which means that we can expect other games from Atlus and that's the main thing =)
 
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Deerock71

Member
I agree in that sense SMTV did much better job keeping up the difficulty, especially the Vengeance did smart balancing.
Got a steelbook Switch copy. Le sigh. SO MANY JRPGS!!!
Hungry Night Court GIF by Laff
 
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DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
one of the many reasons why this game is such a huge success on Steam could be the portability of PC handheld
That + PC gaming is more popular than ever (going by Steam concurrent users), especially in Japan.

Honestly I think the days of PlayStation being the essential system for JRPGs are over. Pretty much all 3rd party JRPGs will come to PC and (if it can handle them) Switch/Switch 2 on day 1.

Vanillaware is the only remaining exception (for now).
 

Topher

Identifies as young
That + PC gaming is more popular than ever (going by Steam concurrent users), especially in Japan.

Honestly I think the days of PlayStation being the essential system for JRPGs are over. Pretty much all 3rd party JRPGs will come to PC and (if it can handle them) Switch/Switch 2 on day 1.

Vanillaware is the only remaining exception (for now).

Makes very little sense not to have PC ports these days. Vanillaware's stubbornness is a head scratcher considering they seem to barely survive from one game to the next publishing only on consoles.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
Makes very little sense not to have PC ports these days. Vanillaware's stubbornness is a head scratcher considering they seem to barely survive from one game to the next publishing only on consoles.
How in the heck do you release a game on PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series, and NOT PC? I think they will have to join the club eventually.

Wikipedia says they have 39 employees total, maybe they’re limited by manpower + expertise?
 

Mayar

Member
40% on PC
50% on PS5
10% on Xbox

PS5 and PC could be anywhere from ~40-50%
We can endlessly guess about the numbers here, but unless Atlus themselves post them, it's a useless exercise. In fact, you can do regular school math.

Let's say we know that the game sold 1,000,000 copies
As you wrote, let's say sales on PC were 400,000 - this is 40% of 1,000,000. On Steam, we see, let's say, 90,000 (This is easier to calculate). Let's say 50% of those who bought it are playing now and the remaining 50% are relaxing. Multiply by 2 and we get 180,000, this is 18% of 1,000,000.

I'm not trying to downplay the merits of the PC release, etc., I'm sincerely happy for Atlus and I only want the game to sell more. But just think and count for yourself how big a number of copies this is 40% or 50% of 1,000,000. And 90,000 is a huge achievement for a game of this type on PC.
 

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Pretty much yes. Steam has cemented itself as the best platform for RPG titles. Square Enix has a lot to learn considering the dismay sales result of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Final Fantasy 16.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
How in the heck do you release a game on PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series, and NOT PC? I think they will have to join the club eventually.

Wikipedia says they have 39 employees total, maybe they’re limited by manpower + expertise?

Nah, Atlus offered to do the port and Vanillaware refused. Seems like I read somewhere that the company's owner was just fundamentally against PC ports for some reason. It is like an old school Japanese developer mindset or something.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
We can endlessly guess about the numbers here, but unless Atlus themselves post them, it's a useless exercise. In fact, you can do regular school math.

Let's say we know that the game sold 1,000,000 copies
As you wrote, let's say sales on PC were 400,000 - this is 40% of 1,000,000. On Steam, we see, let's say, 90,000 (This is easier to calculate). Let's say 50% of those who bought it are playing now and the remaining 50% are relaxing. Multiply by 2 and we get 180,000, this is 18% of 1,000,000.

I'm not trying to downplay the merits of the PC release, etc., I'm sincerely happy for Atlus and I only want the game to sell more. But just think and count for yourself how big a number of copies this is 40% or 50% of 1,000,000. And 90,000 is a huge achievement for a game of this type on PC.
From what I’ve heard, Steam total game sales tend to be like 10-15x the peak concurrent user count. So yeah we don’t know for sure but I strongly suspect it’s more than 180k
 

Mayar

Member
Nah, Atlus offered to do the port and Vanillaware refused. Seems like I read somewhere that the company's owner was just fundamentally against PC ports for some reason. It is like an old school Japanese developer mindset or something.
There was a lot of speculation about this, and a lot of discussions, but it never went beyond rumors. And I'm afraid we'll never know the truth, from what I've read - they say they don't like that PC games are being taken apart for parts, and since all their games are actually hand-drawn Art by artists, they don't want their games to be taken apart. But these are pure rumors, nothing more.
 

Mayar

Member
From what I’ve heard, Steam total game sales tend to be like 10-15x the peak concurrent user count. So yeah we don’t know for sure but I strongly suspect it’s more than 180k
We can endlessly speculate on this topic, raise the number higher, say, to 20-25%. I'm just saying that now, even mathematically, it's impossible to get 40%, well, unless you cut Xbox sales completely, and the game sold very poorly on PS5 and PS4, but let's all be realistic =)
 
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Topher

Identifies as young
There was a lot of speculation about this, and a lot of discussions, but it never went beyond rumors. And I'm afraid we'll never know the truth, from what I've read - they say they don't like that PC games are being taken apart for parts, and since all their games are actually hand-drawn Art by artists, they don't want their games to be taken apart. But these are pure rumors, nothing more.

Yeah....you are correct that this is all speculation. Vanillaware obviously has their reasons and that's all we can say for certain.
 

MujkicHaris

Member
One of the many reasons why I love this is because of that awful Digital Foundry video where they criticized the game, comparing it to previous generations, just because it didn't use PBR or baked global illumination. DF never heard about art style or art direction. And yes, choosing not to use PBR or global illumination is and can be part of art direction.

Congrats to the developers and I hope they continue avoiding garbage PBR for future games too. TAA is trash also.
 
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We can endlessly guess about the numbers here, but unless Atlus themselves post them, it's a useless exercise. In fact, you can do regular school math.

Let's say we know that the game sold 1,000,000 copies
As you wrote, let's say sales on PC were 400,000 - this is 40% of 1,000,000. On Steam, we see, let's say, 90,000 (This is easier to calculate). Let's say 50% of those who bought it are playing now and the remaining 50% are relaxing. Multiply by 2 and we get 180,000, this is 18% of 1,000,000.

I'm not trying to downplay the merits of the PC release, etc., I'm sincerely happy for Atlus and I only want the game to sell more. But just think and count for yourself how big a number of copies this is 40% or 50% of 1,000,000. And 90,000 is a huge achievement for a game of this type on PC.
Except, it's not like that at all. It's not even remotely 50% of all people who bought the game are playing at the same time.. We've seen enough PC releases to understand that CCUs are about 1/6th or 1/7th of the people who've bought the game around launch period.

40% of 1M is indeed 400K.. and there's 85K CCUs.. which means 85K x 7 = 595K copies. Since it's been a few days since launch, we can obviously assume the game has sold more. So let's say it has sold 1.3M copies now.

PC - 1.3M x .40 = 520K
PS5 - 1.3M x .50 = 650K
XBS - 1.3M x .10 = 130K
 
We can endlessly speculate on this topic, raise the number higher, say, to 20-25%. I'm just saying that now, even mathematically, it's impossible to get 40%, well, unless you cut Xbox sales completely, and the game sold very poorly on PS5 and PS4, but let's all be realistic =)
This is just complete BS.. You're out of your damn mind if you don't think PC accounts for more than 25% of this games sales... :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 

Mayar

Member
This is just complete BS.. You're out of your damn mind if you don't think PC accounts for more than 25% of this games sales...
Well, I just used regular math, if you have more reliable sources, or you know the exact numbers, I'll be happy to look at them. Or post the process of your calculations.
Except, it's not like that at all. It's not even remotely 50% of all people who bought the game are playing at the same time.. We've seen enough PC releases to understand that CCUs are about 1/6th or 1/7th of the people who've bought the game around launch period.

40% of 1M is indeed 400K.. and there's 85K CCUs.. which means 85K x 7 = 595K copies. Since it's been a few days since launch, we can obviously assume the game has sold more. So let's say it has sold 1.3M copies now.

PC - 1.3M x .40 = 520K
PS5 - 1.3M x .50 = 650K
XBS - 1.3M x .10 = 130K
Maybe you are right, but it seems to me that your calculations are not correct. In any case, I would wait for official figures from Atlus, if there are none, let everyone draw the number they like for themselves.As I already wrote, it does not matter to me on which platform the game was sold, I am glad that it has such sales and I am glad that Atlus now has money for new developments.
 
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Well, I just used regular math, if you have more reliable sources, or you know the exact numbers, I'll be happy to look at them. Or post the process of your calculations.
I'm using regular math too.. Anyone who pays attention has reliable Steam metrics for gauging this sort of stuff.. and I literally did post the process of my calculations..

There's literally almost 100K people playing simultaneously. We know that the amount of players who are playing is VASTLY lower than the amount of actual sales... even right from launch. Like I said... it's 1/6 or 1/7. Even if I go low and say 1/5th.. that's still ~500K on PC, pretty much guaranteed already, within the first couple days.



And why do you not quote/reply the person so they get a notification that you're responding to them?
 
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Mayar

Member
And why do you not quote/reply the person so they get a notification that you're responding to them?
I'm 42 and I'm not very good at communicating on forums and I don't know many technical things and how forums work. =)
 
I'm 42 and I'm not very good at communicating on forums and I don't know many technical things and how forums work. =)
I'm pretty much the same age lol.. cmon now. Forums are our generation's old way of communicating. That and mIRC :messenger_grinning_sweat:

Anyway, I'm not trying to be rude.. If you don't know that's cool. I was just wondering if you were doing it on purpose or something. :)
 

Mister Wolf

Gold Member
Nah, Atlus offered to do the port and Vanillaware refused. Seems like I read somewhere that the company's owner was just fundamentally against PC ports for some reason. It is like an old school Japanese developer mindset or something.

A smart dumb dude. Even Falcom have wisened up over the years.
 

Mayar

Member
Anyway, I'm not trying to be rude.. If you don't know that's cool. I was just wondering if you were doing it on purpose or something. :)
Everything is fine, don't bother yourself, I'm just old and too lazy to study. So I apologize for the inconvenience =)
Just click Reply at the bottom right of the post and it will automatically include the post you are replying to like this...
Thx!
 
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drganon

Member
Pretty much yes. Steam has cemented itself as the best platform for RPG titles. Square Enix has a lot to learn considering the dismay sales result of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Final Fantasy 16.
Christ, are you getting paid to shill for steam? 🙄
 

EDMIX

Writes a lot, says very little
Christ, are you getting paid to shill for steam? 🙄
My favorite part is someone saying Steam is the best place to play JRPGs (proceeds to bring up 2 games that were ported to PC long after launch) lol

I think its a good platform for JRPGs tbh, but fuck do I look like waiting years to play some shit? The PS, Nintendo and PC combo continues to live on, but there is reason why PC is that the end of that combo =)
 

Zathalus

Member
Well, I just used regular math, if you have more reliable sources, or you know the exact numbers, I'll be happy to look at them. Or post the process of your calculations.

Maybe you are right, but it seems to me that your calculations are not correct. In any case, I would wait for official figures from Atlus, if there are none, let everyone draw the number they like for themselves.As I already wrote, it does not matter to me on which platform the game was sold, I am glad that it has such sales and I am glad that Atlus now has money for new developments.
A good website for Steam sales estimates is here:


It’s not 100% perfect, but it has aligned up nicely with some recent releases like Manor Lords and Frostpunk 2.
 
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ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
That's because Steam already have other major RPGs that were ported long after launch onto consoles like Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, and currently the exclusive platform for FF11.
 

pulicat

Member
To give a perspective about steam sales numbers Vs CCU, and why it's laughable to assume steam sales only contribute just around 20%.

P4G: CCU = 30k and steam sales = 1 million units in a year.

Horizon Zero Dawn: CCU = 56k and steam sales = 3.3 million units in 2.5 years.

God of war: CCU = 73k and steam sales = 2.5 million units in a year.

Days gone: CCU = 27k and steam sales = 1.7 million units in 1.5 years.

Marvel's Spiderman: CCU = 66k and steam sales = 1.3 million units in 6 months.

Black Myth Wukong: CCU = 2.2m and steam sales = 8 million units in 3 days.

We are looking at 500k sales numbers on Steam alone in just a couple of days for Metaphor that's currently sitting with 85k CCU.
 
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