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[XXL]

The ongoing narrative of PS5 console exclusivity hurting games continues to be countered by sales data. While it’s true that the more the merrier, the sales split between platforms for a number of games has shown that PS5 is the platform of choice, as most recently seen in the case of Silent Hill 2 remake.

As highlighted by GamesIndustry.biz’s Chris Dring, a whopping 78% of Silent Hill 2’s sales in Europe (minus U.K.) are on PS5 and only 22% on PC. Europe is just a piece of the global pie, but these figures — which include physical and digital — aren’t exactly miniscule.

Narrative of PS5 Exclusivity Hurting Games Countered by New Report - PlayStation LifeStyle

The ongoing narrative of PS5 console exclusivity hurting games continues to be countered by retail sales data.

www.playstationlifestyle.net

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

Square Enix would beg to differ.

 

[XXL]

Square Enix would beg to differ.

Final Fantasy 16 didn't do well on PC either.

Its mentioned in the article....

RE4 Remake was also 65% PS5, 15% PC in EU.

 

[Zathalus]

So one game is somehow evidence of what exactly? How are sales of other games that released recently stacking up, such as Space Marine 2, Metaphor, and Sparking Zero? Or other recent horror remake titles like Dead Space and Resident Evil 4?

Black Myth probably sold over 80% on PC going by peak user count. That’s a 20 million plus game right there.

 

[mansoor1980]

so many false narratives against sony , getting debunked one by one.

 

[Zathalus]

RE4 Remake was also 65% PS5, 15% PC in EU.

Which goes to show just how useful these initial limited sales data really are. RE4 Remake has just passed 8 million sold, and the most accurate sales trackers put half of that on PC.

 

[HeWhoWalks]

Square Enix would beg to differ.

Consider who it is for just a second. They’re never happy with anything they sell!

 

[XXL]

So one game is somehow evidence of what exactly? How are sales of other games that released recently stacking up, such as Space Marine 2, Metaphor, and Sparking Zero? Or other recent horror remake titles like Dead Space and Resident Evil 4?

Black Myth probably sold over 80% on PC going by peak user count. That’s a 20 million plus game right there.

RE4 was 65% PS5 and 15% PC in EU.

RE7 was the same.

Wu Kong I think is an interesting one, as it did much better on PC, but it really isn't that surprising when you factor in that almost 40% of Steam users speak Chinese and the game is basically an homage to Chinese Mythology.

 

[Punished Miku]

This data is very compelling. Publishers should try making the games exclusive to PS5 Anniversary Edition owners with numbered copies of games and see if the trend continues. I predict that sales will keep increasing as exclusivity increases.

 

[XXL]

This data is very compelling. Publishers should try making the games exclusive to PS5 Anniversary Edition owners with numbered copies of games and see if the trend continues. I predict that sales will keep increasing as exclusivity increases.

I don't think that's the point here.

I think the main point here is that exclusivity isn't as much as a factor as people (on forums) make it out to be and many games do numbers on PS5.

 

[Zathalus]

RE4 was 65% PS5 and 15% PC in EU.

RE7 was the same.

As already posted, overall sales paints quite a different picture. You don’t really even need to look at sales data though. Straight from Capcom themselves:

Just as it predicted last year, half of Capcom's sales are now on PC

The Japanese publisher said in late 2021 that it wanted PC to be its primary platform, and now it is.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Fbh]

The counter is one game selling better on Ps5 and the fact PC players didn't rush to buy a 1+ years old port of a Final Fantasy game with mid word of mouth?

 

[SweetTooth]

Square Enix would beg to differ.

Having unrealistic expectations is another thing. SE needs to realize that Final Fantasy is not the juggernaut series of the past and move on.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Paying your way to success. Sonys way since the ps1 and it's worked.

 

[DoubleClutch]

There is almost no benefit for exclusivity. If you’re a consumer, it’s better for you for games to be multi-platform. It gives you choice.

It’s also better for businesses as it gives them access to a bigger market.

And with development tools and hardware pretty much standardized, it’s easier to port than it ever was.

Exclusivity is stupid all around. Just let everyone enjoy good games.

 

[Hookshot]

Sony have no competition from MS this gen, every single "exclusive" they paid to keep off of Xbox for any period of time was completely wasted money.

 

[XXL]

As already posted, overall sales paints quite a different picture. You don’t really even need to look at sales data though. Straight from Capcom themselves:

Just as it predicted last year, half of Capcom's sales are now on PC

The Japanese publisher said in late 2021 that it wanted PC to be its primary platform, and now it is.

www.pcgamer.com

I just read over it.

The PC percentage increase was revealed in a Q&A summary following Capcom's second-quarter results: Asked about the ratio of PC sales to total unit sales at the end of the quarter, the company replied, "Approximately 50%, with primarily catalog title sales growing." Catalog titles are previously-released games that are continuing to sell—the stuff that gets Phil Spencer excited about the Activision purchase, basically.

Unless I'm missing something, this is stating that older titles are selling well on PC and are the main drivers of revenue on PC.

Which makes complete sense to me, as that is one of the main benefits of PC gaming.

 

[Unknown?]

Paying your way to success. Sonys way since the ps1 and it's worked.

What?! Now let's tell them buying publishers work and get tons of games... oh wait!

 

[XXL]

Paying your way to success. Sonys way since the ps1 and it's worked.

Building great things require talent and dedication, not just money.

 

[proandrad]

How is this a counter? The game sold more copies on more platforms.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Paying your way to success. Sonys way since the ps1 and it's worked.

It takes money to make money.

Business 101.

But, this is also needed.... Identifying that talent and having a sound game plan,

Building great things require talent and dedication, not just money.

 

[Lorianus]

Final Fantasy 16 didn't do well on PC either.

Its mentioned in the article....

RE4 Remake was also 65% PS5, 15% PC in EU.

I can only talk for myself but i play RPG's for the story, if i cant buy it day 1 im gonna get my fix on youtube and twitch with a playthrough, im not gonna shell out 70 a year later.

 

[diffusionx]

Square Enix would beg to differ.

Final Fantasy XVI sucked.

 

[Unknown?]

It takes money to make money.

Business 101.

Unless you are a central bank such as the Federal Reserve where you can buy things by creating your own money out of thin air.

 

[Ebrietas]

As already posted, overall sales paints quite a different picture. You don’t really even need to look at sales data though. Straight from Capcom themselves:

Just as it predicted last year, half of Capcom's sales are now on PC

The Japanese publisher said in late 2021 that it wanted PC to be its primary platform, and now it is.

www.pcgamer.com

So PC gamers buy a lot of old stuff at deep discounts? Great. Publishers still generally make a lot more revenue from consoles. Even capcom. That’s why it’s still the primary development platform and not PC.

The point of this thread isn’t even to diminish PC. It’s to counter the increasingly prevalent notion that games don’t sell gigantic numbers on PS and therefore exclusives can’t be justified. A narrative being pushed by a certain crowd for very obvious reasons. Switch and PC exclusives get zero pushback. Funny how that works.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Unless you are a central bank such as the Federal Reserve where you can buy things by creating your own money out of thin air.

Thus... inflation as your dollar value plummets.

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

Final Fantasy XVI sucked.

And people who would've bought it on PC day 1 heard that it sucked and said fuck it. Meaning FF16's exclusivity hurt it's sales.

 

[diffusionx]

And people who would've bought it on PC day 1 heard that it sucked and said fuck it. Meaning FF16's exclusivity hurt it's sales.

If it was good, then more peopel would have bought it on PC day 1 because they heard it was good.

Solution: make your game good instead of crappy.

 

[XXL]

So PC gamers buy a lot of old stuff at deep discounts? Great. Publishers still generally make a lot more revenue from consoles. Even capcom. That’s why it’s still the primary development platform and not PC.

The point of this thread isn’t even to diminish PC. It’s to counter the increasingly prevalent notion that games don’t sell gigantic numbers on PS and therefore exclusives can’t be justified. A narrative being pushed by a certain crowd for very obvious reasons. Switch and PC exclusives get zero pushback. Funny how that works.

I agree with every word.

 

[SweetTooth]

Paying your way to success. Sonys way since the ps1 and it's worked.

Sad comment, Betting on the wrong horse forever?

I live off Sega and Xbox deaths stories

 

[DenchDeckard]

What?! Now let's tell them buying publishers work and get tons of games... oh wait!

Building great things require talent and dedication, not just money.

It takes money to make money.

Business 101.

But, this is also needed.... Identifying that talent and having a sound game plan,

All I'm saying. Sony learnt early on. Ffvii, tekken, tomb raider, persona the list goes on and on...money hats games. Keep them off the competition and profit. They were the originator of it in the scale they did it. They've mastered it over 30 years and set the tone of how the game was played.

I'm not insulting them, it worked and continues to do so for them. They are now just protecting their market share. The thing that I don't think will fly is when they try to muscle in on games that would come to pc and pay to keep them off pc. I don't think the gaming community will stand for that with the way the market is now.

 

[Astray]

Square Enix would beg to differ.

Square Enix needs to start making appealing games first. Because multi-platform flops exist too, and when that happens there will be no Sony check to save their asses.

 

[Kotaro]

Square Enix would beg to differ.

FFXVI, FF& Rebirth, Foamstars all underperformed

Square Enix CEO Takashi Kiryu - Sales of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Final Fantasy XVI and Foamstars Short of Expectations

Ya, release dat and date and PC and you will better sales. Their dumbass moneyhat deals with egs did nothing for them

www.neogaf.com

 

[Zathalus]

I just read over it.


Unless I'm missing something, this is stating that older titles are selling well on PC and are the main drivers of revenue on PC.

Which makes complete sense to me, as that is one of the main benefits of PC gaming.

Both revenue and total unit sales are 50% on PC. Catalog games are the major drivers of revenue across all platforms. Even RE4 is considered a catalog title now.

https://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/data/pdf/explanation/2024/1st/explanation_2024_1st_01.pdf

So PC gamers buy a lot of old stuff at deep discounts? Great. Publishers still generally make a lot more revenue from consoles. Even capcom. That’s why it’s still the primary development platform and not PC.

Did you not read the part about revenue? And unit sales? If both are making up 50% that obviously means that PC makes half of the income, and they are not all just older titles.

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

FFXVI, FF& Rebirth, Foamstars all underperformed

Square Enix CEO Takashi Kiryu - Sales of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Final Fantasy XVI and Foamstars Short of Expectations

Ya, release dat and date and PC and you will better sales. Their dumbass moneyhat deals with egs did nothing for them

www.neogaf.com

All Playstation exclusives, right?

 

[XXL]

FFXVI, FF& Rebirth, Foamstars all underperformed

Square Enix CEO Takashi Kiryu - Sales of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Final Fantasy XVI and Foamstars Short of Expectations

Ya, release dat and date and PC and you will better sales. Their dumbass moneyhat deals with egs did nothing for them

www.neogaf.com

Underperformed their expectations.

The question we don't know is....what we're their expectations?

Square is the past have had unrealistic expectations.

Also, FF7 Rebirth is a strong GOTY candidate and massively improved on the Pro, it should see somewhat of a boost in sales this holiday season.

 

[DeepEnigma]

All I'm saying. Sony learnt early on. Ffvii, tekken, tomb raider, persona the list goes on and on...money hats games.

I lot of those weren't money hats. They provided a better licensing model and product (hardware) than the competition. There were also burned bridges at the time between platforms and studios.

Keep up with the narrative revisionism, however.

They were the originator of it in the scale they did it.

The fuck they were, more revisionism.

That title was Nintendo by far and how they strong-armed the industry.

 

[Zathalus]

Throwing shade at PC for deep discounts is getting silly at this point. PSN has monthly sales with thousands of games on sale each time. You can buy RE 4 for $19.99 now on PSN, one third the launch price. RE 7 can now be picked up for $7.99 on PSN as well. Neither game is discounted on Steam now either.

 

[proandrad]

FFXVI, FF& Rebirth, Foamstars all underperformed

Square Enix CEO Takashi Kiryu - Sales of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Final Fantasy XVI and Foamstars Short of Expectations

Ya, release dat and date and PC and you will better sales. Their dumbass moneyhat deals with egs did nothing for them

www.neogaf.com

Tomb Raider Reboot trilogy sold 38million copies… Square said that underperformed. Why are we pretending Square has any clue about sales expectations.

The Tomb Raider Reboot trilogy sold 38 million copies in total, with the franchise totaling 88 million copies sold.

How the hell did Square made it seem like the franchise was always underperforming? That's an average of 12,6 million copies sold per game in the reboot trilogy... That's more than the recent Final Fantasy games could pull off. What kind of insane expectations did they put into the games...

www.neogaf.com

 

[XXL]

Both revenue and total unit sales are 50% on PC. Catalog games are the major drivers of revenue across all platforms. Even RE4 is considered a catalog title now.

In that case you're comparing the sales of 25+ games to a few new releases on console (mainly driven by PS5) for the overall yearly revenue.

As I stated before, PC has a longer tail due to the strengths of the PC platform, which is unparalleled backwards compatibility.

 

[XXL]

Throwing shade at PC for deep discounts is getting silly at this point. PSN has monthly sales with thousands of games on sale each time. You can buy RE 4 for $19.99 now on PSN, one third the launch price. RE 7 can now be picked up for $7.99 on PSN as well. Neither game is discounted on Steam now either.

Throwing shade at PC for deep discounts?

Who is doing that?

Is literally one of the best parts of PC gaming.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Square Enix would beg to differ.

As long as they blame others, SE will never be happy

 

[NeverYouMind]

Sad comment, Betting on the wrong horse forever?

I live off Sega and Xbox deaths stories

Sega has published more bangers in the last three generations than Sony has in their entire history.

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

In that case you're comparing the sales of 25+ games to a few new releases on console (mainly driven by PS5) for the overall yearly revenue.

As I stated before, PC has a longer tail due to the strengths of the PC platform, which is unparalleled backwards compatibility.

And if all of those Capcom games were console exclusive, then Capcom would be missing out on that 50% yearly income.

Even if the revenue split between a new game released favours console, that doesn't mean a developer or publisher should abandon PC for console exclusivity.

What kind of backwards strategy is that?

In your very select example of a sliver of the market (Silent Hill 2 remake sales in Europe excluding the UK), Silent Hill 2 still sold 22% on PC. What benefit would come from exclusivity there? 22% less sales?

 

[Zathalus]

In that case you're comparing the sales of 25+ games to a few new releases on console (mainly driven by PS5) for the overall yearly revenue.

As I stated before, PC has a longer tail due to the strengths of the PC platform, which is unparalleled backwards compatibility.

As per the report I linked catalog sales are being driven by games that are all available of PS5 and PS4. These games don’t suddenly stop selling on consoles, especially as they are discounted every other month on PSN. Monster Hunter World and Rise were both recently available for $9.99 on PS5/PS4. Resident Evil 7 can be picked up right now for $7.99 on any PS4/5.

You’re also completely ignoring the other data point, namely sales trackers. Half of RE4 sales were on PC. How many points of evidence do you need?

Throwing shade at PC for deep discounts?

Who is doing that?

Is literally one of the best parts of PC gaming.

Literally in a response to my post you previously quoted. Brushing off increased sales on PC as just deep discounts and consoles are where the real money is.

This isn’t 10 years ago anymore. Steam by itself has grown 4-5 fold in that time frame.

 

[nowhat]

Paying your way to success. Sonys way since the ps1 and it's worked.

*cough*Zenimax*cough*ActiBlizzKing*cough*

Oh wait, no success seen so far. I guess you're right.

 

[Woopah]

So the narrative that PS5 exclusivity doesn't hurt games, is countered by a game that sold 28% more copies by not being exclusive.

That doesn't make any sense at all.

 

[Unknown?]

And if all of those Capcom games were console exclusive, then Capcom would be missing out on that 50% yearly income.

Even if the revenue split between a new game released favours console, that doesn't mean a developer or publisher should abandon PC for console exclusivity.

What kind of backwards strategy is that?

In your very select example of a sliver of the market (Silent Hill 2 remake sales in Europe excluding the UK), Silent Hill 2 still sold 22% on PC. What benefit would come from exclusivity there? 22% less sales?

A large portion of that would probably be sold anyway, many gamers have both. They chose PC with the option because it was available.

 

[HeWhoWalks]

Paying your way to success. Sonys way since the ps1 and it's worked.

Just like it’s worked for Nintendo and would have for Xbox if Microsoft weren’t dinguses.

No, Sony were not the “originators” of gaming moneyhats either. This is why research is so critical, because Nintendo and Atari made similar business moves. Why? Of course because it worked.

Microsoft was just too stupid to manage the Xbox business competently and why they are one of two it hasn’t benefited for the hardware long term.

 

[SweetTooth]

Sega has published more bangers in the last three generations than Sony has in their entire history.

That's what you tell yourself and your Sega peers in your safe spaces looking down at Dreamcast grave

Absolute fiction hahaha