Returnal's peak player count is 5642 on Steam!

Are we surprised? For as much as people talk about the PC crowd loving Roguelikes, that is this games weakest aspect. It's like a Roguelike lite.

Even past that most PC Roguelikes don't release 2 years later, at full price. PC gamers also aren't slavishly devoted to the "premium" brand nonsense and don't really care that it's a Sony game. This should have been a $30 release if they wanted to move units.
 
I love this game, but I do kinda agree that maybe it shouldn't be $60. It just isn't AAA in the way most other Sony games are. Or maybe it is AAA, but not AAAA.
 
Clear said:
... And make no mistake, it is very much a secondary market/revenue stream.

Launching a game on Playstation is way more valuable to Sony per unit sold than selling on PC...
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And PC gamers will continue to treat Sony's PC releases accordingly.
 
Gameplay Gods Bless said:
PS5 players paid 70 bucks tho
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Because they've convinced themselves that paying more is a positive thing. Paying $70 for a Playstation game is a badge of honor for a lot of people. They've bought in to the "premium " nonsense and think it's real.

It's like back in the 70's when Chrysler had Ricardo Montalban doing "rich Corinthian leather" ads and pretending it was a luxury, better quality type of leather. Not only was it not imported, premium leather, it was just regular leather made in New Jersey, but people still bought into it.

Anyway, this never should have been a $70 game...on any platform.
 
RafterXL said:
Because they've convinced themselves that paying more is a positive thing. Paying $70 for a Playstation game is a badge of honor for a lot of people. They've bought in to the "premium " nonsense and think it's real.

It's like back in the 70's when Chrysler had Ricardo Montalban doing "rich Corinthian leather" ads and pretending it was a luxury, better quality type of leather. Not only was it not imported, premium leather, it was just regular leather made in New Jersey, but people still bought into it.

Anyway, this never should have been a $70 game...on any platform.
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I paid $70 for it when it first came out and no regrets at all. Best game to come out this gen outside of GoW:R for me. I can understand the PC crowd not paying 60 though. It's a 2 year old game.
 
TintoConCasera said:
That makes sense but the fanboy rage would be too much to handle.
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Fanboys cry about lots of things but is avoiding fanboy rage more important than selling more games?

To me it's a shame that what imo is Sony's best game in years has only sold like 1 million copies. And I can guarantee that it would've sold more if it was on Steam when core gamers were talking about it and saying it was their GOTY. Leaving money on the table is such a boring thing to say but I 100% think that's what they're doing with these late ports. Has a late release ever been able to sell like a day 1 release?
 
If they went PC day and date with PS5 I am willing to bet they got millions in Steam sales much faster. The hype for this game has died down, there has been minimal marketing, and the price is pretty high for a couple year old game.
 
TintoConCasera said:
That makes sense but the fanboy rage would be too much to handle.
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Just wait for the slew of GAAS games coming from Sony which will likely be day one on PC. I think the execs even hinted at that last year in articles (but I might be wrong).

Casual fan warriors who dont follow all the gaming news on the net probably dont even know Sony is focusing on lots of GAAS games the next few years, and dont know PC is a big focus for those games.

So for them, when Sony announces day one launch for whatever GAAS shooters they come out with it'll be like the apocalypse.
 
Now it's ready for the PC players


gQo7moD.png
 
ZehDon said:
And PC gamers will continue to treat Sony's PC releases accordingly.
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That's a really petty attitude given that the quality of the titles they offer.

But whatever. Don't support them and they'll slow or suspend their ports; its not like they need the PC market to stay afloat.
 
Well it's a old game and they did not advertise it much, I think the 2nd tier games like this will be released day one on pc in the future,
 
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hyperbertha said:
Which are these games and where can I buy them?
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Imma help you out. You can get Metroid Shine Remastered on the Nintendo Switch for 40 Wario Bucks and you can pay 60 or 70 Galleons for Hogwarts Adventures for PC/XBX/PS5. PS4/Xbox One and Switch versions coming later this year too!!

You can either get lost in Hogwarts and the surrounding landscape waving your magic stick or explore Tallon IV in much shinier environments in a very polished Power Suit and a much cleaner visor.
 
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Chukhopops said:
Reminds me of the time people said this game would become super popular after being added to PS+ lmao.

Time to face it, it's really close to being good but it misses the mark and it seems there's no more patch or support coming.

Maybe it will work in a « 10 Tera-FLOPS bundle» with Sackboy, Dreams, Gravity Rush and 6 others.

Also get RoR 2 if you want a good roguelite TPS:
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Returnal is infinitely better than Risk of Rain 2, this must be a joke.
 
tmlDan said:
Returnal is infinitely better than Risk of Rain 2, this must be a joke.
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As a roguelike? Absolutely not, in fact that's the main issue with Returnal, every run feels the same since there's no character variety, build variety or general variation in the gameplay loop.

The only thing it does better is graphics - the least important thing in a roguelike.

And it seems the numbers speak for themselves since RoR 2 sold magnitudes more.
 
Clear said:
That's a really petty attitude given that the quality of the titles they offer.

But whatever. Don't support them and they'll slow or suspend their ports; its not like they need the PC market to stay afloat.
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This is borderline fanboy rhetoric. You said Sony views the PC Market as secondary, so, the market will simply treat Sony's releases as the B-tier releases that Sony presents them as.

And Sony's shareholders won't let them drop PC now that Sony's followed Microsoft's lead. Give up the "gravy", as you put it? The shareholders would out Jim Ryan for leaving money on the table. The cat's out of the bag now.
 
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For pc players playing this for the 1st time the dash move not only helps you dodge projectiles, you can also use it to dash through projectiles without receiving dmg.
 
Chukhopops said:
As a roguelike? Absolutely not, in fact that's the main issue with Returnal, every run feels the same since there's no character variety, build variety or general variation in the gameplay loop.

The only thing it does better is graphics - the least important thing in a roguelike.

And it seems the numbers speak for themselves since RoR 2 sold magnitudes more.
Click to expand...
"as a roguelike" is so outdated, no game needs to be stuck in a genre that's just old fashioned thinking.

It's not just its graphics, its movement, fideltiy, immersion, its shooting. Yea, roguelike elements could be called better but games are more than its genre. If you like sticking to genres it leads to boring samey games that are rampant on PC.

For a game that cheap i expect way more than 4 million in sales, pretty disappointing in fact considering its published by gearbox.
 
Returnal is such an interesting mix of genres its like if contra, metroid and a roguelite had a baby. One thing that cant be disputed is the gameplay and controls are on point.
 
tmlDan said:
"as a roguelike" is so outdated, no game needs to be stuck in a genre that's just old fashioned thinking.

It's not just its graphics, its movement, fideltiy, immersion, its shooting. Yea, roguelike elements could be called better but games are more than its genre. If you like sticking to genres it leads to boring samey games that are rampant on PC.

For a game that cheap i expect way more than 4 million in sales, pretty disappointing in fact considering it's published by gearbox.
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No build variety? How can you say that? Have you beaten the game? Every run is different based on what weapon you pickup, what traits it happens to have, which artifacts you pick up. You can go for a high damage, glass build or prioritize low damage high defense. There are a lot of way to min/max your stats in this game which do definitely affect gameplay.
 
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tmlDan said:
"as a roguelike" is so outdated, no game needs to be stuck in a genre that's just old fashioned thinking.

It's not just its graphics, its movement, fideltiy, immersion, its shooting. Yea, roguelike elements could be called better but games are more than its genre. If you like sticking to genres it leads to boring samey games that are rampant on PC.

For a game that cheap i expect way more than 4 million in sales, pretty disappointing in fact considering its published by gearbox.
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I doubt Returnal will ever sell 4 million even when it's 60% off every sale like Days Gone is. It's crazy to expect every indie to sell millions just because they are cheaper.

Even in Returnal reviews the weak roguelike aspects were criticized, and honestly the dev could have fixed it over the last two years: there could have been different suits for Selene modifying the gameplay, more item variety, enemy variety, etc. Other roguelikes have done it with way less budget and time.

Anyway, matter of opinion in the end. I can play Isaac for 600 hours and still discover new synergies while I felt I had seen everything Returnal had to offer after 15.
 
Returnal is expensive and I there are other games that I would rather play before it. Im stuck deciding between RGG:I, KSP2, and Hogwarts this month alone. Returnal isn't an event like it was for console gamers. The genre is saturated with excellent roguelikes for a fraction of the price. I'll play it eventually when it goes on sale.
 
Sony hasn't yet realized that the reason their 2-3 year late last-gen ports did reasonably well was because PS4/Xbone ran them like absolute dog shit and they were a relative novelty to the PC audience with even garbage hardware being able to significantly outperform the console versions. Today, a $400 PS5 runs most games just fine, and very few people have GPU's that can appreciably outperform a PS5 thanks to Uncle Jensen and Niecey Su colluding on GPU prices fixing.
 
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Not surprising, the game design sucks. I gave up after biome 2, my time is too important to endlessly repeat sections. Shame because the core combat loop is amazing.
 
One of the few games by Sony with some actual gameplay and design in it and deserves all the success it can. They should port on some Nintendo consoles for consideration at this point 😂👍
 
Reallink said:
Sony hasn't yet realized that the reason their 2-3 year late last-gen ports did reasonably well was because PS4/Xbone ran them like absolute dog shit and they were a relative novelty to the PC audience with even garbage hardware being able to significantly outperform the console versions. Today, a $400 PS5 runs most games just fine, and very few people have GPU's that can appreciably outperform a PS5 thanks to Uncle Jensen and Niecey Su colluding on GPU prices fixing.
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I highly doubt on medium settings that Returnal is more demanding than Days Gone. Both UE4 titles.
Yes it might be PS5 only but thats more a marketing choice. It's crossgen.
 
GrayChild said:
The game has remained consistently in Steam's top sellers over the past few days:

sEs4156.png


And that's not even counting the EGS sales.

Also, let's not forget that Returnal sold only 560,000 copies on PS5 during its first 3 months:

https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...ole-in-Sony-Interactive-Entertainment-History

I know a lot of fanboys are very salty that PC players can also try Returnal now, but:

1. The game is still going good.
2. Sony's PC ports are not going anywhere.
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Lol what egs sales 🤣
 
Chukhopops said:
I doubt Returnal will ever sell 4 million even when it's 60% off every sale like Days Gone is. It's crazy to expect every indie to sell millions just because they are cheaper.

Even in Returnal reviews the weak roguelike aspects were criticized, and honestly the dev could have fixed it over the last two years: there could have been different suits for Selene modifying the gameplay, more item variety, enemy variety, etc. Other roguelikes have done it with way less budget and time.

Anyway, matter of opinion in the end. I can play Isaac for 600 hours and still discover new synergies while I felt I had seen everything Returnal had to offer after 15.
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You objectively have seen nothing within playing 15 hours. It takes ages to level up all weapon traits.

A weapon with 3 fully upgraded traits feels like the bfg on steroids. They make the starting guns feel pee shooters
 
RafterXL said:
Are we surprised? For as much as people talk about the PC crowd loving Roguelikes, that is this games weakest aspect. It's like a Roguelike lite.

Even past that most PC Roguelikes don't release 2 years later, at full price. PC gamers also aren't slavishly devoted to the "premium" brand nonsense and don't really care that it's a Sony game. This should have been a $30 release if they wanted to move units.
Click to expand...
It's not a matter of being lite, it's just bad.

The game would have been much better as a normal tps, and i love roguelites...
 
RafterXL said:
Are we surprised? For as much as people talk about the PC crowd loving Roguelikes, that is this games weakest aspect. It's like a Roguelike lite.

Even past that most PC Roguelikes don't release 2 years later, at full price. PC gamers also aren't slavishly devoted to the "premium" brand nonsense and don't really care that it's a Sony game. This should have been a $30 release if they wanted to move units.
Click to expand...
It effectively released 2years late on PS5 too, going by the technical roots of the game being an UE4 game on PS4 Pro - compare to DeathStranding/Jedi:Fallen Order - but despite that, there's a lot of impressive/expensive middleware being licensed in the game that makes the gameplay loop very addictive IMO, and the day 1 price tag on PS5 and on PC directly relates to that middleware mouth to feed.

I still need to go back and buy a copy, as I only borrowed from a friend for a few weeks, and it wasn't an easy game to schedule playing - late night only, kids in bed - and without making saveable progress was soul destroying and great fun, but I never questioned if the game (gameloop) was worth the asking price. Games this good deserve to make a ROI IMHO, if that isn't the way PC gamers see it, then they probably don't deserve such ports - although I would sign any petition to bring back demos to PC/console as this game really needs a demo that ends at the beginning of the first boss battle to let gamers feel the gameloop before outlaying.
 
Mr.Phoenix said:
Great game, but this comes down to the ridiculousness of the current game pricing scheme. Once you start telling people to pay $70 for a game, they are going to start looking at every purchase with more scrutiny. $70 is just past the impulse buy price for games (which I believe is actually $50). This game would probably have sod 10 times more if it was priced at $40.

Right now, I believe only the absolute best of the best games can command a $70 price.
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I agree, I'll happily pay €70 for an eighty hour (J)RPG but anything else I'll wait for discount.
 
Its a stupid idea to release PS5 games yet on PC. Release all PS4 ones first. There's a much larger market right there due to the lower barrier of entry. I am sure stuff like ghosts of Tsushima or infamous second son Would have sold much better.

Besides, dumbasses already know which 2 games they gave to release if they want BIG sales. But they are so clueless they may port destruction all stars next.

Also, pretty sure lots of PC gamers already pre ordered TLOU remake over returnal.
 
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