UK: Death Stranding 2nd Biggest Launch of a New IP in 2019, sells 36% less than Days Gone

Lionel Richie said:
Yeah but the point is that acting like Death Stranding selling poorly was a foregone conclusion is misguided. LM3 outselling DS was FAR from a safe bet at the time, it only looks like that in hindsight because LM3 is crazy popular and DS underperformed like a motherfucker.
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LM3 is tracking to follow the same pattern of SMP in reaching the 10m barrier while Death Stranding is struggling to stay in the sales charts across the globe.

It was already foreshadowed on Amazon yearly charts about LM3 sales is far beyond Death Stranding.
 
It's a really hard sale. I'm around 16 hours in and loving it but I was really reluctant to buy it, even as an MGS fan boy.

I was ttrying to justify liking it to a couple of guys at work and they thought I was crazy.
 
Roufianos said:
It's a really hard sale. I'm around 16 hours in and loving it but I was really reluctant to buy it, even as an MGS fan boy.

I was ttrying to justify liking it to a couple of guys at work and they thought I was crazy.
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It's a weird and unbalanced game. It's no Metal Gear, that's for damn sure.

There are some really interesting ideas going on with some really questionable executions. I don't disagree with any of the middling reviews, not that I care about reviews.
 
Branthrax said:
Kind of sad since it was such a great story. I can see why Kojima is heading towards movies, his art will be appreciated way more in that medium.
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I actually think its the opposite because standards in vidja are pretty low there is a good chance imo he will get laughed out of hollywood/movies after a couple of tries lol
 
Leprech said:
I actually think its the opposite because standards in vidja are pretty low there is a good chance imo he will get laughed out of hollywood/movies after a couple of tries lol
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especially since we got something similar in Neon Genesis Evangelion that did it better.
 
I think the way Death Stranding is selling in some ways may be similar to Yakuza games. It's got a very dedicated fanbase and they all buy the game at launch which results in the sales dropping hard after the first weeks (or, in Yakuza's case, even after the launch week). Personally I'm surprised how many of my PSN friends played the game in the first week and even now I see usually 2-3 people (out of ~70 I have on my friends list) still playing the game.
 
It'll sell 10 million, because Sony is about to bundle It with everything and then give it away on PS+

But I have to say it ranks up there as one of the biggest disappointments ever.
 
UK December DS performance.

Week 49 - No.35
Week 50- No.24 <- Price Cut and protion
Week 51- No. 13 <- Price Cut and Promotion
Week 52- No. 21 <- Price cut and Promotion

January

Week 1 - Not charted in top 40 <- promotion ended.
 
Branthrax said:
Kind of sad since it was such a great story. I can see why Kojima is heading towards movies, his art will be appreciated way more in that medium.
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"Great story". Maybe it had well directed cutscenes but it's far from a great story, even comparing it to videogames standard plots.

xrnzaaas said:
I think the way Death Stranding is selling in some ways may be similar to Yakuza games. It's got a very dedicated fanbase and they all buy the game at launch which results in the sales dropping hard after the first weeks (or, in Yakuza's case, even after the launch week). Personally I'm surprised how many of my PSN friends played the game in the first week and even now I see usually 2-3 people (out of ~70 I have on my friends list) still playing the game.
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Comparing Yakuza games to an Hideo Kojima exclusive Ps4 game funded by Sony after the biggest controversial split in videogame history in recent years and a huge marketing campaign is really unfair.

Death Stranding had everything going for it, it had an absolutely incredible amount of hype surrounding it for all these reasons and yet in the long run it failed.

It failed because despite the Kojima name, the game was judged as not worthy to be played. You know, this is not the Yakuza case where most people don't even know what Yakuza is. In Death Stranding case everyone knew what it was, who directed it, everyone was ready to give it a chance, despite not being a Metal Gear game and yet the word of mouth has been terrible.

By comparison Yakuza games have been slowly increasing in sales only thanks to their quality. They have no name behind them, they have no marketing whatsoever. In this case word of mouth is giving Yakuza more and more relevance. It's quite telling that Yakuza went from almost disappearing in Western market to being dubbed in English and localized in several European languages.
 
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bigol said:
it had 2.3 mln players. So it sold around 2 mln copies. That is extremely disappointing compared to the budget they had to develop the game.
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We dont know anything about the budget.

The team is small and the game was developed in 3 years. There wasnt even a hundred people on the team for the first year of development. It had much smaller budged compared to something like Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon, Last of Us and other Sony exclusives.

So even 2.3 mill can be enough for all we know
 
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Terenty said:
We dont know anything about the budget.

The team is small and the game was developed in 3 years. It had much smaller budged compared to something like Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon, Last of Us and other Sony exclusives.

So even 2.3 mill can be enough for all we know
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2.3m isn't a correct number

Death Stranding marketing budget is AAA tier blockbuster game
 
Detroid: Become Human
10m players and 3m copies sold

Death Stranding
2.3m players and ?? copies sold

You guys need to stop using player stats to measure the sold copies.
 
policestationx said:
Detroid: Become Human
10m players and 3m copies sold

Death Stranding
2.3m players and ?? copies sold

You guys need to stop using player stats to measure the sold copies.
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Well, you need to stop pushing narrative that Death Stranding failed, which isn't. Game surely passed 1 million which is a success for a new IP and a game which isn't for everyone.
 
Terenty said:
We dont know anything about the budget.

The team is small and the game was developed in 3 years. There wasnt even a hundred people on the team for the first year of development. It had much smaller budged compared to something like Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon, Last of Us and other Sony exclusives.

So even 2.3 mill can be enough for all we know
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Death Stranding had a really big marketing push and several expensive actors in the cast. I think it's safe to stay that the overall budget of this project wasn't significantly smaller than Horizon's.

policestationx said:
Detroid: Become Human
10m players and 3m copies sold

Death Stranding
2.3m players and ?? copies sold

You guys need to stop using player stats to measure the sold copies.
Click to expand...

Detroit's playercount spiked when it was added to PS+, before that it was nearly 4 million players. The game was very popular as a rental so around 2.5 million copies would've been a likely estimate.
 
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it_wasn't_me said:
Well, you need to stop pushing narrative that Death Stranding failed, which isn't. Game surely passed 1 million which is a success for a new IP and a game which isn't for everyone.
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Can you prove it passed 1 mil? Or less then 1 % of the customer user base?
 
Kagey K said:
Can you prove it passed 1 mil? Or less then 1 % of the customer user base?
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The Numbers we got so far for top 5 console market countries.

US = November launched amongst top 10 Sony published titles but failed to chart in December.
Japan = 270k as December 2019
Germany = 100k as December 2019
UK = ~100k
Spain = 37k as December 2019
France = ?? Probably the same UK and Germany.

I think by now DS has exceeded 1m units sold through and my estimation for DS shipments is around 2.5m(over shipped). LTD is probably around 3-4m for PS4 sku which is around Fire Emblem 3 Houses lol.
 
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policestationx said:
The Numbers we got so far for top 5 console market countries.

US = November launched amongst top 10 Sony published titles but failed to chart in December.
Japan = 270k as December 2019
Germany = 100k as December 2019
UK = ~100k
Spain = 37k as December 2019
France = ?? Probably the same UK and Germany.

I think by now DS has exceeded 1m units sold through and my estimation for DS shipments is around 2.5m(over shipped). LTD is probably around 3-4m for PS4 sku which is around Fire Emblem 3 Houses lol.
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So less then 5 on launch month equals 10 after 2 months when it shows giant drops in month 2?

I don't think this math works.
 
policestationx said:
A game which isn't for everyone 🤭 do you think Sony will green light such a game to be shipped on the market.
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Yeah! What so funny?, Like Sony shipped Last Guardian ( which was in development for 7 years ), Detroit, Erica, Heavy Rain, Journey and bunch of others which are not for everyone, Xbox fan. Like i've said. Cut the crap.
I'm so glad that Xbone where it is because of people like you.
 
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it_wasn't_me said:
Yeah! What so funny?, Like Sony shipped Last Guardian ( which was in development for 7 years ), Detroit, Erica, Heavy Rain, Journey and bunch of others which are not for everyone, Xbox fan. Like i've said. Cut the crap.
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Maybe there's another word that's more accurate than "isn't for everyone" when it comes to sales of big AAA title from Sony.
 
Kagey K said:
I still haven't seen 1 mil. Waiting for you to answer this.
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(based policestation)

US = November launched amongst top 10 Sony published titles but failed to chart in December.
Japan = 270k as December 2019
Germany = 100k as December 2019
UK = ~100k
Spain = 37k as December 2019
France = ?? Probably the same UK and Germany.

Here are the top 10 best-selling titles (combined physical and digital sales). This is a launch week.

  1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
  2. Death Stranding - NEW
  3. Need for Speed: Heat - NEW
  4. FIFA 20
  5. Luigi's Mansion 3
  6. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games: Tokyo 2020 - NEW
  7. Grand Theft Auto V
  8. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
  9. Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy - NEW
  10. Just Dance 2020 -NEW

The physical charts includes all games in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Digital data includes games sold in Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kuwait, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and UAE.

The GSD charts includes games from Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Codemasters, EA, Focus Home Interactive, Koch Media, Microsoft, Milestone, Paradox, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Ubisoft and Warner Bros.


Surely passed 1 million across the globe. I'll bet on account. Surely game did well for a new IP.
 
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I really, really didnt like the game.
Its basically everything that has ever been wrong about open world games, every flaw, every tedious quest, all the non intuitive and information overload UI and menues, all the "extra" gameplay systems that only exist so you have something... anything to do.. even if it is arteficial busywork of the most obvious kind.
So to me death stranding getting awards and or being a possible influence on future games would be baaad so i am kinda glad it wasnt the big breakout hit.
 
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policestationx said:
Maybe there's another word that's more accurate than "isn't for everyone" when it comes to sales of big AAA title from Sony.
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It is called great support from a first party console manufacturer that is not afraid to take risks and bring new untested creative and sometimes niche ideas to market and make the platform offering more diverse ;), isn't it?
 
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Leprech said:
I really, really didnt like the game.
Its basically everything that has ever been wrong about open world games, every flaw, every tedious quest, all the non intuitive and information overload UI and menues, all the "extra" gameplay systems that only exist so you have something... anything to do.. even if it is arteficial busywork of the most obvious kind.
So to me death stranding getting awards and or being a possible influence on future games would be baaad so i am kinda glad it wasnt the big breakout hit.
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This game is the pinnacle of opposites

People either hate it with a pure passion or they love it with a pure passion
The things you hated I absolutely LOVED. The open world design was so amazing. Actually having to pay attention where you walk. ITs not just hold forward and just run true the map to your next location. I was playing the witcher and basicaly all I did was just run from point A to point B to complete quests. I loved the difference in death stranding where getting from point A to point B was the whole game and it was so brialliantly done. So many gameplay elements,

I do think this game was a sales failure and it mostly had to do with the E3 trailer. The official trailer had 6 million views and it basically created the whole walking simulator meme. Even though I did most of my quests on a bike or rushing over highways with some parts walking. And it really aint that extreme as the memes made it out to be. breath of the wild is way more a walking sim lol. Just running around over open spaces alot.
 
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Leprech said:
I really, really didnt like the game.
Its basically everything that has ever been wrong about open world games, every flaw, every tedious quest, all the non intuitive and information overload UI and menues, all the "extra" gameplay systems that only exist so you have something... anything to do.. even if it is arteficial busywork of the most obvious kind.
So to me death stranding getting awards and or being a possible influence on future games would be baaad so i am kinda glad it wasnt the big breakout hit.
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imsosleepy said:
This game is the pinnacle of opposites

People either hate it with a pure passion or they love it with a pure passion
The things you hated I absolutely LOVED. The open world design was so amazing. Actually having to pay attention where you walk. ITs not just hold forward and just run true the map to your next location. I was playing the witcher and basicaly all I did was just run from point A to point B to complete quests. I loved the difference in death stranding where getting from point A to point B was the whole game and it was so brialliantly done. So many gameplay elements,

I do think this game was a sales failure and it mostly had to do with the E3 trailer. The official trailer had 6 million views and it basically created the whole walking simulator meme. Even though I did most of my quests on a bike or rushing over highways with some parts walking. And it really aint that extreme as the memes made it out to be. breath of the wild is way more a walking sim lol. Just running around over open spaces alot.
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This is what's so insane about the game. I find that I agree with both posts, despite them being polar opposites. There are times when the game shows something brilliant and other times where I wonder if maybe Kojima has the George Lucas thing going on where his underlings were too afraid to tell him about massive issues that do not work.

I'm still calling it a pretty cool game, but it's like looking at a coworker's baby pictures - to them, every picture is the most precious and incredible moment to have ever existed in the history of mankind. And to you, every now and then the hat looks cute, but overall, it's just a bunch of pictures of a chubby sack of shit.
 
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