Sony Expects to Make $300M From Its PC Releases, But How? Does The Strategy Of ‘Recycling’ Playstation Games On PC Work? – Sony Group (NYSE:SONY) | Biden News

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By Flor Orsetti

Re-releases of first-party PlayStation titles on PC climbed the rankings until “Uncharted” and “Sackboy” arrived. what happened

PC gamers, especially PC users, will know this Sony SONYPlayStation has been spoiling them with several re-releases of previously exclusive high-profile titles, for quite some time.

Rinse And Repeat

Games like “Horizon Zero Dawn”, “God of War” and the most recent “Marvel’s Spider-Man” turned out to be successful, remaining among the best sellers on the Steam platform for a considerable time. In fact, “God of War”, held the first place for several consecutive weeks, beating new releases such as “Elden Ring” and “Monster Hunter Rise”.

The most striking thing about the relaunch of these exclusive games is that they managed to rise again in the general sales rankings, many of them even entering the top 10 charts, as when they were released on their respective consoles.

This is summarized by journalist Stephen Totilo from the American financial shop Axios on Twittershowing how “Days Gone” and “God of War” climbed the US rankings after PC gamers got their hands on them.

“God of War” went from position 146 to number 5, and “Days Gone from” 247 to 20 after their re-issues. It makes perfect sense: Sony makes its games double the top sellers. First, they launch with a temporary exclusivity of a few years on its consoles, and then they jump to PC, re-releasing the game.

However, this successful trend did not continue with the most recent releases.

Some You Win, Some You Lose

“Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Edition” peaked at 10,851 players in its launch week in mid-October. And while it’s not bad, it’s barely a quarter of what its best-selling counterparts achieved.

While this lackluster performance was still talked about, things got even more complicated with “Sackboy: Big Adventure,” which quickly became the worst release to date, with a disappointing peak of 610 concurrent players on Steam in its first week.

Unlike consoles and other computer stores, Valve makes public data about concurrent Steam players, as well as estimated sales and other metrics for each game, which are very interesting for measuring the success of a given title.

The page that collects them is SteamDB, where each game has its own file, as can be seen here as well as “Sackboy”, and from which you can get the following numbers:

  • “God of War” – 73,529 (January 2022)

  • “Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered” – 66,436 (Aug 2022)

  • “Horizon Zero Dawn” – 56,557 (August 2020)

  • “Days Gone” – 27,450 (May 2021)

  • “Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves’ Collection” – 10,851 (October 2022)

  • “Sackboy: Big Adventure” – 610 (Oct 2022)

In addition to externals, such as “Cyberpunk 2077”, which, in 2021, obtained a second boost after the announcement of the Netflix NASDAQ series, those concurrent player records are rarely broken after launch week. Therefore, the situation of the last two games is worrying, especially that of “Sackboy”.

Timing Is Everything

So what happened to the king of thieves and our “favorite ragdoll” who couldn’t even catch up to “Spider-Man” and “Kratos”?

Both were announced a little more than a month in advance, in contrast to “God of War” and “Spider-Man”, for example, which were confirmed as releases months earlier. In fact, “Kratos” even had its own space in the State of Play, a video program that shows the latest news, announcements, and trailers from the world of PlayStation. However, even this acceleration could not move the expected numbers.

“Sackboy,” meanwhile, didn’t even get a post on the official PlayStation Blog.

It is clear that the Sony console did not release these two games for PC with the usual fanfare. In fact, the company decided to release them without much marketing in the most release-heavy season of the year.

It is understandable that Sony is not devoting many resources to these releases, with the company currently focused on “God of War: Ragnarok”. However, it is still striking that they are dropping on Steam right when all gamers are saving their budget for full price games like the one mentioned above. “Ragnarok”, “Call of Duty”, “Bayonetta 3”, among others.

Then there is the particular situation of each. “Sackboy” is a colorful platformer, super adorable; one to play with family or friends. As such, it strikes a chord with PlayStation and Nintendo NTDOY audiences. The genre, however, is not particularly popular on PC.
On the other hand, “Uncharted” is a collection that includes a fourth installment and an expansion pack. It is to be expected that there will be people who do not want to buy this edition knowing that they do not have the initial trilogy to enjoy.

The 300 Million Dollars As A Goal

Much more could be theorized about this, but the facts are clear: PlayStation has two blemishes on its impeccable PC handheld gaming history.

The next release, “Spider-Man Miles Morales,” is scheduled for November 18. Much more is expected from this title after the success of the first of the saga, published in August. In addition, the game is launched in partnership with Disney DIST‘s Marvel, which is a bestseller everywhere.

The arrival of “Returnal” on Steam was also filtered, a roguelike that had modest sales success when it came out while the PS5 was still facing the worst of its stocking problems. The focus on difficulty and the souls alike style, make it a more consuming PC game, but nothing will be said and done until it is officially released.

According to its latest financial report, Sony expects to make $300 million from its PC releases during the new fiscal year ending March 31, 2023. That’s a significant increase from the $80 million and $35 million they expected for the two previous years.

In a few months we will find out if the expectations have been met. If they aren’t, Sony may still have an ace up its sleeve. Will it be “Bloodborne”?

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Photo: Courtesy Of El Planteo



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