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Ratchet PC port estimated cost $2.6M, expected sales 800K ($20M profit), Ports that cost under $30M require just email to Sony to get funding
- Thread starter dex3108
- Start date
Cool, the guy from a crack in time is back, which still imo best ratchet game in terms of gameplay and also some fun planet exploration
History answers all of these questions: inertia and an outdated view of the market. Consoles have been doing exclusive games for close to 40 years now, yet the total number of home consoles has remained stagnant since the early 2000s. Console makers sell more or less by cutting into the sales of their direct competitor and the only ways they have found growth is by more heavily monetizing the existing customer base, doing something completely different (Nintendo going full portable) or expanding beyond console (Microsoft).
The truth that companies are slowly becoming aware of is that the console and PC markets are very different and they largely have their own customer bases. The Playstation 2 had hundreds of exclusives, it captured the zeitgeist and it was ridiculously cheap for much of its shelf life. If that console couldn't drastically expand the 'HD' console sales cap, it is silly to expect it to happen today.
It's important to remember that neither Sony nor Nintendo are omnipotent and they can't predict the future . We all know how Epic's exclusives game has turned out
The biggest news out of this (for me) is learning that a port that demands less than $30 million in cost just needs approval via email. That seems uncharacteristically "open" of Sony, I think?
So if those figures are accurate then just 200,000 sales would have still brought in a few million profit once you've deducted the development costs.
If that's true then it makes a lot of sense for Sony to start pushing most of their titles out to PC as well.
If that's true then it makes a lot of sense for Sony to start pushing most of their titles out to PC as well.
They are pretty much all established first party studios, I don't think Sony would have any fear over letter them manage a sub $30 million project.
Ratchet only cost $2.6 million, so probably most of these PC ports are much lower than the $30 million. If some ports are closer to the limit it would be likely that they are from Sony's biggest and most trusted studios anyway.
Apparently these are sold copies on Steam for Sony games as of February 2023.
Days Gone made a fair chunk of money by the end then. Makes no sequel even more annoying!
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I wasn't necessarily looking at it from a cost viewpoint, but rather the observed "prestige" those games retain by only being available on a PlayStation console. The somewhat unpredictable release schedule for the PC ports led me to believe that the decision-making process hinged on more than whether the job would exceed the $30M budget or not.
So the total amount has remained stagnant despite everything else growing, including pc gaming - a higher population than 20 years ago and far more people who can afford a console now and no growth, while after the early 2000s console exclusives began to decline in a big way.
Eh, the PS2 gen was the last that expanded the core market, the PS2 gen sold ~200m, the gen before did ~140m. And i knew multiple people who owned a PS2 for the sole reason of "games not available on PC", crazy, i know.
The truth is that Ms moved to a software ecosystem and Sony's long term plan is the same, because of the way hardware now limits your walled garden.
It's important to remember that everyone did it like that, Sega and even Ms, the ones who basically owned the PC platform before Steam got big.
How many people would have ever opened the Epic store without exclusive content and free games?
And everyone has failed because of Steam because features trump exclusives on PC apparently
True, because as it's known every Steam game is also on the Epic Store.
If you think exclusives are driving Steam's dominance then I really don't know what to say. Games on PC launch on a variety of storefronts and multiplayer games not on Steam do very well. It's just noboody is going to choose to pay for a version of a game with less features on the same platform for no reason. Framing it otherwise is disingenuous imo
Right, and this is the thing that proves consoles and PCs are different markets: despite consoles having lost 90% of their exclusives since the PS2 generation, the total number of 'HD' consoles sold hasn't declined.
"Hello Herman Hulst,
This is Miyazaki from From Softwsre. AKA your BFF. I would like Bloodborne PC please. Thank you"
To be more more specific, it didn't for the console that isn't doing day 1 PC releases while it did decline for the console doing day one on PC for all first party releases.
Did it though? Microsoft is forecasting flat sales compared to the XB1 generation.
Dear Sony,Apparently these are sold copies on Steam for Sony games as of February 2023.
Why did you even do that Sackboy port instead of literally anything else?
1. All those potential extra buyers from emerging markets to increased populations in the old ones lead to nothing on the console side while PC exploded. If that proved anything it's the total opposite of what you claim.
2. PS2 gen = ~200-210m (DC included or not), PS4 gen = ~175-190m (Wii U included or not), what is this if not a decline?
Steam's dominance is based on Steam's dominance, everybody is now on Steam, including the top pubs of the world. Everybody is entrenched there.
What is disingenuous is acting like people will enter an "empty" Steam copy because of "features".
Everyone remains on Steam becasue of its features. It's that simple. The entrenchment in Steam wasn't enforced by the government or God or anything, there's a reason why Steam flourished and no one else did
Impressive the figure of only $2.6 mil to port, considering all the programming needing to be done, Q&A, etc, and they have learned a lot over the past few years of how to make a fully featured high-tech PC release. Seems like Sony's got a smooth PC tech stack and pipeline with Nixxes nowadays.
Price doesn't help either at $60 for a 2.5 year old game, and considering it's been discounted quite a bit on PS5 already. Idk if most PC gamers are like me, but I will eventually play it when it's like ~$20 or so.
Because it was an Unreal Engine game that was highly likely very easy to port.
They're not, which is why Jim Ryan was so desperate to get Sony's Live Service division off the ground. Even before Jim Ryan, Shawn was talking about the ballooning costs of these AAA cinematic single player games. TLOU2 didn't sell anywhere near as much as 1. What if the next game in the series sells even less? They are walking a tight rope, which is specially concerning since Sony's profit margins are so small nowadays.
This basically sounds like A Crack in Time 2. I'm here for it!
- finally program the Lombax story
- bringing back space exploration
- bigger, more interesting areas to explore?
Lol 800k...they had a lot of faith in it. Its a great looking game but not something pc gamers will die for. Sony games have been very unstable imo. I expected returnal to blow up for how much the audience loves hard games and it barely sold 100k.
The answers are pretty simple for both I feel.
1. The PC gaming market didn't appear out of thin air. PC gaming has always been massive but in a way that was basically invisible to the console industry and the average Gaming Age/NeoGAF poster. Even during the height of the "PC gaming is dead" era, there were multiple successful MMOs and online games, as well as a lot of people pirating PC games all over the world. The PC gaming audience became visible to publishers and the console-focused audience largely thanks to Valve who gave people a convenient way to buy PC games. All of these emerging markets were already PC focused long before the current PC gaming market.
2. Such a small decline can be explained by the fact that modern consoles do not really drop in price that much compared to the PS2. I would be willing to bet that if current consoles ever drop to $99 they will easily close that handicap. But even if your assumption is correct and that 10% or so decline was caused by people switching to PC, taking that hit in sales in order to gain access to another massive market is a no brainer.
For now, however their leaked forecast from the FTC trial shows that they expect flat sales overall. Even if they do end up selling, say, five million less consoles, sales of their games and subscriptions on PC will easily make up for it and then some.
At the rate they are declining internationally, flat would be a very positive outlook considering GP has stalled.
Well, all games have some PC builds considering all games are made on PCs.
I don't think PC gaming was ever invisible. I just think it was harder to make money with how easy it was to pirate software. Once Valve convinced everyone to install DRM and made it conivent, console style PC games became much more viable and has grown until we got to this point.
The Wolverine license agreement slide lists PC as a platform the game will be released on.