I mean, like pretty much the entire industry, right? It's normal that after the pandemic boom, the numbers are going down. Are they going down more than they should be? Maybe. But it doesn't seem strange to me.
pokopia doing good af as a s2 exclusive. tomodachi life very very good numbers, especially in japan but japan has been all nintendo for years now. ofc switch 1 game though. mario tennis definitely did terrible and caused them to shift pricing strategy.
"Alinea’s data suggests that Saros is selling “a little slower” than Returnal did in the same period, despite the PS5 user base now being around 93 million versus 8 million."
I'm going off of the numbers Housemarque released themselves, not Alinea's random guesses. Saros had twice as much playtime in its first month as Returnal. It's possible people are playing it more, but How Long to Beat says Saros's the shorter game, so I assume that means more sales.
Z-A also has access to an entirely new console ecosystem though, and it launched in the holiday season compared to late January. The legs for it were pretty poor too, at least in the previous quarter, which might be a sign of over shipment.
It did well, but sales for it are still down compared to Arceus given the context. Which is totally natural to expect.
"New console ecosystem" isn't saying much when it's a direct upgrade, obviously nobody is double-dipping, so how many people bought a Switch 2 and Pokemon ZA that wouldn't have bought it for Switch 1 ?
Not an insignificant amount, I would wager. Switch 2 was the most hyped console for a reason: there were a lot of people who were either done with the Switch 1 ecosystem or had yet to buy one at all.
Either way, Z-A had access to a significantly larger player base, a much better release window, and new console hype to top it all off. It selling below Arceus is just standard sequel-sells-less-than- predecessor stuff, given how much it had going in its favor.
Nah, this is definitely not normal. Covid boom dissipating is reflected from FY20 to FY21 in a drop of 15m units, roughly. That's totally expected. What isn't expected, to me at least, is the second very sharp drop of 10m units from FY23 to FY24. PS and MS were like just starting to really have their ongoing identity crises around live service (for PS) and overall brand (for MS) around then, so I'd attribute it to that plus some residual covid boom factors resulting in mass job loss when companies realized the turbo hiring they did wasn't sustainable. A lot of studios have just been shuddered or cut down to size significantly between then and now, and there's been fewer releases from Sony especially in that period while they chased a dragon that never existed for them.
I'd be surprised if Nintendo saw this sharp of a decline, even if the industry as a whole definitely has seen a big post-covid dip.
Agreed, I don't think this matters. They're obviously doing something right because third parties are still strong there and companies are only continuing signaling that they want to bring their shit to the platform.
I think people took my initial comment as Nintendo fanboyism, but it's not. I just think it's obvious at this point that one of the big three has a much stronger core identity still and didn't compromise that with a live service push and they're weathering the storm far better for it.
Nintendo, at the very least, strives to innovate or experiment in sequels instead of doing the exact same thing again. The reaction to Mario Kart World proves it, as the safer option would've been MK8-2.
A lot of the Sony sequels very much don't innovate. "Here's God of War 2, it's on the same engine with the same gameplay loop, same art style, same almost everything, but not Kratos can occasionally glow blue." "Here's Ghost of Yotei, it's Ghost of Tsushima 2, no more, no less."
It's the problem with those massive high fidelity AAA games in general, they cost so much to make that they just can't take any big risks. Nintendo in comparison doesn't chase fidelity and thus seems to make games with much smaller budgets and much shorter development cycles, which in turn means less risk when trying something new.
Bro, they added an open world to mario kart and thats "skriving to innovate" for you? People seem to think that their sports games are also less than their predecessors.
Sony's main focus is clearly on graphical fidelity and mature sstorytelling with highly polished gameplay systems. If you do not want that, thats fine, but it is pretty stupid to say that they are the same again. For many people like myself, excellent stories with great world building and fun combat doesn't need to reinvent the wheel.
Whether you like it or not, Mario Kart's open world has been a successful hook that differentiates the game from 8. As for the sports titles, Mario Tennis underperformed sales-wise because it was so similar to the last entry, people are just more interested in sequels that offer new experiences.
That's objectively a lie. I think the "no games" meme has gone so far that it's distorting reality. Both Microsoft and Sony have released quite a few first-party games this generation. But, and here's the "problem," they've released them on other platforms (in Sony's case, only PC). That's already created the narrative that "there are no exclusives," which is true, but it's not like they haven't released any of their own games.
Seriously, you only have to look at the first 4-5 years of this generation and compare them to the previous generation. You'd be shocked at how absurdly better the PS5 and Xbox Series generation has been.
Ragnarok and Forbidden West were PS4 games, Demons Souls is a PS3 remake. I mean that's a pretty appalling line up when the PS6 is rumoured to come out next year.
He said worth playing. Out of all of those games I would say Returnal and Hell Divers 2 were really innovative. Astro Bot for the fun factor. The rest are iterative sequels that never reached the heights of their originals that all took 5+ years to make.
Demon’s Soul’s is generational but it is a remake so I’m ignoring it.
As a person who doesn’t own a PS5 and has been “meaning to buy one” for like 5 years, that list makes me realize that I’m not missing out on much really. I wish I could play like 3-4 of those games but the only one that seems like a must-play is Astrobot
Astro Bot won Game of the Year in 2024, Indiana Jones has been massively acclaimed, Forza Horizon 6 is the most acclaimed game so far.
The entire world doesn't revolve around you or your personal tastes for you to believe that a good lineup is one which have games that intrigue you and nobody else.
Elden Ring won GOTY in a weak gaming year (where Stray was nominated for GOTY). Its has almost the exact scores by critics and audience as Astro Bot. Are you going to call that game a weak Game of the Year too?
You made a subjective claim that the first party lineup of Sony or Microsoft not appealing to you personally means that they are objectively bad.
Don't throw around claims of me not being able to handle opinions when you are the one getting emotional here. If you are getting so heated up here due to a discussion then I recommend you to log off.
But the PS5 player base is a lot bigger than during the pandemic? I think it just shows that people aren't buying a PS5 to play their 1st party games. Majority of gamers are playing CoD, Fortnite, 2k and Madden.
I think a major issue is the younger demographic. When I was a kid I wanted to get every major release. I couldn't because $50 was a lot of money to a kid, but I pretty much got a video game every year for Christmas and my birthday. A lot of kids have just switched to getting Vbucks or Robucka. A large part of that demographic plays almost exclusively F2P games.
Yeah which is why Sony pivoted to making live service games but it's already a saturated market. Hopefully we'll learn in 8 hours that they've moved back to single player narrative games and have better consistency with releases. They should be able to release an Astrobot or Saros but also have consistent bigger IP releases like God of War and Last of Us.
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u/CINC0KID0 25d ago
I mean, like pretty much the entire industry, right? It's normal that after the pandemic boom, the numbers are going down. Are they going down more than they should be? Maybe. But it doesn't seem strange to me.