PlayStation Reveals PC Sales for God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Days Gone - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 25 May 2022 / 15,818 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan in a slideshow focused on PlayStation has revealed the sales for the PC versions of games that originally released on the PlayStation 4.
Horizon: Zero Dawn has sold 2,398,000 on PC in about a year and a half, while God Of War (2018) has sold 971,000 units on PC in just two and a half months and Days Gone has sold 852,000 units on PC in about 10 months. The figures are as of March 2022.
Horizon: Zero Dawn has generated $60 million revenue, God of War (2018) generated $26.2 million revenue, and Days Gone generated $22.6 million in revenue.
God Of War (2018) released for the PlayStation 4 in April 2018 and for PC in January 2022. Horizon: Zero Dawn first released for the PlayStation 4 in February 2017 and was later released for PC in August 2020. Days Gone released for the PlayStation 4 in April 2019 and for PC in May 2021.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Hey! These are some good numbers for "old" games.
This seems like a fine middle point. Release first on Playstation (so you dont devalue the machine), and then down the line, give non-system owners (PC users) a chance to play the games. Seems sales are fine, going this route.
PC ports don't devalue the machines. Xbox consoles are selling better than ever and they also have day one releases for all 1st party games on PC.
Pretty good for a second wind
This is good, might sell my PS5, get myself a GPU upgrade and that's it, PC and switch.
Days gone is so underrated,
It was rough around the edges day one but it was so much fun to play I platinumed the hell out of it!
The sales were good and the pc sales are pretty good too so I don't know why it's such a disappointment sales wise,
On the other hand death stranding sales was disappointing but now we have rumors of a 2nd one being made so I don't know watsap with dat
I have two thoughts:
1) Solid numbers, extra revenue.
2) PC gamers don't really give a shit about Sony style games.
When compared to the sales on console this is minimal. Doesn't seem to justify day one or anything that could negatively impact their core business.
Well, is it any surprise the sales aren't that great when the PC release comes years later? Personally I think these are pretty decent numbers for such late releases.
Tomb Raider had a release on PS4 a lot later than Xbox, also several games had a release on PS3 long after X360 and still sold much better than on original platform. Here we are seeing like 10% of the sales (possible that even on PS4 that already had been selling for a long time or on PS5 that would be double dip the sales weren't much lower than the sales on PC where it was showing for the first time and with a lot more improvements. GTA V is an ancient game and still charting at the top in recent months).
PlayStation and Xbox owners probably have less overlap than PC and console owners, if I had to guess. I know I don't have both a PlayStation and an Xbox, but I do have a PC and a console. In a case like this, the chances are that most people that are interested have already got the game(s) on consoles, whereas in the PS/Xbox case, there might be a higher barrier to getting the game earlier (you'd have to buy a console you might not have yet). At least that's what I think explains this (for the most part).
Sure could be very much the case (although PC-centric users swear it is the opposite, and that Sony releasing day and date console and PC wouldn't impact console sales of HW or SW at all, it would just sell more on PC). But still it is an upgraded version of the game. TLOU and some other titles that got remasters from PS3 to PS4 like 6-12 months after saw majority of sales on the new platform. So similarly the games releasing on PC with all the upgrades should have seem a much bigger uptick.
I don't really want to go to what PC folks say or don't say, because the whole issue is fairly nuanced. Even what I said in my previous comment probably isn't the whole truth, although I suspect it is the main reason. I just find it difficult to believe these sales wouldn't have been significantly better had the releases been closes to their console counterparts.
No doubt it could be significantly better, but to the point where PC having twice or more instal base would have 50% of the sales? I think that would be very hard (even titles that are day and date seems like PS and even Xbox usually outsold the PC version) so for titles that have a strong "bias"for sony system I don't think it would be like more than maybe 25% of total sales (similar to how several titles that launched on PS3 and 360 had the bulk of sales on PS3 even when it had less consoles sold).
Keep in mind that the PC has a deluge of games.
Anyone who is jumping into the PC market for the first time will have the largest games catalogue of any platform... Steam alone has 50,361 titles in it's database to buy from.
Which also means there is more competition for your dollar.
The PC has it's own AAA developers, Microsoft is releasing games on release day on PC, it's an extremely competitive market... So unlike a console, AAA titles don't exist in a vacuum.
Plus, Sony is releasing it's titles after a fairly lengthy wait, once all the hype has died down, which also doesn't help sales as the release doesn't get to ride on the back of extensive advertising.
Many of Sony's games whilst amazing experiences, just haven't been the highest quality of ports either, they are getting better though as time goes on and they get more experience with the platform.
The other aspect is... PC Gamers tend to like different genre's of games that appeal to console gamers... MOBA's are absolutely massive for example.
PC games also have stupidly long legs, it's not unusual to have a game that is 10+ years old go on sale in Steam and in-turn hit the top of the sales charts and see big upswings in multiplayer population.
I am sure Sony is watching with a keen eye and will make some appropriate adjustments going forward that benefits their business model.
All fair points.
But let's say your first point kinda clashes with the third since most of those titles would be old.
On the titles being old have GTA V had issues to sell on PC being late port even on the PS360 gen? Or the fact that GTA V (or even the remasters for the San Andreas line) selling so well on the third gen in a row with so much time since original launched? Or as I put several titles that had 1 year exclusivity to X360 but easily outsold Xbox versions when launched on PS3 (a lot without significant improvements, some even worse version, and sure some with year edition).
I have also hear throw on the site all the time that "the title is new release for the platform".
On the quality of the ports I can't discuss much since I haven't played them, some were applauded by Digital Foundry others had their issues.
Your long legs also kinda deny the problem of the title being old (and a lot of those legs come from well humble bundles and similar deep discounted steam offers, etc).
On different genres I certainly agree, there will be games that will do better on PC than on console and vice-versa.
All in all this come back to my initial comment that likely the improved sales on PC with day and date may not ensure potential sale loses from their console space (unless of course they decide to go to the same route of MS and the console being just another device, which they say they aren't going they still believe in consoles and exclusives they are just expanding their market options). Similar to the argument on GP, sure putting a game on GP after 2 years can rekindle sales and give a boost to revenue to publisher (even more if it have DLC, MTX, MP, etc), but no one can really say that day and date on GP makes the title sell more than with only regular sale at first.
Pretty sure 7th gen GTA5 outsold the PC initially, but PC games have longer legs, so it just keeps on selling whilst the 7th gen consoles depreciated in favor of 8th gen.
Different games have different things working for and against them.
That is very much true. My point was just that being older in one platform doesn't make the game stop selling when ported to another one even more when there is great improvements made (but as you pointed in some cases the ports weren't that well made). So it comes more to the point of at the moment there doesn't seem to be a market strong enough to justify day and date (but sure can be in the future).
When is it going to justify D&D though?.
I ask this because while you are trying to use past definitive data, I'm asking for definitive data on when it's going to be possible, instead of "who knows?".
Sony seem very happy, they are changing things up as they go, which is exactly what MS did with their millionth approach to PC gaming, and so far the signs for Sony's approach are mirroring what MS did last gen.
it starts to become more a matter of when than if.
Again, I fail to see why D&D has to be refuted on here, because none of us here run the business, none of us have a stake in it (shares mean very little when you're not the one making all the decisions for the company, anyone should know this by now).
Also 7th gen is gone by now, replaced by 8th and now 9th, while PC has been going on and on and on, so it kinda defeats the point of stacking a finite point of sales vs a platform that can still generate more sales for years to come.
It's like comparing a big definitive number vs a number that is still constantly generating itself.
This is 10 months data, combined with the fact that some of these games are already years old.
I really don't understand why D&D is a super touchy subject on here, why does it honestly mald some ppl on here that going that route is the finite point of business?.
The ones that considered Days Gone disappointed and rejected the sequel proposition was the studio leadership itself.
