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Bloodborne sold through more than 1 million units worldwide as of April 5

since when do we count bundles in as software sales? is that something that we normally do?

yes, yes it is. NPD doesn't, but in the broader discussion, lifetime sales includes multiple SKUs and bundles.

it really disrupts the revenue flow. it increases the install base of the game, yes, it's great for marketing sequels and monetizing ARPU, but for terms of sales and revenue which is usually what we're discussing in sales threads, I tend to consider them separate SKUs. because they are separate SKUs.

I'm not aware of any official sales figures that break down game sales "by sku." you think the official sales figures of 17 million for the Uncharted Series doesn't include multiple SKUs, GOTY editions, Greatest Hits Editions, multipacks, and bundled units? that would certainly be something- but extremely unlikely for Sony to do when announcing "official" sales for Flagship series.

I doubt "free" copies given away via PS+ find their way into such numbers, but everything else is fair game, really.
 
"The game won't sell well! It's too niche!"

"What? It broke a million? I-I'm sure lots of people will return it once they find out how difficult it is!"

"70% of players beat the first boss? Well, it's still not real blockbuster numbers!"

Seriously, ever since the early threads about BB sales numbers, there has been this weird undercurrent of denial that the Souls games have achieved a level of mainstream popularity. Time to face the facts guys, you're no longer a member of a special, exclusive club for liking Souls. A hella lot of people do now.
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
yes, yes it is. NPD doesn't, but in the broader discussion, lifetime sales includes multiple SKUs and bundles.



I'm not aware of any official sales figures that break down game sales "by sku." you think the official sales figures of 17 million for the Uncharted Series doesn't include multiple SKUs, GOTY editions, Greatest Hits Editions, multipacks, and bundled units? that would certainly be something- but extremely unlikely for Sony to do when announcing "official" sales for Flagship series.

I doubt "free" copies given away via PS+ find their way into such numbers, but everything else is fair game, really.

my perspective is different in that yes, I do have official sales figures broken out by SKU. also estimated revenue by country ::shrug::

Like I said, i bet someone NPD would be 450k in U.S debut. I'd love to be wrong. most industry friends of mine were predicting lower. If it's higher, I'll be stoked.

either way, huge win for them.

do i think they'll sell thru 3 MM units world wide? I'll be shocked and super surprised.
But I'm all for being surprised. I'm a fan, and been a fan of their work since king's field for psx in the U.S. I'm also logical and grounded in reality haha.
 
"The game won't sell well! It's too niche!"

"What? It broke a million? I-I'm sure lots of people will return it once they find out how difficult it is!"

"70% of players beat the first boss? Well, it's still not real blockbuster numbers!"

Seriously, ever since the early threads about BB sales numbers, there has been this weird undercurrent of denial that the Souls games have achieved a level of mainstream popularity. Time to face the facts guys, you're no longer a member of a special, exclusive club for liking Souls. A hella lot of people do now.

can't disagree with this. It's definitely a "core" game now, though I wouldn't say it's truly a mass market title. It's not going to be putting up Halo, Mario, or Gran Turismo numbers.

The difficulty I think is overstated as well. it's not easy, but once upon a time ALL games would bust your balls like this. Getting a "game over" a dozen times a stage in the 8 or 16 bit era was nothing.

my perspective is different in that yes, I do have official sales figures broken out by SKU. also estimated revenue by country ::shrug::

Like I said, i bet someone NPD would be 450k in U.S debut. I'd love to be wrong. most industry friends of mine were predicting lower. If it's higher, I'll be stoked.

either way, huge win for them.

do i think they'll sell thru 3 MM units world wide? I'll be shocked and super surprised.
But I'm all for being surprised. I'm a fan, and been a fan of their work since king's field for psx in the U.S. I'm also logical and grounded in reality haha.

I actually think 450K NPD is on the high side- there was definitely a supply shortage and Sony undershipped it. A higher percentage of the week 1 sales are going to be digital than usual I think and not reflected.

but 3MM worldwide? Even if they didn't bundle the game it should sleepwalk to that number. You have to REALLY try to find a PS3 exclusive with any kind of budget that failed to hit the 2-3 million sales level. What do you really have in that tier? Heavenly Sword? KillZone 3? Puppeteer? MAG? Lair?

were any of those games anywhere close to throwing up 1+ million copies in 12 days?
 
Souls / Bloodborne is like the navy seals training

" 80% of you will not pass this course!!' "

It is the challenge that brings the elite to the class but only the strongest making it all the way through. But even if you fail, everyone takes something away from it and most will come back the next time around to try again
 

Replicant

Member
it's called BloodBorne OST - Cleric Beast


Edit: oops yeah I just realized it's different at the end.

Ah yes, I remember halfway through the Cleric Beast fight I heard the first half of this song. I wonder what the 2nd half of the song is called....
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
can't disagree with this. It's definitely a "core" game now, though I wouldn't say it's truly a mass market title. It's not going to be putting up Halo, Mario, or Gran Turismo numbers.

The difficulty I think is overstated as well. it's not easy, but once upon a time ALL games would bust your balls like this. Getting a "game over" a dozen times a stage in the 8 or 16 bit era was nothing.



I actually think 450K NPD is on the high side- there was definitely a supply shortage and Sony undershipped it. A higher percentage of the week 1 sales are going to be digital than usual I think and not reflected.

but 3MM worldwide? Even if they didn't bundle the game it should sleepwalk to that number. You have to REALLY try to find a PS3 exclusive with any kind of budget that failed to hit the 2-3 million sales level. What do you really have in that tier? Heavenly Sword? KillZone 3? Puppeteer? MAG? Lair?

were any of those games anywhere close to throwing up 1+ million copies in 12 days?

Bloodborne is going to be super front loaded. It's the nature of a game like that. It had all the Souls fans rush out to get it day one, and then had the more mainstream gamer pick it up because of the campaign and reviews. That campaign is a launch campaign and the review buzz will end the minute another good game comes out.

and you're mistaking shipment and sell thru of your other examples.
case in point... killzone 3 sold through like 1.7MM world wide. that's very far from your 3MM number there.
 
Bloodborne is going to be super front loaded. It's the nature of a game like that. It had all the Souls fans rush out to get it day one, and then had the more mainstream gamer pick it up because of the campaign and reviews. That campaign is a launch campaign and the review buzz will end the minute another good game comes out.

Disagree, since the souls games are actually NOT super front loaded. Demon's souls had incredible legs. Dark Souls and DS2 also had "expanded" editions that included DLC that will also continue to move copies. I expect no different from BB- unless Sony is crazy and hates money.

and you're mistaking shipment and sell thru of your other examples.
case in point... killzone 3 sold through like 1.7MM world wide. that's very far from your 3MM number there.

you mistake me. I mentioned Killzone 3 as a game that FAILED to hit that level- and for good reason. Reviews were not good (edit: reviews were average, lets say), the FPS userbase was on the 360 (Sony is not known for making good FPS games and Live's matchmaking was flat out better for those games) and it's initial sales were nowhere in the same league as bloodborne's 1+ million in 12 days.

Again, there are PS3 exclusive games that failed to hit 2 or 3 million, but none of them had stellar reviews, word of mouth, expensive television ad campaigns, or a #1 selling platform all to themselves with no competition- let alone all four.

Expecting BB to put up KZ3 numbers is simply unrealistic.
 

Massa

Member
my perspective is different in that yes, I do have official sales figures broken out by SKU. also estimated revenue by country ::shrug::

Like I said, i bet someone NPD would be 450k in U.S debut. I'd love to be wrong. most industry friends of mine were predicting lower. If it's higher, I'll be stoked.

either way, huge win for them.

do i think they'll sell thru 3 MM units world wide? I'll be shocked and super surprised.
But I'm all for being surprised. I'm a fan, and been a fan of their work since king's field for psx in the U.S. I'm also logical and grounded in reality haha.

Another thing to consider in your NPD prediction is that Bloodborne seems to have done extremely well on PSN. It has nearly as many ratings as Dying Light already, and far more than most other PS4 releases this year.
 
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
Glad it's doing so well! One if my all time favorites and I'd love some good DLC and a sequel.
 

klee123

Member
It's amazing to see just how much the game changed from Project Beast to Bloodborne. It really looks like PB was designed for the PS3.

It's also the reason why Sony didn't show it during TGS 2013 despite Demonite leaving hints during that period.

Had it been shown then, whilst Souls fans would have went crazy over the trailer, the non fans and mainstream would just shit on it due to the spotty framerate and last gen graphics.
 

Game4life

Banned
face it, Sunset Overdrive wasn't that successful because Insomniac bet on the wrong horse, they probably expected the PS4 to flounder badly given all the missteps with the PS3 when the opposite turned out to be true, Ted Price probably thought the grass was greener on the other side last generation and when they finally made the jump this generation, it didn't turn out to be true anymore, just bad timing on their part I guess. I wonder how many Insomniac fans bought a PS4 instead.

With Bloodborne they're targeting an audience that is already there on the PS4, I guess it's part and parcel with being on a more popular platform.

That said Bloodborne is an awesome game, well deserved.

Insomniac wanted to own the IP but Sony never publishes content that it does not own so Sony declined. This has nothing to do with Insomniac betting on the wrong horse.
 

Fdkn

Member
since when do we count bundles in as software sales? is that something that we normally do?

We have always counted bundled games for ltd of games I think. In all those Mario Kart Wii 36 million or GTA V 50 million talks for example bundled games are counted.
 
Insomniac wanted to own the IP but Sony never publishes content that it does not own so Sony declined. This has nothing to do with Insomniac betting on the wrong horse.

Owning the IP is going to do absolutely nothing for you if the game doesn't sell and you're left holding an IP nobody wants to publish or fund, retaining the IP alone would not be the only reason you would go with a publisher or a platform holder for that matter, Insomniac would have expected sunset overdrive to sell well on the xbone especially when it's exclusive to only one platform, so yes, they bet on the wrong horse. Often when an IP underperforms, you don't get a second shot.

Anytime you're going with a platform holder, you're making a bet that it's the right choice, regardless of whether you own the IP or not, in FROM's case they chose a good partner for both Demon's Souls and Bloodborne.
 

Patapwn

Member
Insomniac wanted to own the IP but Sony never publishes content that it does not own so Sony declined. This has nothing to do with Insomniac betting on the wrong horse.
Really? The overwhelming forecast of MS domination for nextgen didn't play a part in jumping ship? Come on now...

I do believe that IP ownership was a nice caveat for them and this argument helped on the PR front with fans over 'betraylation' but the deal with Microsoft was way more strategic than simply owning a name.
 
It is interesting to compare the past 6 months and new IPs from Isomaniac and From. Both games are great , but the devs bet on different horses and the sales haved turned out quite differently.
 

stryke

Member
It is interesting to compare the past 6 months and new IPs from Isomaniac and From. Both games are great , but the devs bet on different horses and the sales haved turned out quite differently.

Insomniac couldn't bet on PS4 even if they wanted to without relinquishing IP ownership.
 

sn00zer

Member
Let's face it, Sunset Overdrive wasn't that successful because Insomniac bet on the wrong horse, they probably expected the PS4 to flounder badly given all the missteps with the PS3 when the opposite turned out to be true, Ted Price probably thought the grass was greener on the other side last generation and when they finally made the jump this generation, it didn't turn out to be true anymore, just bad timing on their part I guess. I wonder how many Insomniac fans bought a PS4 instead.

With Bloodborne they're targeting an audience that is already there on the PS4, I guess it's part and parcel with being on a more popular platform.

That said Bloodborne is an awesome game, well deserved.

This post is so full of shit its incredible. Literally every interview with Price and most of insomniac was that they wanted to make games with the help of publisher funding, but wanted to own the IP. Since Sony owns the IP on all of their exclusives Insomniac decided to go third party which resulted in FUSE and Sunset Overdrive, funny enough two IPs they own. Funny how that works.
 
Damn impressive, especially since it's a PS4 exclusive. Congrats to From, definitely well deserved; I can't get enough of the game :)
 
This post is so full of shit its incredible. Literally every interview with Price and most of insomniac was that they wanted to make games with the help of publisher funding, but wanted to own the IP. Since Sony owns the IP on all of their exclusives Insomniac decided to go third party which resulted in FUSE and Sunset Overdrive, funny enough two IPs they own. Funny how that works.
How has owning those two IPs worked out for them exactly?

What do you think the actual purpose of owning those IPs was financially for a developer like Insomniac?

What would be the point of owning the IPs if they don't sell?

Insomniac bet on EA as a publisher, they bet on ms as a publisher and platform holder, they were probably hoping the IPs would sell above expectations based on EA's marketing and ms' platform strength, both times they made the wrong bet, pure and simple.

Why not go back to EA partners if owning the IP is the only thing that matters when you can keep your IP and target more than one platform? Why go exclusive if you don't think the one platform you choose well outperform the other?

When you're picking a platform holder as your publisher, you're betting on that platform to be successful and that in turn will help your game to sell. That worked out well for FROM, not so much for Insomniac.
 

Jomjom

Banned
Really? The overwhelming forecast of MS domination for nextgen didn't play a part in jumping ship? Come on now...

I do believe that IP ownership was a nice caveat for them and this argument helped on the PR front with fans over 'betraylation' but the deal with Microsoft was way more strategic than simply owning a name.

Especially when the IP isn't really worth anything but that's hindsight.

I'd be very surprised if we saw a SO2 unless MS was going to fund it.
 
Sunset Overdrive is a new IP made by an established team. Even Microsofts PR tried to sell it as the new, exciting and totaly different and never seen before FPS experience.

Bloodborne on the other side is a new IP made by an established team and it is a spirital successor to an established franchise. So still Bloodborne had a nice headstart compared to sunset overdrive, IP wise. Bloodbornes is successful because it is a great game and because it is not treated like a new IP by us, the costumers.

Sunset Overdrive wasn't that successful because it was treated like something completly new and lets face it, it was a bad game (in my opinion, surely some people like it).

Pretty sure the general consensus is very positive.

I know you're saying it's your opinion that it's a bad game, but saying "surely some people like it" kinda made it seem like you're unaware of praise it gets. So just fyi
 
This is great news but I really don't want From to change anything about the way they make these games. They are absolutely perfect and I don't want bigger studios (more staff), hype and consumerism getting in the way of their artistic integrity which imo is flawless.
 

NBtoaster

Member
When you're picking a platform holder as your publisher, you're betting on that platform to be successful and that in turn will help your game to sell. That worked out well for FROM, not so much for Insomniac.

I believe it both these cases the platform holder approached the developer. So the only way these games would exist is on those specific platform holders. Your reasoning does not apply.
 
How has owning those two IPs worked out for them exactly?

What do you think the actual purpose of owning those IPs was financially for a developer like Insomniac?

What would be the point of owning the IPs if they don't sell?

Insomniac bet on EA as a publisher, they bet on ms as a publisher and platform holder, they were probably hoping the IPs would sell above expectations based on EA's marketing and ms' platform strength, both times they made the wrong bet, pure and simple.

Why not go back to EA partners if owning the IP is the only thing that matters when you can keep your IP and target more than one platform? Why go exclusive if you don't think the one platform you choose well outperform the other?

When you're picking a platform holder as your publisher, you're betting on that platform to be successful and that in turn will help your game to sell. That worked out well for FROM, not so much for Insomniac.

The point is, they wanted to own the IP they worked on, and Microsoft let them do that. Whether it worked out well for them was completely besides the point.
 

EGOMON

Member
Insomniac couldn't bet on PS4 even if they wanted to without relinquishing IP ownership.
That is just PR talk, all Dev use it to dodge "why you choose X over Y?" Question same with strategic relationship or we want to focus on 1 platform for now... etc
 
Especially when the IP isn't really worth anything but that's hindsight.

I'd be very surprised if we saw a SO2 unless MS was going to fund it.

Well Insomniac kind of hedged their bets by making the Ratchet & Clank remake/re-imagining for PS4. It will probably sell more than Sunset Overdrive did. They definitely left for greener pastures and got burned though.
 
That is just PR talk, all Dev use it to dodge "why you choose X over Y?" Question same with strategic relationship or we want to focus on 1 platform for now... etc

Except since IP ownership actually benefits the developers as a company long-term ( it gives them ownership of a creative asset), it's probably the most solid answer feasible when it's there.

PR bullshit is when devs talk about cloud expertise as a reason to partner, when the game isn't doing anything revolutionary at all.
 
THis idea that there is a right way and wrong way to do "exclusives" is just ridiculous and always leads to pointless arguments.

The 'better' way to do exclusives is when money creates something out of nothing.

Be it funding ports or funding games altogether. Anything that is net positive is ideally better.
 
Congrats Sony and FROM!

In a somewhat related news, anyone ever figure out the name of the song used in the "Project Beast" reveal trailer? I've listened to the Bloodborne OST and couldn't find a similar song in it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx8KTIeSnzs
Wow the frame rate was really bad in this trailer. Luckily, From has improved it greatly in the retail version.

Hey I think Vicar in Project Beast looks much better than in Bloodborne. Why did From not keep that design? It looks so cool imo.
 

SappYoda

Member
Except since IP ownership actually benefits the developers as a company long-term ( it gives them ownership of a creative asset), it's probably the most solid answer feasible when it's there.

PR bullshit is when devs talk about cloud expertise as a reason to partner, when the game isn't doing anything revolutionary at all.

Are IP really that important? Looking at the souls series. They created a new IP at least 3 times and that did not stop from at having success.
 

tcrunch

Member
Wow the frame rate was really bad in this trailer. Luckily, From has improved it greatly in the retail version.

Hey I think Vicar in Project Beast looks much better than in Bloodborne. Why did From not keep that design? It looks so cool imo.

Do you mean the monster that is in the grand cathedral in this trailer? It's still in the game, it just got moved elsewhere.
 
Wow the frame rate was really bad in this trailer. Luckily, From has improved it greatly in the retail version.

Hey I think Vicar in Project Beast looks much better than in Bloodborne. Why did From not keep that design? It looks so cool imo.

That's not
Vicar Amelia.
That's
Ebrietas and she's in a different location
 
Are IP really that important? Looking at the souls series. They created a new IP at least 3 times and that did not stop from at having success.

It adds value to a company. Some people/creators want to own their babies/creation. Also, if something hits big outside of just gaming, it's the IP owners that benefit.

Importance of IP really depends on the company and leadership of said company.
 
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