By all accounts, Concord landed with a loud thud.
The team-based shooter is one of several new first-party PlayStation games released this year. Sony released it on both PS5 and PC On August 23. The company doesn’t usually release detailed player numbers for its platforms. However, Steam does. The numbers there are not pretty.
The number of Steam players does not completely reflect the success of the game, Still, it is a key data point from which we can extrapolate some assumptions. On the first weekend, Concord Couldn’t break 700 concurrent players on Steam. That’s quite a number for a high-end presentation, especially from a major publisher.
For perspective, Galaxy Burger, An indie food sim I’d never heard of came out the same day more than four times Like the number of concurrent players on Steam (469). Concord (104) At some point on Wednesday. As for the likely blockbuster from this year, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League It peaked with over 13,400 concurrent players on Steam. This co-op game was a notorious flop with one result $200 million in damage Warner Bros. For Discovery.
In addition, Concord has 444 reviews on Steam at the time of writing. Some of them analysts to guess that each Steam view converts between 30 and 50 sales. That could be put at the upper end of the scale Concord‘s sales volume on Steam is approximately 22,000.
We don’t have a strong idea of PlayStation sales numbers yet, but let’s assume three times as many people bought. Concord so far on PS5. At $40 a pop and a speculative total of 88,000 units were sold, this Concord‘s total revenue is around $3.5 million (that’s before taking a cut from Valve Steam purchases). That wouldn’t come remotely close to covering the development and marketing costs of a game that took Firewalk Studios (which Sony bought last year) ewhiteto make t years. yes, Concord it has all the signs of disaster.
There are many reasons for this Concord it just didn’t attract people’s attention. I played a few rounds during the open beta and thought that was it. Battle is in order and some basic ideas – eg cool, lookre– filled map — is interesting, but it was felt that the novelty was not enough.
The first wave of characters is bland, not ideal for a hero shooter at this point Apex Legends and Overwatch 2 (many more famous free-to-play rival titles) each have dozens of distinct, engaging personalities for fans to connect with. the effect of Guardians of the Galaxy for better or worse, it feels more like Firewalk and Sony following trends that were popular in 2016.
The biggest flaw that seems to be the price point. Players have to pay $40 as they can access many similar games without paying a penny Concord Apparently, it wasn’t an attractive proposition for the vast majority of PS5 and PC owners.
It is absolutely impossible for us to see anything interesting No Man’s Sky –style reversal. But the stage seems set Concord Enrich your player base with a quick tap on PlayStation Plus, then you can play for free likewise many other live service games before it.
And yet, Concord All in all it seems like a real sour note on what has been a really quiet strong year for the PlayStation so far.
Published by Sony Helldivers 2 It is the second best-selling game in the US this year, According to industry analysts at Circana. Only College Football 25 sold more copies in the country. In fact, Helldivers 2 does the fastest selling game There is Sony always off with more 12 million copies were sold in the first 12 weeks.
Releasing the game on PS5 and PC at the same time paid off, as most of the initial wave of sales came through Steam, according to analysts. However, there are a number of Steam players dropped significantly in recent months partially a disputed account linking request.
Star BladeAnother game published by Sony from a third-party studio, a generally a positive response is doing well from critics and commercially as well. Developer Shift Up is estimated It said sales exceeded 1 million units in the first two months, and a PC port was under consideration in June.
Sony’s strategy of bringing its major exclusives to PC in the years following its PlayStation debut has paid off in the past few years. Two slightly older games were released on Steam this year Horizon Forbidden West and Ghost of Tsushima. Both are excellent, reliable ports that perform well on my high-end PC and Steam Deck. They were also successful in terms of sales, with the first entering the top 10 best-selling games in the US in its first week. Nightmare It topped the US overall game sales charts for May on Circana Star Blade he did the same in April.
Sony has at least two more blockbuster PC ports this year. God of War: Ragnarök will be hit that platform on September 19. The previous game sold over 2.5 million units on PC last February major insomnia leakso the sequel seems primed to do well. The Until the morning to do again coming to PC and PS5 in a few weeks.
And then there’s the small matter The Last of Us Part 2 Remasteredwhich It came to PS5 earlier this year with a great new roguelike mode. There’s no PC release date yet, but TLOU Day (Naughty Dog’s September 26th annual celebration of the series) is fast approaching. This seems like a great opportunity for an announcement on the eve The second season of the HBO adaptation It debuts in 2025.
A cautious approach seems wise Part 2. Sony will want to make sure there’s nothing on the PC port types of technical issues Part 1 there was when it comes to that platform, it’s important to give developers as much time as they need to polish.
Sony even has a few more first-party games lined up for the latter part of the year. You may not have to wait long to wash off the smell Concord as highly anticipated and absolutely lovable platformer Astro Bot Coming to PS5 on September 6th. Lego Horizon Adventures – A more family-friendly take on the Horizon series – heading to PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch in a notable multi-platform debut this holiday season.
And then there’s the hardware side of the equation. In the first half of the calendar year, Sony sold just under 7 million PS5s. This is down from 9.3 million compared to the same period in 2023, but a decline is expected at this point in the system’s life cycle.
How the PS5 stacks up against the competition tells a bigger story. While Microsoft has long been tight-lipped about how many Xboxes it sells, earlier this year some analysts determined the ratio of PS5 to Xbox Series X/S sales. more than five to one. Yes. Given Sony’s larger install base, it’s no wonder why Microsoft is increasingly keen bring first-party games to PlayStation.
Meanwhile, at first glancePlayStation Portal seemed like an outlandish peripheral for the brave. All this is to allow you to play games remotely from your own PS5 without even supporting Sony’s cloud gaming service.
However, Portal proved to be a surprise hit. Sony often sells the device for months exceeded expectations. It’s the best-selling gaming accessory this year by dollar amount, According to Circan. And rumors are circulating The fact that Sony is “very focused on the current handheld market” perhaps indicates that the company is finally ready to work on a proper Vita/PSP successor. One can hope.
Even the beleaguered PS VR2 seems to be on the upswing after a while final sale and release dongle allowing owners to use it to play virtual reality games on PC. According to one report, the low price caused a sudden 2,350 percent increase in sales. Sony may have even sold more units in one day (July 28) than it sold in the previous seven months. Shortcut. Reports suggest that PS VR2 sales have been disappointing for Sony, but such a dramatic increase (or anything close to it) would be astounding. Along with the discount, the added benefit of being able to use the headset for PC games certainly helped, as the actual PS VR2 game library remains fairly small.
There’s another piece of hardware that could make 2024 even more exciting for Sony: the widely rumored PS5 Pro. For months, leaks have suggested a mid-generation update it comes to the holiday season. Rumors suggest that the PS5 Pro could offer higher speeds, faster game rendering, improved graphics, better ray tracing performance and an 8K performance mode. Given that Microsoft new Xbox options either add internal storage, change the color of the case, or remove the disc drive, the PS5 Pro may seem like a more palatable choice for current-gen storage.
