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The Last of Us Part II remains 3rd best selling game of 2020. Lifetime dollar sales 3rd highest in history for Sony to date. 4th best selling in July.

Will TLOUII outsell Spider-Man in both dollar sales* and units sold in its first year of tracking?


  • Total voters
    89

Hezekiah

Banned
One thing that is super interesting is just how little sales matter after the first couple of months in terms of money. Like tlou1 is a 20M seller and UC4 is at 16, yet a game that is between 4-5M full priced sales has earned more.

The exception being Nintendo of course.
Which game has sold 4-5m and made more money than TLOU or UC4?
 
Wrong.

People have been creating YouTube videos for weeks talking about how the game sales are bad. Majority of the people iave seen did not use the word "May".

Paper Mario: The Origami King launched July 17th, the Last of Us launched June 19th. both had similar days of tracking and most of the sales are usually tracked within the first two weeks.

If you expect sales to stay as strong during the first month compared to the second month, then you really need to start following more sales threads.

Not talking for those people, I don't think the sales are bad by themselves. They are what they are. Very strong at launch, underwhelming after that.

What sales expectations are you referring to exactly ?
As you quoted, the person I referenced said the game would sell terribly. I feel this is clear evidence of that. 3rd highest in Sont history is not too shabby I'd say.

Sales expectations relative to budget. I think the game had a wonderful launch, but it tracked poorly after that. Even then, that's my theory from reading in between the lines since we don't really have any concrete numbers.
 

Klayzer

Member
Wrong.

People have been creating YouTube videos for weeks talking about how the game sales are bad. Majority of the people iave seen did not use the word "May".

Paper Mario: The Origami King launched July 17th, the Last of Us launched June 19th. both had similar days of tracking and most of the sales are usually tracked within the first two weeks.

If you expect sales to stay as strong during the first month compared to the second month, then you really need to start following more sales threads.
Two months later, people are still trying to justify their TLOU2 disappointing sales narrative, even with direct evidence of the contrary. Damm, let it go already.
 

Terenty

Member
What sales expectations are you referring to exactly ?
As you quoted, the person I referenced said the game would sell terribly. I feel this is clear evidence of that. 3rd highest in Sont history is not too shabby I'd say.
Yeah, but considering the game had, most likely, the highest budget of all Sony exclusives and it had the largest install base on release, i reckon they wanted the game to do something close to Spider Man numbers ,not to trail behind Gow.
 

goldenpp72

Member
One thing that is super interesting is just how little sales matter after the first couple of months in terms of money. Like tlou1 is a 20M seller and UC4 is at 16, yet a game that is between 4-5M full priced sales has earned more.

The exception being Nintendo of course.

That's because a fuck load of those sales came from console bundles, these are raw sales.
 
Yeah, but considering the game had, most likely, the highest budget of all Sony exclusives and it had the largest install base on release, i reckon they wanted the game to do something close to Spider Man numbers ,not to trail behind Gow.
That's conjecture. No one would ever expect a game like that to do better than a well reviewed spiderman game. Spiderman as an ip doesnt compare to TLou.
Budget shouldn't really be taken as a basis for what sales should look like, particularly with regards to first party.
First party games exist (in general)to sell consoles not games. GoW was was an insanely high budget ,7 year in the making game, and arguably one of the greatest games ever made. Sony didnt do that to make GoW the best selling game of all time. They did it to enhance thier brand.
Same with TLOU2. They are more interested in striving for 10/10 games they gaining huge sales in the software.

The top 3 selling games of last year were all multiplayer and all had half the budget or less. This year will be the same unless Cyberpunk 2077 kills it.
 
Yeah, but considering the game had, most likely, the highest budget of all Sony exclusives and it had the largest install base on release, i reckon they wanted the game to do something close to Spider Man numbers ,not to trail behind Gow.
Again seeing that TLOU2 and GOT released back to back, probably eating into each other sales.
 

TreyCinco

Neo Member
This game’s sales are going to continue to drop off the cliff. It has some of the worst word of mouth of any game in recent memory. I don’t even think a separate sku would help anywhere near as much as TLOU remastered did. Sony can’t be happy with the reception and sales of it
 
The fact remains that this game's legs are not as good as its counterparts. It started out ahead of GOW and Spider-Man, by quite a bit. It has fallen behind those games. In fact, we haven't got an update on its sales, even though it has been out for two months.
Sony doesn't provide monthly sales updates for any of their games. You didn't hear anything else on Spider-Mans sales until the end of 2018 when it hit 10 million. TLOU2 had a bigger 3 day opening than both those games. Just because it hasn't passed them in dollar sales yet doesn't mean anything. Those games have been out for 2 years with Spider-Man in particular continuing to be in sales charts even today. See where it's at by the end of this year and then speak about it.
 
Yeah, but considering the game had, most likely, the highest budget of all Sony exclusives and it had the largest install base on release, i reckon they wanted the game to do something close to Spider Man numbers ,not to trail behind Gow.
God of War has been out over 2 years that's why it's trailing behind it. For all you know TLOU2 may pass God of War's life to date dollar sales next month which would be very good for a game that had only been out 3 months at that point.
 

Ten_Fold

Member
Not a lot of people knew the twist in that game, also didn’t that Star Wars movie everyone hated do well in the box office? I’m just saying casuals just see oh TLOUS2 is out an buy it without looking anything up.
 

THEAP99

Banned
I think we should wait till later to definitively say if sales fell off and it sold poorly overall.

as of right now though we can be certain it had the biggest opening for any PlayStation game and it’s catching up to year(s) old PlayStation games in terms of dollar sales despite it being out for only 2 months
 
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renzolama

Member
There's something about these statements that seems wonky. It's only the 4th best selling game the month after its release, but it's also already the 3rd best selling sony game in history less than two months after its release? The statement claims that it's the 3rd highest selling behind spider man and god of war, but uncharted 4 sold more than both of those. The last of us remastered sold 10 million on PS4, which would mean that TLOU2 sold more than 6 million units since the last released numbers from ND/sony but their marketing teams haven't announced those numbers themselves?

Clearly the game sold well but the way they're presenting this data feels 'spun'. Why would ND/sony not be announcing these 'historic' numbers themselves unless they're below internal expectations?

Edit: I didn't consider the lower prices for TLOUR and UC4 which would lower the dollar values vs units sold, so my comparisons with those vs TLOU2 are wrong
 
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Terenty

Member
Here's some data from Reee:

Top 9 NPD for Sony launch :
  1. Spider-Man (30 days) : > 2.6m*
  2. TLOU Part II (16 days)
  3. God of War (16 days) : 1.9m (digital + bundles)
  4. Ghost of Tsushima (16 days)
  5. God of War 3 (19 days) : 1.1m (physical)
  6. Horizon Zero Dawn (33 days) : > 1m*
  7. The Last of Us (24 days) : > 1m*
  8. Uncharted 4 (19 days) : > 1m*
  9. Days Gone (9 days) : about 850k*
* : include digital


Now, Uncharted 4 sold more than 1m. in 19 days in US. Tlou 2, according to gamestat, sold around 5m. worldwide in 19 days. So lets assume it sold 2.5m. in US.

How can Tlou 2 life sales in US already be more than Uncharted 4 life sales(more than 4 years on the market) if the difference in their launch sales are not that big?

Something doesn't add up here
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
But GAF keeps telling me the game is selling like shit because people hate it because Abby, and ND should be deeply ashamed and regretful for what they've done.

Lol.
 
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FunkMiller

Member
I think this goes to prove that games with controversial storylines and characters can and do sell very well, if the game itself is of a very high standard.

And you should be happy about that, because we don’t want video games to stagnate in dull, repetitive stories, mired in cliche and stereotype. If they do that, the industry will never progress, never mature, and never get better.

I‘m fucking delighted TLOU2 has done as well as it has, because it means other developers may take more chances with games narrative than they would otherwise.

I don’t want to spend the next decade playing games with the same old, same old. I want more variety in protagonists, antagonists, themes and story structure. And so do you.

Even if you hated Abby, or disliked what happened to Joel, the fact that Naughty Dog were able to create a game that took those kinds of risks, and were very successful with it, means that you and I are more likely to get more creative, stronger, and more mature games in the future.
 
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Here I am. 4 million sold to stores and pre-orders. 1 1/2 million sold to people wondering what the fuck people were talking about. Now that normies get that it was a bait and switch, the numbers should start to fall. In other news, as we all know DC comics went woke a few years back. We just got the announcement that DC went broke a few days back.
 
I think this goes to prove that games with controversial storylines and characters can and do sell very well, if the game itself is of a very high standard.

And you should be happy about that, because we don’t want video games to stagnate in dull, repetitive stories, mired in cliche and stereotype. If they do that, the industry will never progress, never mature, and never get better.

I‘m fucking delighted TLOU2 has done as well as it has, because it means other developers may take more chances with games narrative than they would otherwise.

I don’t want to spend the next decade playing games with the same old, same old. I want more variety in protagonists, antagonists, themes and story structure. And so do you.

Even if you hated Abby, or disliked what happened to Joel, the fact that Naughty Dog were able to create a game that took those kinds of risks, and were very successful with it, means that you and I are more likely to get more creative, stronger, and more mature games in the future.
It USED the success of the first game. This game on it's own would of sold no better than a young adult game for the queer (respectively).
 
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Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Let's be honest mate, if an Xbox game sold 4m in three days you'd probably throw a party 😁.

xbox games are mostly shit realy. Gears was ok, kinda looking forward to halo a bit but not much. 3rd party is where its at right now my guy.
 

Amiga

Member
Ugh, people were saying that people were canceling their pre-orders left and right and how the sales were extremely bad after the two weeks. Now you see people making 3 YouTube videos every week just to hate on the game and talk about how the sales are bad.

We live in a society where people are easily triggered when something conflicts with their political beliefs.

I mentioned several times before, Neil Druckmann has aid from the beginning that people who like the first game may not like second game, and that's what we're saying today. He knew people were going to be turned off by what happens early on in the game.

Sales aren't bad and people need to stop pushing this narrative. What happens now is based on Holiday sales and how successful the TLOU multiplayer is.
the Spider-Man 3 movie actually grossed more than SM2, but because the reception was bad and the brand popularity started to get negative Sony rebooted the whole franchise, later ASM1&2 made hundreds of millions but were still considered financial underperformers. franchise got rebooted again.

you can bet Sony are taking notes. and ND is no longer the untouchable studio after the rise of GG, SP and SSM. Amy Hennig got replaced for much less. Niel has just one more chance.
 

Hezekiah

Banned
xbox games are mostly shit realy. Gears was ok, kinda looking forward to halo a bit but not much. 3rd party is where its at right now my guy.
I actually like Gears 5. I prefer the direction and the less woke-ness of the original but it's still a good game. Point is is there are lots of good first-party games, no need to shit on them just because they're not on your favourite platform, or not your favourite type of game.
 

Valentino

Member
you can bet Sony are taking notes. and ND is no longer the untouchable studio after the rise of GG, SP and SSM. Amy Hennig got replaced for much less. Niel has just one more chance.

omg tell me more! 🤩
What other business insider information do you have?! ...................... 😒
People on here need to stop chatting like they know the mindset of any developer and any head of studio and what they’re gonna do next........ your all most of the time WRONG. Just like you all had your “Last of Us 2 gonna sell bad because X, Y and Z” all planned out as a future narrative you hoped to see. But that just hasn’t happened whatsoever. Amy Hennig chose your leave, no? What’s this replacement talk your on about?
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
the Spider-Man 3 movie actually grossed more than SM2, but because the reception was bad and the brand popularity started to get negative Sony rebooted the whole franchise, later ASM1&2 made hundreds of millions but were still considered financial underperformers. franchise got rebooted again.

you can bet Sony are taking notes. and ND is no longer the untouchable studio after the rise of GG, SP and SSM. Amy Hennig got replaced for much less. Niel has just one more chance.

Spider-Man 4 was actually in pre-production and they didn't decide to reboot the film based on the reception of Spider-Man 3.

Sony knew that TLOU 2 would receive backlash and Neil Druckmann has been saying it from the beginning (which I mentioned multiple times).
 

Bartski

Gold Member
I think this goes to prove that games with controversial storylines and characters can and do sell very well, if the game itself is of a very high standard.

And you should be happy about that, because we don’t want video games to stagnate in dull, repetitive stories, mired in cliche and stereotype. If they do that, the industry will never progress, never mature, and never get better.

I‘m fucking delighted TLOU2 has done as well as it has, because it means other developers may take more chances with games narrative than they would otherwise.

I don’t want to spend the next decade playing games with the same old, same old. I want more variety in protagonists, antagonists, themes and story structure. And so do you.

Even if you hated Abby, or disliked what happened to Joel, the fact that Naughty Dog were able to create a game that took those kinds of risks, and were very successful with it, means that you and I are more likely to get more creative, stronger, and more mature games in the future.

That's just spot on dude. That is the reason why this game is so important in pushing the medium further.

I don't think it will ever beat Spiderman in sales on PS4. Spiderman is a PEGI-16 game, which translates to dads buying it to their 12 years olds. It's mass-market AAA comfort-food and it's great at it.

"TLOU2 feels like a 100 million dollar indie game"... It kinda does. It's blockbuster yet it's niche. It deliberately excludes a big chunk of the market, it's mature, it's controversial, it's made to piss people off, full of most realistic graphic violence ever in videogames, launches after leaks and months of internet-wide vitriol campaign, full of people on youtube literally making careers out of slinging shit at it every single day, and lands as an epic commercial success. I hope it's enough to prove going down that path worth it for Naughty Dog and Sony and we will see that in their next title, whatever it will be. I hope they leave making the next Uncharted to somebody else.

Also, I voted yes for Factions but I think I misread... I mean it should beat PS4 Spiderman sub 15 million year one if adding Factions 2 cross-gen release to it AND the PS5 HD altogether.
But then you'd have to count Morales as Part of Spiderman numbers...
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
I actually like Gears 5. I prefer the direction and the less woke-ness of the original but it's still a good game. Point is is there are lots of good first-party games, no need to shit on them just because they're not on your favourite platform, or not your favourite type of game.

I don’t care what platform a game is on, if I don’t like it I don’t like it.

There are lots of game I know I won’t like (souls games, rts, team pvp shooters), I just dont get them. I tend to only shit on a ga,e if it’s usally something I would like (ie a naughty dog game or a live service looter). So recently avengers and tlou2 have made the shit list.
 
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Kuranghi

Member
Every time I see a thread about TLOU2:

giphy.gif
 

Hestar69

Member
One of this gens best games IMO. Glad it's selling/sold well.

Also, Paper mario was good MINUS the combat. Everything else in that game was awesome, but the combat was so pointless and this was my first mario rpg since the snes one.
 
EA and Nintendo are the bosses of the 12monts best seller list! Nintendo has only their platform as well!

Still impressive to see how big of a deal CoD is and TLoU already up there.
 

Amiga

Member
Spider-Man 4 was actually in pre-production and they didn't decide to reboot the film based on the reception of Spider-Man 3.

Sony knew that TLOU 2 would receive backlash and Neil Druckmann has been saying it from the beginning (which I mentioned multiple times).
pre-production. before they started to put real money on the line.

Sony pushed out Kaz/House because they thought they could do better. business is business. Druckmann likely convinced upper management that the shock and controversy would increasing sales. turned out the opposite way.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
pre-production. before they started to put real money on the line.

Sony pushed out Kaz/House because they thought they could do better. business is business. Druckmann likely convinced upper management that the shock and controversy would increasing sales. turned out the opposite way.

You're moving the goalpost.

First you tried to say they decided to reboot because of the bad reception Spider-Man 3 received and that was false. Writers strike, Sam Raimi creative differences played a factor a huge factor in their decision to cancel Spider-Man 4.
 

Amiga

Member
You're moving the goalpost.

First you tried to say they decided to reboot because of the bad reception Spider-Man 3 received and that was false. Writers strike, Sam Raimi creative differences played a factor a huge factor in their decision to cancel Spider-Man 4.

didn't change anything. pre-production for a franchise happens before the previews movie is even out. part of SM3 was pre-production for SM4. they decided things were so bad they had to reset the whole franchise.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
didn't change anything. pre-production for a franchise happens before the previews movie is even out. part of SM3 was pre-production for SM4. they decided things were so bad they had to reset the whole franchise.


You did.

but because the reception was bad and the brand popularity started to get negative Sony rebooted


"Because the reception was bad"

You tried to tell me it was because of the bad reception that SM3 received when clearly that wasn't the case. The project would've gone through if Sam Raimi didn't have problems writing the script.
 

Amiga

Member
You did.




"Because the reception was bad"

You tried to tell me it was because of the bad reception that SM3 received when clearly that wasn't the case. The project would've gone through if Sam Raimi didn't have problems writing the script.

even Sam Raimi admitted SM3 was bad so just let it go. just accept many find TLOU2 was a disappointment and the sales trend prove that. math always wins.

to argue there were serious claims that sales would halt to a complete stop is desperation.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
even Sam Raimi admitted SM3 was bad so just let it go. just accept many find TLOU2 was a disappointment and the sales trend prove that. math always wins.

to argue there were serious claims that sales would halt to a complete stop is desperation.
Deflecting won't work.

He said it was bad, still doesn't change the fact that it wasn't because of Spider-Man 3's bad reception.

Sales prove its a success. Also Neil said who enjoyed the first game may not like the second game.

You're comparing apples to oranges.
 

Blond

Banned
How sad that all these people were tricked into playing with Abby and Lev like I did. I've never felt so betrayed. I deleted the game asap from my PS4. Even seeing the icon made me angry.

I wasn't tricked into anything and willingly chose to continue because I don't let sperglords determine what I personally enjoy.


even Sam Raimi admitted SM3 was bad so just let it go. just accept many find TLOU2 was a disappointment and the sales trend prove that. math always wins.

to argue there were serious claims that sales would halt to a complete stop is desperation.

It could also be that every major spoiler was released onto the internet and that tempered a lot more sells than anything the internet was able to drum up considering the sales are still strong.
 
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GhostOfTsu

Banned
I wasn't tricked into anything and willingly chose to continue because I don't let sperglords determine what I personally enjoy.

Same for me. I went in blind, didn't follow the spoilers, ignored all the videos and articles about it. I was here defending the game before it came out. I even called it the game of the generation when the reviews came out. Then I got to play it until the end with a fresh mind and I was stomped.

The haters were right all along. It's like Neil wanted to make a game about his new dream characters, Abby and Lev, and he used the sequel of TLOU to do it. He tried to build a story around them to make it fit but it was a big cringeworthy mess and he destroyed TLOU1 legacy in the process.

He's lucky his new characters all happen to be lgbtq+ so now he has a mindless army defending his shitty story and characters. You all can't admit they suck because you think you are sticking it to the alt-right or something.
 
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