- 10,956
- Canada
Gran Turismo Sport Has Sold an Estimated 8 Million Copies
- Thread starter GTPNewsWire
- 191 comments
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- 27,387
- Toronto
- NewAesthetic
- SlipZtrEm
The admin team has had to delete more than a page's worth of posts over the past few days in this thread. This is because the exact same members have responded to their dog-whistles as the last approximately 18,000 times this has happened.
If you can't read a particular (game's name / developer / pineapple-on-pizza supporter) on a page without foaming at the mouth, back away from the post button. If you can't see said foaming without adding your own particular brand to the pile, same advice.
This frankly idiotic tribalism does sim racing (and the racing genre as a whole) a huge disservice. Shape up or ship out -- bans will no longer be temporary if there are repeat episodes. This is not how I want to spend my final night in Salzburg. 👎
Whoa, whoa -- this post's logic content is too high!
That last bit (which I've cut the quote down to) asks the important question: what counts? And the fact is that, unless anybody is on the board over at Sony and/or Microsoft, they won't really know. Or at other devs for that matter, but Sony and MS are the two first-party console teams involved with racing titles.
People bemoan the move to player counts as misdirection, but it's the new metric. Minecraft just hit 100 million active users per month -- investors want to know those numbers, but in an age of increased online multiplayer (or at least online-enabled features), it also gives players an idea of how alive the community is.
It's not as if sales figures ever really gave players an idea of a game's "success": it didn't take into account the cost to produce the game, or how many sales were at full price, or bundled, or whether that was sold to retailers or actually in the hands of players. Then there's the modern aspect of DLC: GT Sport has microtransactions, FH4 has the more traditional DLC approach. One could argue GT's DLC loses money compared to FH4, but on the other hand, making it available to everyone alongside MTs could lead to people being more willing to open up their wallets for a quick buy instead of grinding away. Some might be bothered by the MTs arriving after Kaz himself said they wouldn't, but I doubt most GTS players even know that happened.
Well the other issue with that is that no title from 20 years ago has ever been available to download off the PS Store to begin with
. I'd assume licenses are the issue for the PS1/PS2 era games never showing up.
I honestly can't remember how digital versions of GT5 were handled, but GT6 is delisted now, and I imagine the same approach will happen to Sport when its successor arrives. The servers will probably shut down too, which puts Sport in a very strange position in terms of end-of-life status unless the entire structure is reworked so that it can still mostly function without calling home all the time.
For the past couple years MS has given away a Forza title the month before it gets delisted. Sony could possibly do that for GTS as a sort of "okay now you have zero excuses to not own this great game" move, but I think a PS+ listing coinciding with a big marketing push -- say, Monaco? -- would be a huge power play. The game is already discounted, and the nature of its DLC approach means having a larger player base to draw MT purchases from would help offset the freebie nature of the game that month. If it's done with a reasonable amount of support left too, then the positive word of mouth from all these new players could conceivably translate to more sales once it's off the PS+ listing.
If you can't read a particular (game's name / developer / pineapple-on-pizza supporter) on a page without foaming at the mouth, back away from the post button. If you can't see said foaming without adding your own particular brand to the pile, same advice.
This frankly idiotic tribalism does sim racing (and the racing genre as a whole) a huge disservice. Shape up or ship out -- bans will no longer be temporary if there are repeat episodes. This is not how I want to spend my final night in Salzburg. 👎
Whoa, whoa -- this post's logic content is too high!
That last bit (which I've cut the quote down to) asks the important question: what counts? And the fact is that, unless anybody is on the board over at Sony and/or Microsoft, they won't really know. Or at other devs for that matter, but Sony and MS are the two first-party console teams involved with racing titles.
People bemoan the move to player counts as misdirection, but it's the new metric. Minecraft just hit 100 million active users per month -- investors want to know those numbers, but in an age of increased online multiplayer (or at least online-enabled features), it also gives players an idea of how alive the community is.
It's not as if sales figures ever really gave players an idea of a game's "success": it didn't take into account the cost to produce the game, or how many sales were at full price, or bundled, or whether that was sold to retailers or actually in the hands of players. Then there's the modern aspect of DLC: GT Sport has microtransactions, FH4 has the more traditional DLC approach. One could argue GT's DLC loses money compared to FH4, but on the other hand, making it available to everyone alongside MTs could lead to people being more willing to open up their wallets for a quick buy instead of grinding away. Some might be bothered by the MTs arriving after Kaz himself said they wouldn't, but I doubt most GTS players even know that happened.
Well the other issue with that is that no title from 20 years ago has ever been available to download off the PS Store to begin with
. I'd assume licenses are the issue for the PS1/PS2 era games never showing up.I honestly can't remember how digital versions of GT5 were handled, but GT6 is delisted now, and I imagine the same approach will happen to Sport when its successor arrives. The servers will probably shut down too, which puts Sport in a very strange position in terms of end-of-life status unless the entire structure is reworked so that it can still mostly function without calling home all the time.
For the past couple years MS has given away a Forza title the month before it gets delisted. Sony could possibly do that for GTS as a sort of "okay now you have zero excuses to not own this great game" move, but I think a PS+ listing coinciding with a big marketing push -- say, Monaco? -- would be a huge power play. The game is already discounted, and the nature of its DLC approach means having a larger player base to draw MT purchases from would help offset the freebie nature of the game that month. If it's done with a reasonable amount of support left too, then the positive word of mouth from all these new players could conceivably translate to more sales once it's off the PS+ listing.
- 16,258
- Melbourne
- ScottPuss20
- CheetahsMeow
Competition is a good thing for consumers, because each respective party will try to outdo each other, leading to BETTER games. You can't have one without the other; that's just how things work. No point causing an argument.This whole discussion was brought up all because
THAT, is what starts a chain reaction. The fact that both games are doing considerably well should mean something for the racing genre, not because one game out shines the other...
- 2,677
- UK
- Outspacer
Whoa, whoa -- this post's logic content is too high!
That last bit (which I've cut the quote down to) asks the important question: what counts? And the fact is that, unless anybody is on the board over at Sony and/or Microsoft, they won't really know. Or at other devs for that matter, but Sony and MS are the two first-party console teams involved with racing titles.
People bemoan the move to player counts as misdirection, but it's the new metric. Minecraft just hit 100 million active users per month -- investors want to know those numbers, but in an age of increased online multiplayer (or at least online-enabled features), it also gives players an idea of how alive the community is.
It's not as if sales figures ever really gave players an idea of a game's "success": it didn't take into account the cost to produce the game, or how many sales were at full price, or bundled, or whether that was sold to retailers or actually in the hands of players. Then there's the modern aspect of DLC: GT Sport has microtransactions, FH4 has the more traditional DLC approach. One could argue GT's DLC loses money compared to FH4, but on the other hand, making it available to everyone alongside MTs could lead to people being more willing to open up their wallets for a quick buy instead of grinding away. Some might be bothered by the MTs arriving after Kaz himself said they wouldn't, but I doubt most GTS players even know that happened.
Cheers! In some ways the obvious answer is profit, but frankly as gamers we don't directly care about how much profit they make, so I'm favouring revenue or sales as a 'success' metric - simply as a measure of how readily we parted with our money, if you like. Obviously different sales models complicate that more and more these days. For the companies behind franchises a lot has to do with building/maintaining appearances, even through a duff iteration, ready for the next installment. (Duff is a bit strong; I'm referring to things like big drops in car count, for example).
Players per month is a useful metric, whereas total players ever really isn't useful. For GTS we can use it to estimate sales, but for a gamepass game like FH4 we can't. Any racing game is going to look pathetic compared to the behemoths using comparable metrics - GTS has 640k active players per week (and only 80k in sport mode), maybe double that to get a monthly figure, which is still just noise compared to 100 million!
FH4 is clearly designed to boost the players-per-week (or more likely hours-played-per-week) metric with the way new cars have to be earned, so it's clearly important to them internally. I think it's a big clue as to how gamepass revenue is distributed, and likely the people who only try the game out for an hour or two total don't count for much.
- 3,276
- Canada
Have you enjoyed playing Gran Turismo over the years?
...Then who cares about the sales figures?
I guess i care because it is important to me that there is money to be made, serious money, in a console based online racing game. I do feel this will eventually morph into a yearly or monthly subscription model, far cheaper than iRacing but not unlike it.
I paid $60 for the game and have played what 282 hours. That's 21c an hour.
- 390
- Germany
@NevilleNobody
The issue is we don't know how much revenue PD generated with sale figures alone, because not everyone bought it for 60$. With DLC and microtransactions this is even more difficult.
In fact, i couldn't tell which GT is the most successful at this point. So using sales alone as a metric for success was overhauled a long time ago.
The issue is we don't know how much revenue PD generated with sale figures alone, because not everyone bought it for 60$. With DLC and microtransactions this is even more difficult.
In fact, i couldn't tell which GT is the most successful at this point. So using sales alone as a metric for success was overhauled a long time ago.
- 3,276
- Canada
Even at $30 a piece it's $240M.
Developers are expensive but that's a tidy profit for sure.
Developers are expensive but that's a tidy profit for sure.
Novalee
(Banned)
- 708
- Earth
it still means zero . i cant stand a game like fortnite yet it has sold tens of millions if not hundreds of millions in mt.
these comparisons show more about the person boasting and posting than the actual games being discussed .
as far as im concerned a true gamer celebrates all games .
- 982
Thats more than a tidy bit profit. The most expensive games are $100 million. GTS would be nowhere close to that, considering low dev count compared those AAA games, JP devs and lower marketing.
There's no need to worry about PD's financials. GT sells so much that even at discounted prices, PD/Sony are making loads of money.
- 14,436
- Los Angeles, CA
- Lma_robot
- lImaRobotl
GT5 cost what, 60 million to make? That was with quite a bit lower staff count as well. Not only that but most of that game was just brought over from the last.
I would bet that GTS wouldn’t be too far off that mark of those AAA games you mentioned.
Plus at this point we should be painfully aware that 100% of this profit doesn’t go to them either.
Either way, they’re doing good nonetheless.
- 982
You can ballpark it.
For instance, PS4 generated $1.7 billion in revenue for physical game sales in 2018. Digital as a whole is near 40% so thats $2.83 billion total sales.
Bear in mind this does not include DLC, digital only games and MT, which make Sony $9 billion a year.
10% of yearly PS4 software sales are usually first party. PS4 sold 250 million games in 2018, so 25 million are 1st party. Sony get 10% of every sale on PS4 and %50 of every first party sale on PS4, physical. Likewise, 30% and 80% on the digital storefront.
Do a weighted average:
(150*0.9*0.1 + 150*0.1*0.5 + 100*0.9*0.3 + 100*0.1*0.8)*avg.P = $2830 million
avg.P = $50.5
Sony's cut on 1st party= $50.5*(0.5+0.8*2) = $32.825
Sony on average get $32.9 for every 1st party game sold on PS4.
GTS was on the lower end of pricing, due to big price cuts within a couple of weeks. Even with a 50% cut, GTS has made, assuming 8 million have been sold, $131 million.
Straight to Sony. This is not even including, special editions, and microtransactions.
- 14,436
- Los Angeles, CA
- Lma_robot
- lImaRobotl
1-2 year longer than GTS? All the while having a good chunk of the game directly ported? I would imagine that even with 1-2 year less development time for GTS, with how much they’ve upped the staff(Practically double right?), how much of the game started from scratch, and the continual development of it monthly for free over a year later(and still counting) things would likely be a little bit more pricey.
- 3,276
- Canada
- 14,436
- Los Angeles, CA
- Lma_robot
- lImaRobotl
Unless you’re talking about racing in real life, you’ll unfortunately be a gamer just like the rest of us.
- 2,677
- UK
- Outspacer
Even GT5 budget would be $69 million in todays money, allowing for inflation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop
I guess somewhere around or above $100 million cost for GTS - say 200 staff @ $100k for 4 years -> $80 million, plus licensing, marketing, travel, events etc. (And there's the content for the monthly updates, but if I included that I'd have to subtract something for the GT6 updates).
Rough revenue estimate (so far)... 6.5 millon sales @ $30 -> $195 million, times 62% -> $121 million, not far from @GT6mebe 's figure.
(62% = 60% * 50% + 40% * 80%, for retail/digital split)
Novalee
(Banned)
- 708
- Earth
by iracing
Silver Arrows
(Banned)
- 4,715
- Brandon, MB
- Silver-Arrows21
You can tell that people posting that sort of thing have never even looked at iRacing in any regard other then 'that one PC sim that costs a lot of money' because they'd know that basically anything that GT Sport has ever done WRT Sportsmanship and Driver ratings, or the vast majority of Sport Mode, was cribbed directly from iRacing, and the only thing that Polyphony really did was introduce it to a console audience.
If we're really going down this road - the first Halo really streamlined FPS on consoles, when such games were either severely hampered by the lack of ability to translate dual analog controls, or they were trying to emulate what was present and popular on PC, to varying degrees of success. As such, Halo is able to stand alongside notable PC FPS games for that reason alone, much like what the first GT game did to bring what was, at the time of it's release, a very buttoned up and more so technical side of racing games to a much more palatable, user friendly experience.
Legitimately, what did GT Sport do other then introduce what iRacing had been doing for years to a wider console audience? Because Polyphony didn't really innovate in that regard - they just took what had already been done by a mostly PC product, and applied it to a console game. Sure, it's nice, but it isn't the greatest innovation since sliced bread that the quoted post, and the overarching sentiment, thinks that it is.
Silver Arrows
(Banned)
- 4,715
- Brandon, MB
- Silver-Arrows21
Again, I don't think it should be taken as an inflammatory statement that driver and sportsmanship ratings aren't really as big of an innovation as people make it out to be - that Polyphony very clearly have the inspiration for such a thing out in the open, and in reality, they really only brought it to a console audience, and that anybody who's even spent a few minutes, either playing, or knowing of, iRacing can see that they're the ones who really brought it to the forefront.
- 14,436
- Los Angeles, CA
- Lma_robot
- lImaRobotl
You’re right, but this game would have likely had a harder and/or longer development time if it had absolutely nothing to use as a reference point. That’s why competition is very much important within the genre. It helps spring new ideas or implement good ideas done elsewhere and likely speeds up things rather than not. That’s what I feel that’s going over your head within the points being discussed, about how competition only helps, so we should be celebrating all those doing well within the genre cus that’ll only do better for us, the consumer.
As a casual observer looking in from the outside. It appears to me Sony are now investing more budget & resources into the GT franchise. At least compared to GTS’s initial development - culminating in the October 2017 launch.
After the strategic mistake of launching GT6 on PS3. Then PD being on the back foot content wise, having to essentially start from scratch. GTS had a strangely subdued launch. I believe Sony & PD knew they had a long road ahead to get back into the good books of fans. The gameplay fundamentals and quality were better than ever. But no getting away from it’s lack of content.
These past few years we’ve seen the rise of Esports, Sony’s need for a more diverse catalogue. Plus Sony’s direct rival, Microsoft, pushing Forza harder than ever. From commercial partnership’s to FIA World Tour production values. It all seems to have focused Sony & PD to get GT back on track.
Let’s also not forget we are now in a world where Backwards Compatibility will be a major player. Plus content produced for PS4 will be suitable for PS5. Helping spread development costs over multiple generations.
After the strategic mistake of launching GT6 on PS3. Then PD being on the back foot content wise, having to essentially start from scratch. GTS had a strangely subdued launch. I believe Sony & PD knew they had a long road ahead to get back into the good books of fans. The gameplay fundamentals and quality were better than ever. But no getting away from it’s lack of content.
These past few years we’ve seen the rise of Esports, Sony’s need for a more diverse catalogue. Plus Sony’s direct rival, Microsoft, pushing Forza harder than ever. From commercial partnership’s to FIA World Tour production values. It all seems to have focused Sony & PD to get GT back on track.
Let’s also not forget we are now in a world where Backwards Compatibility will be a major player. Plus content produced for PS4 will be suitable for PS5. Helping spread development costs over multiple generations.
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