VGChartz's Miles Gregory: "With amazing remakes of classic games, genre-defining titles, hotly anticipated sequels, and huge expansions to existing games, 2023 really spoiled gamers. Following up such a fantastic year would never be easy, and there are a lot of mysteries on the horizon. Will Nintendo release its follow up to the Switch? What are Sony’s studios working on? Will we begin to see the fruits of Microsoft's new acquisitions?
Though these burning questions are currently unanswered, we still have some fantastic games on the horizon to look forward to. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will continue the saga of Cloud Strife in Square Enix’s reimagining of what's considered to be one of the best RPGs ever made. The sequel to Capcom's cult classic Dragon's Dogma is on the horizon, as is Nintendo's remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, an entry that many consider to be the pinnacle of Mario RPGs. Fans of metroidvanias are eagerly anticipating the sequel to Hollow Knight in Hollow Knight: Silksong. Lastly, there's Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, the follow-up to Ninja Theory’s remarkable indie experience that was one-part graphical showpiece, two parts intimations of the effects of abuse and the complexity of mental health. There can be only one winner, though, so who will it be?"
Dragon's Dogma 2, Capcom's latest JRPG, has reached a new sales milestone, rolling over 3 million copies in a span of two months.
Hands fown my game of the generation so far, definitely has some flaws and buggy quests, but damn is it good, and surprisingly flexible in how it allows creativity and different approaches to resolve quests and reacts accordingly.
I just picked this up for PS5. I'm going to hold off playing as long as I can though, in case they decide to add a new performance mode. I don't want to play this at 30 fps unless I absolutely have no other choice (PC isn't a choice for me). I have a dozen other games in my backlog so I'm good.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 launched last week to solid reviews from both fans and players. But its playercount? That's another story.
That's awful. This combined with the really low Steam numbers paint a disastrous picture imo. Really bad timing too because Tango was closed down for a similar thing. Great reviewed game, and low sales and/or player count. Hi-Fi Rush reviewed a hell of a lot better and it was widely loved by everyone, Hellblade 2 nowhere near that.
I know the rumor is that the studio has their next game already green-lit, but if I worked at Tango, I would be furious. "Why do they survive while we get binned?" I'd be telling myself.
But the suit woman will have you believe "Oh we have different metrics for the success of one studio compared to another studio. We judge each studio and game on their own set criteria" or something like that, I'm paraphrasing here but you get the idea. But no one who works there knows what the hell that even means. I mean the DLC for Redfall was getting worked on days before they even got the news their studio was getting dumped in the trash. So what are these mysterious metrics to let studios survive and others perish? I bet this is all hogwash, I bet MS don't even really know. They just had to make cuts and certain studios just found their way on the chopping block. Someone had to bite the dust, why not you?
Well I bet all this does nothing for the confidence of other employees in other studios. The truth is you have no idea where your career will be in a year from now working at one of their studios that aren't the mega big ones. MS just have too many studios to manage efficiently. "We'll just throw money at them and buy them and worry about the details later on. I mean we can do it, we're Microsoft."
If this game cost more and took longer to develop than Hi-Fi Rush, then I would worry if I were Ninja Theory. Projects may have been greenlit, but the increased scrutiny over at MS may very well put them on the chopping block. The incredible irony here is that it was PlayStation players that pushed the original game passed its 1 million copies sold milestone. With that purchasing power cut out, and the Game Pass effect having trained Xbox players to not purchase games, it seems that the sequel may have been set-up for failure.
A former Square Enix executive has shed light on sales expectations and budget realities of the Final Fantasy series.
Yea, I love how so many on here did simple math like 3mill x $70 = they made a profit.
When that’s not even close to how this works.
They take the years spent and equate the ROI to the sum % of stock prices during the years of development to do a baseline ROI and then you have the 30% taken out of every sale on a platform EXCEPT for Steam, which is 12%.
Nobody factors in the cost for production of physical media, the cost of advertising, marketing, and the loss from discounts/used game sales and they wonder why selling 3 mill for FF16 isn’t profitable. Or they don’t understand amortization and how games are supposed to generate profit over a long period of time.
Instead, they say Square makes unreasonable expectations for a game to sell when it’s the reality of the cost of AAA development and ROI. I wish I could go back and reply to comments where people jumped down my throat telling me FF16 and FF7 Rebirth were financially successful and I had no idea what I’m talking about.
This honestly does not bode well for the final part of the FF7 series. It often makes me wonder why they ever bothered to remake it at all if this is the thanks they get for making one of the greatest RPGs to exist. All that hooting and hollering at conventions for nothing.
They should have released a PC version too. And no not EGS but Steam and maybe someday GOG
FF7 Rebirth for me as well.
I'm hearing that Hellblade 2 can be completed in 6-8 hours after being in development for 5 years. Perfect for gamepass
FF7Rebirth for me but there’s a bunch of other games I want to play. Granblue, Stellar Blade, and a bunch of other games that have a physical disc. It will be interesting to see if Alan Wake 2 gets a physical print this year.
Silent Hill 2 Remake. Easily.
Persona 3 Reload, Wraith: Aeon of Ruin, Selaco, Loopers Plus, Warhammer 40k: Space Marine II, Read Only Memories: Neurodiver, Konosuba: Love For these Clothes of Desire, Twisted Tower, Lunaria: Virtualized Moonchild, Clockwork Revolution, The Last Exterminator, Date A Live: Ren Dystopia, Silent Hill 2 Remake and Metaphor for me.