I'd just like to point out, From Software have pretty much always been multi-plat. Or at least, since last gen, they worked on all 3 major consoles.

The only reason Demon's Souls was a PS3 exclusive is because Japan Studio helped design and develop the game (as such, Sony kept the IP for Demon's Souls, but obviously not Dark Souls).

But to answer the question - no, I don't think it did them any harm going multi-plat with this specific series. At the very least, it got them some decent exposure for the series if there are going to be any more.

so 9 of 24 people (one no came from me accidentally) think it was a bad decision to probably increase the sales with that decision? (just look in two years)

They should make a demons souls 2 with Sony. SCEA and SCEE should get brains and actually publish it instead of letting Atlus do it. Then everyone would be happy.

Multiplat expands the franchise to a bigger audience and you win in the long rong, at least with a universally praised game like the Dark Souls series that nearly all hardcore gamers want to experience.

And like people already said, it will end up selling 2 million on consoles alone when all is said and done, and an additional 500K on PC (although a lot of that will come from cheap Steam sales).

The next gen Dark Souls has potential to sell 3 million.

And this is all thanks to them going multiplatform.

1) Dark Souls has sold much, much faster than Demons' Souls, not to mention sold more copies at higher price points.

2) Dark Souls sold only 1 Million Games on PS3, so if Dark Souls would have been a Ps3 exklusiv the sales would have been way more disappointing.

So actually the Xbox 360 and the Pc version saved this Game from becoming a Flop. The Xbox version sold 600.000 and the PC should be around 400.000 including digital sales from Steam so they add another Million. 2 Million in lesser time than its predecessor is really not bad for a game like this.
But like I said the sales show that as a PS3 exclusiv Dark Souls would have soled only 1 Million and that would have been without a doubt a Flop.
So how could you even ask if it would be better if the game would be exclusiv, that is a dumb question in my opinion. Everyone can see that the game only soled 1 Million copies on Ps3.

I think a Demon's Souls 2 on PS3 could sell 2 million... Dark Soul will never sell that combined.

dark souls which is already at 1.67 million+pc (on steam it had over 10k simultaneous players once which should be minimum 100k steam sales now) won't reach 2 million with weekly sales of probably 10k+ for these three platforms in a low period of the year?

btw prepare to die edition not yet released for ps3 and 360, that will also give a nice boost.

Demon Soul's sold abysmally until it hit the bargin bins and people decided it was worth spending $20 for the novelty of playing "the hardest game of this gen"

http://www.vgchartz.com/tools/game_comparison.php?reg=Global&ending=Cumulative&game%5B%5D=Dark+Souls+%28X360%29+%5B47352%5D&game%5B%5D=Dark+Souls+%28PS3%29+%5B47349%5D&game%5B%5D=Demon%27s+Souls+%28PS3%29+%5B31689%5D&game%5B%5D=

A lot of those people realized they do not enjoy the frustrating experience and so are no longer interested in a sequel. There is no way the series would have grown just on the ps3, there isn't a big audience for the type of game.

Dark Souls sold a lot of copies initially at the $60 pricetag so it was far more profitable. Not to mention it has already outsold demon soul's by 100k+ if you factor in PC sales. And that lead is only getting bigger.

It was definitely a good decision. And they made far more money from dark souls then demon souls. 

Very few people priorize their gaming purchases based on exclusivity. 16 of the 20 best selling ps3 games are multiplatform.

Unless sony was offering a lot of money to keep the game exclusive, Namco made the right decision, because the game would have sold significantly worse being just on the ps3.

hey there is one thing you have to think about which i also forgot in my first post in this thread, this graph for global sales does not really work because demon's souls had a big gap between the releases in all three territories. as example the first 40 weeks or so are only japan in the global graph for demon's souls. you have to look at the graphs for usa/japan/europe but dark souls will be still more succesful, it's only behind in usa right now and this won't be forever.

Dark souls would have done worse as an exclusive. I doubt much of anyone held off from buying it because it went multiplat. They made the right decision and from is hardly ever exclusive to a platform i thought.