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Forums - Sales Discussion - The Last of Us Part II sold through more than 4m copies during its first weekend. Lifetime sales expectations for the PS4 version alone?

 

The Last of Us Part II sold through more than 4m copies during its first weekend. Lifetime sales expectations for the PS4 version alone?

Less than 7 million 120 10.17%
 
7.0 - 7.9 million 47 3.98%
 
8.0 - 8.9 million 70 5.93%
 
9.0 - 9.9 million 77 6.53%
 
10.0 - 11.9 million 260 22.03%
 
12.0 - 13.9 million 170 14.41%
 
14.0 - 15.9 million 179 15.17%
 
16.0 - 17.9 million 91 7.71%
 
18.0 - 20.0 million 62 5.25%
 
More than 20 million 104 8.81%
 
Total:1,180
CGI-Quality said:
Valdney said:

This is probably the least profitable game made by ND in the last 15 years or so. The game's value has dropped hard since it was released (20 bucks for a new copy at Amazon) while Ghost of Tsushima, a game that came out around the same time, has kept its value high.

https://www.eurogamer.net/the-last-of-us-part-2-is-the-third-highest-grossing-game-in-the-us-in-playstation-history

Nope.

This article, in no way, addresses what I said. It's a 2 year old article that does not mention profits at all. No doubt the game was off to a great start and a massive amount of revenue was created around that time. But again, I am not talking about revenue. 



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Thats a lot less than I expected before release. Really shows that the negative reactions affected sales.



tag:"reviews only matter for the real hardcore gamer"

CGI-Quality said:
Valdney said:

This article, in no way, addresses what I said. It's a 2 year old article that does not mention profits at all. No doubt the game was off to a great start and a massive amount of revenue was created around that time. But again, I am not talking about revenue. 

As reported by NPD Group and spotted by our pals at VGC, this means the only first-party Sony titles to top The Last of Us 2 in terms of life-to-date profit are Insomniac's Marvel's Spider-Man and Sony Santa Monica's God of War - and both of those have been out for considerably longer than Naughty Dog's highly anticipated sequel.

It addressed exactly what you said, which was based on feelings and not any solid data at all. It's likely that the game made what it needed to in those first 4 million unit sales and everything else was pure profit. It's a better guess than assuming it is "probably the least profitable game made by ND in the last 15 years or so". 

VGC article states life-to-date dollar sales, not profits. So not sure where Eurogamer is getting that. Must be a typo on their end.

I tried googling if NPD stated anything about profit and they did not, so you're article doesn't prove anything about profit.

However, it also doesn't prove that its the least profitable.



tag:"reviews only matter for the real hardcore gamer"

CGI-Quality said:
Valdney said:

This article, in no way, addresses what I said. It's a 2 year old article that does not mention profits at all. No doubt the game was off to a great start and a massive amount of revenue was created around that time. But again, I am not talking about revenue. 

As reported by NPD Group and spotted by our pals at VGC, this means the only first-party Sony titles to top The Last of Us 2 in terms of life-to-date profit are Insomniac's Marvel's Spider-Man and Sony Santa Monica's God of War - and both of those have been out for considerably longer than Naughty Dog's highly anticipated sequel.

Yes, at that point, it had already made more money than those two huge games. It addressed exactly what you said, which was based on feelings and not any solid data at all. It's likely that the game made what it needed to in those first 4 million unit sales and everything else was pure profit. Even if it hasn't made as much, overall, as Spider-Man or GOW, this is still a better guess than assuming it is "probably the least profitable game made by ND in the last 15 years or so". 

This is the link I got from your first reply. https://www.thegamer.com/last-of-us-2-third-highest-grossing-playstation-game/ . It does not mention profits at all. But I saw the second link now. OK I was probably wrong, although the data in regards to profits is not clear. 

Last edited by Valdney - on 10 June 2022

CGI-Quality said:
brute said:

CGI-Quality said:

As reported by NPD Group and spotted by our pals at VGC, this means the only first-party Sony titles to top The Last of Us 2 in terms of life-to-date profit are Insomniac's Marvel's Spider-Man and Sony Santa Monica's God of War - and both of those have been out for considerably longer than Naughty Dog's highly anticipated sequel.

It addressed exactly what you said, which was based on feelings and not any solid data at all. It's likely that the game made what it needed to in those first 4 million unit sales and everything else was pure profit. It's a better guess than assuming it is "probably the least profitable game made by ND in the last 15 years or so". 

VGC article states life-to-date dollar sales, not profits. So not sure where Eurogamer is getting that. Must be a typo on their end.

I tried googling if NPD stated anything about profit and they did not, so you're article doesn't prove anything about profit.

However, it also doesn't prove that its the least profitable.

The article uses data. That's the point. We can argue profit vs revenue all day (which is generally silly anyway, given how these companies judge their products). It was the 3rd highest grossing game for Sony upon release.  

Agreed. It was the 3rd highest grossing game at that time, not 3rd most profitable (cant prove this unless Sony makes any kind of statement which the likely wont). Which is the point I was trying to make.



tag:"reviews only matter for the real hardcore gamer"

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CGI-Quality said:
brute said:

CGI-Quality said:

As reported by NPD Group and spotted by our pals at VGC, this means the only first-party Sony titles to top The Last of Us 2 in terms of life-to-date profit are Insomniac's Marvel's Spider-Man and Sony Santa Monica's God of War - and both of those have been out for considerably longer than Naughty Dog's highly anticipated sequel.

It addressed exactly what you said, which was based on feelings and not any solid data at all. It's likely that the game made what it needed to in those first 4 million unit sales and everything else was pure profit. It's a better guess than assuming it is "probably the least profitable game made by ND in the last 15 years or so". 

VGC article states life-to-date dollar sales, not profits. So not sure where Eurogamer is getting that. Must be a typo on their end.

I tried googling if NPD stated anything about profit and they did not, so you're article doesn't prove anything about profit.

However, it also doesn't prove that its the least profitable.

The article uses data. That's the point. We can argue profit vs revenue all day (which is generally silly anyway, given how these companies judge their products). It was the 3rd highest grossing game for Sony upon release.  

Valdney said:

This is the link I got from your first reply. https://www.thegamer.com/last-of-us-2-third-highest-grossing-playstation-game/ 

Then tell us, how do you conclude it is Naughty Dog's least profitable game of the past 15 years? Based on what?

Development time (cost to make the game) vs sales. I never concluded anything actually. It was just a guess. It is written as a guess. I think that labor is by far the most amount of resources spent when making a video game, and this game took a lot time and a lot of people. It is a decent guess, but just a guess. 

And the way a company judges its products does not interest me that much, but profitability does interest me. I don't think its silly at all to talk about profits. 



RolStoppable said:

The Last of Us Part II (PS4) hit the 10m milestone sometime during spring 2022.

https://www.vgchartz.com/article/453952/the-last-of-us-part-ii-sales-top-10-million-units/

Later than expected by most people, plus there's still no announcement of a PS5 nor PC release, so the PS4 version had as much time for itself as one could hope for. There shouldn't be an issue with calling it now: The 10.0 - 11.9 million option is the correct one.

Here are the poll results at the time of writing:

The Last of Us Part II sold through more than 4m copies during its first weekend.
Lifetime sales expectations for the PS4 version alone?

Less than 7 million12010.22%
 
7.0 - 7.9 million474.00%
 
8.0 - 8.9 million705.96%
 
9.0 - 9.9 million776.56%
 
10.0 - 11.9 million25922.06%
 
12.0 - 13.9 million16914.40%
 
14.0 - 15.9 million17715.08%
 
16.0 - 17.9 million917.75%
 
18.0 - 20.0 million615.20%
 
More than 20 million1038.77%
 
Total:1,174

From your table LTD <10M = 10.22+4+5.96+6.56 = 26.74 didn't even think it would reach 10M

Now on the 10-12M (it will reach that for sure even without PS5 version) we would have 48.8% of people thinking it wouldn`t cross 12M.

So how majority though it would reach 10M in a shorter time than it did?



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Valdney said:
CGI-Quality said:

The article uses data. That's the point. We can argue profit vs revenue all day (which is generally silly anyway, given how these companies judge their products). It was the 3rd highest grossing game for Sony upon release.  

Valdney said:

This is the link I got from your first reply. https://www.thegamer.com/last-of-us-2-third-highest-grossing-playstation-game/ 

Then tell us, how do you conclude it is Naughty Dog's least profitable game of the past 15 years? Based on what?

Development time (cost to make the game) vs sales. I never concluded anything actually. It was just a guess. It is written as a guess. I think that labor is by far the most amount of resources spent when making a video game, and this game took a lot time and a lot of people. It is a decent guess, but just a guess. 

And the way a company judges its products does not interest me that much, but profitability does interest me. I don't think its silly at all to talk about profits. 

It would be hard sell to say it profited less than Left Behind or Lost Legacy.

Also considering 15 years include the original Uncharted, I would say TLOU2 profited more (unless perhaps you want to include collections and remasters).



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

RolStoppable said:
DonFerrari said:

From your table LTD <10M = 10.22+4+5.96+6.56 = 26.74 didn't even think it would reach 10M

Now on the 10-12M (it will reach that for sure even without PS5 version) we would have 48.8% of people thinking it wouldn`t cross 12M.

So how majority though it would reach 10M in a shorter time than it did?

Approximately 51% of the votes were too high compared to 26.74% which were too low, so the conclusion is that the game was overestimated. The game will not cross 12m with its now known sales trajectory, so of course all votes above that threshold were made with the expectation that the 10m milestone would be reached sooner than it actually happened.

If a remastered PS5 version had launched as quickly as it happened for the first game (originally released in mid-2013 for the PS3, remastered PS4 version released in mid-2014), then the second game's sales on its original platform would have been even lower than they are right now. From reading through this thread I got the impression that most people assumed that a PS5 remaster would launch before the end of 2021, so similar to how things played out for the first game. Then there are a few posts in here which explicitly state that 10m would be reached by the end of 2020.

You know the name of what you are doing is reaching right?



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

RolStoppable said:
DonFerrari said:

From your table LTD <10M = 10.22+4+5.96+6.56 = 26.74 didn't even think it would reach 10M

Now on the 10-12M (it will reach that for sure even without PS5 version) we would have 48.8% of people thinking it wouldn`t cross 12M.

So how majority though it would reach 10M in a shorter time than it did?

Approximately 51% of the votes were too high compared to 26.74% which were too low, so the conclusion is that the game was overestimated. The game will not cross 12m with its now known sales trajectory, so of course all votes above that threshold were made with the expectation that the 10m milestone would be reached sooner than it actually happened.

If a remastered PS5 version had launched as quickly as it happened for the first game (originally released in mid-2013 for the PS3, remastered PS4 version released in mid-2014), then the second game's sales on its original platform would have been even lower than they are right now. From reading through this thread I got the impression that most people assumed that a PS5 remaster would launch before the end of 2021, so similar to how things played out for the first game. Then there are a few posts in here which explicitly state that 10m would be reached by the end of 2020.

Yeah, I voted 9-10m, but I thought the game would have a PS5 version by now.  I have to give credit to those who voted 10-12m though, since some of those who voted this may have correctly guessed there would be no PS5 version.

I have to agree with you that, overall, the game underperformed compared to expectations.  Over 50% of voters overpredicted the results and some of the surely thought there would be a PS5 version of the game as well.