Agreed but it's what I had at the top of my head.

Tomb raider is a better one. Sold 10 million, square weren't happy. Made a trilody anyway. 

What about the rest of the post?

I think we are forgetting that Sony has a number of other metrics that we don't have in addition to reviews and sales. Such as average playtime, completion rates etc.

So in addition to the need for discounts to move that number of sales, its entirely possible that a good number of people who bought the game didn't end up playing it for a significant amount of time.

In this particular scenario I think forcing the studio to move on to a new IP was the right decision. I think Sony could have allowed the sequel but in all honesty its likely that the Days Gone fanbase is limited and if the sequel is just a continuation of story with slightly added gameplay elements then I think the opportunity for growth is near impossible. This is perfectly fine but it needs to be weighed against the estimated cost it will take to build the sequel.

Investing in a new IP is a clean slate for the team and Sony and the potential fanbase for the new IP will most likely exceed that of the Days Gone sequel.

GoT was acclaimed and loved by media and customers 

Days Gone was bashed because of its bugs and whatnot. Sony expects only very high quality and acclaim from their games, a game with 71 on Metacritic is not what they are looking for 

Good point. Sales aren't enough to measure how liked was a game

So many games would benefit from not receiving sequels, even more endless one.

From the OP source the studio management wasn't happy not Sony. If you look at other studios interviews you'll know that Sony have their studios with a very good freedom to decide on what to work on.

If we are to believe the story of the refused pitch, perhaps it was the studio management that refused a director pitch isn't of Sony denying the studio the sequel.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/jeff-ross-days-gone-has-sold-over-9-million-units-on-ps4-and-pc.1627134/page-4

Its sold through, over 9million copies now.

"and whatnot"

nah, it wasnt the bugs, it was mainly journalists and critics, getting angry at the male role, and his attitutde towards women.
Femanists went wild, and journalistes all showed up to support them, and gave it worse reviews than it deserved.

I've been saying this since forever, its a underrated game.
Its a much better game than its review score, shows.

Apparently, word of mouth, and solid gameplay, beats journalists dogpileing on it.

They are making a new IP as we speak and it's an open world game and according to them builds and expands on what they learned from Days Gone.                        

Pasted from a post I made in the frontpage article.

He referred to local management and we don't know the return on investment, those roi numbers might not have been enough for a sequel since these figures seem to have have been heavily driven by sale prices and the decision not to follow up with an immediate sequel was made fairly early on , and that is backed up by John Garvin who was the creative director and lead writer for Days Gone, he blamed the lack of full priced sales for them not getting the green light for a sequel, also some of the noise surrounding the studio and Sony seems to stem from them after completion iirc not being to happy with being tasked with helping ND finish up The last of us 2,, because management thought the game had earned them enough status to do what they wanted, still although they didn't get a Days Gone sequel they did get a new IP approved that they are working on, now all we know about it is its an open world game .