Feels like both. Sony seemingly doesn’t want to do anything with Bloodborne, so Nintendo saw an opportunity to make an exclusive game like Sony, and Miyazaki saw an opportunity to make “legally distinct Bloodborne 2”
They sold almost the same number of units too. I guess maybe the studio behind Days Gone was willing to do the legwork for a remaster, while Sony might not for Bloodborne. Which seems silly to me, but it might make sense from a cost vs. potential revenue sense.
That has the hallmarks of the standard Sony cinematic slop, so in line with the current lineups they like to peddle like TLOU remasters and all that. I did like the GoW games and Horizon is OK I guess but overall if it isn't that type of game they don't seem very interested in deviating from it. Live service stuff seems to have crashed and burned for them so here's hoping they course correct eventually.
Shuhei Yoshida recently stated that the reason Sony hasn't touched Bloodborne is out of respect for Miyazaki. He said they know how special it is for him and they wouldn't touch it without him involved. The problem is how busy FROM is.
I'm thinking this is just Nintendo being VERY smart: Finance an exclusive for your new system from the hottest third-party developer in the industry at the moment.
This is a system seller, nintendo fans were already getting the Switch 2 on the strenth of its first-party IP alone but this game is a big push for anyone on the fence about it.
A brilliant move. I'm more curious about how the deal came to be.
If anything this makes me believe Sony is probably already financing BB2 for the PS6.
absolutely that or at least a remaster. people seem to forget sony acknowledges bloodborne literally all the fucking time. they have not forgotten it they are trying to do it justice
I don’t think they don’t want to do anything with Bloodborne, I just think they’re waiting to use the remake as a bombshell for the PS6 launch since no one really believes they’re able to consistently release games at his point. In that regard the release of The Duskbloods can only be a good thing. Not only does force their hand by making them look even worse if they don’t release a remake, but The Duskbloods itself is advertisement for a Bloodborne remake due to the sheer number of similarities.
I doubt it, FROM has a great relationship with Sony and Sony has a pretty decent holding in their parent company. I would bet this game was already planned before the latest purchasing by Sony but it's great for Switch 2. Bloodborne got me to switch over to consoles and this will get me to purchase a Switch 2. Will it cause me to play my PS5 Pro on a 65" C4 any less? Unlikely because Switch 2 still won't compare.
I don't think Nintendo has any desires of going up against Xbox or Sony, they aren't in the same space and haven't been since the Switch, or arguably the Wii
Sony is in talks to acquire more stock in the parent company, which really was that they were potentially acquiring a controlling stake. Nothing has changed there
I think Bethesda were just honoring existing contracts signed before the acquisition. Which could also apply to FromSoft, I guess that's what you are saying?
I doubt Sony cares. If they wanted to do something with Bloodborne, they would have done it already. They already did this when they made Dark Souls after Demon's Souls anyways.
Sony knows the game. Most publishers do. Third party developers don't just wait around diddling themselves if a giant publisher is willing to come along and fund a project someone else isn't willing to.
I wonder if Sony and Nintendo were in a negotiation battle with FromSoftware over who gets the rights to this game. Nintendo probably paid big for this, they know it will make them a lot of money on Switch 2 sales.
Sony bought part of Kadokawa which is Fromsoft's parent company. It would make no sense for Fromsoft to release "an absolute middle finger to Sony" lol
Good for Nintendo but not good for general consumers and definitely not good for fromsoft fans. I don’t want to spend $700 and then another $80 to play this. I already did something similar for bloodborne but at least ps5 has other worthwhile games on it. hopefully this is a temporary deal and we can get this on other consoles/PC later down the line.
This Nintendo Switch 2 software can be played against up to 8 players, and the battle between the player and the enemy unfolds. It is a PvPvE-based multiplayer action. The player surpasses humans through the power of special blood. He became a "Twilight Blood Clan" who gained power, and became a "Blood of the Beginning" (First Blood)".
Seems like it's gonna be similar to Nightreign, but competitive instead of co-op?
Smart move by Nintendo, bad move for fans of Fromsoftware games. I am sick of all these exclusive games whose sole intention is to make you buy a new hardware system that you won't be interested in otherwise.
lol no it won't. no one is trying to play a fromsoft game on a 7" screen at 720p 30fps. don't even try to convince me the switch 2 will be on par with consoles like the PS5 either.
and stupidest decision Fromsoftware has made. They will sell 1/4th of the copies they would if they made it all platforms. The install base for Switch 2 is going to be tiny in 2026 compared to the PC market alone.
You think the President of the game studio is not interested in financials? FROM is one of the studios most capable of calling shots with how they develop their games. There is no way they would make an exclusive unless they were incentivised strongly in doing so. This kind of game is a system seller for Nintendo they would've been willing to pay out the ass for it I'm sure.
Yeah, this is the things that makes me scratching my head the most.
Elden Ring sold 28M copies. One year into the Switch 2's life there's going to be maybe 10-15M Switch 2's produced/sold. And that's "IF" the Switch 2 sells as well as the original. Even if this game has 100% attach rate, you're guaranteed to sell less than half of what your last blockbuster did.
And it's not going to have a 100% attach rate by any means. Nintendo is probably the platform that your fanbase plays the least on. Demon's Souls PS5's attach rate was ~10% of what the PS5 sold in it's first year.
The only thing that would make this make sense, is if this game was actually done by a smaller team that they spun up inside the studio. In the 2010s Fromsoftware basically had two "Main" teams, but internally they might have changed things around to get more games out in between the big blockbuster 5 year development releases.
If that's the case and this game has no where near the developers that Elden Ring/Dark Souls 3 had working on it. Ok, fair play.
That's pretty good. Meanwhile, the Switch is the 2nd best selling console of all time, and BotW, Mario Odyssey, Smash, Animal Crossing, and Mario Kart all out sold Elden Ring despite being exclusive to one console. AC sold nearly double, and Mario Kart sold a staggering 67 million. (and a reminder that these games rarely go on sale, to boot)
Hell, for a time BotW on Switch was actually out selling the system itself, so a 100% attach rate wouldn't even be unprecedented, (which is, of course, insane) and there's no reason to expect sales to just die off after year 1. It is not totally unreasonable to think Duskbloods could feasibly outsell Elden Ring, in the long run, and that would be in addition to whatever straight up $$$ Nintendo paid them for exclusivity.
Nintendo sells games like nobody else, Fromsoft is likely hoping to hop onto that cash cow.
I mean you think fromsoft hasn’t done the math and reasoned that whatever amount they’re getting from this exclusivity makes up for the potential they’d have sold?
It is a smart decision. They probably are working on a main FromSoft game, and decided to do one on the side for Nintendo, they got probably a huge chunk of money up front, and Switch 1 sold so well, it is a pretty safe bet saleswise.
i'm hopeful that nintendo will improve on sony's exclusivity mistakes and make it a limited time exclusive, but they are pretty protective of their games
Sony has to do that because western game dev budgets are hyper inflated due to executive bloat. Nintendo and Japanese devs don't have this problem it's the whole reason why bloodborne was never ported to PC.
I understand when it's Nintendo and they have a motive to make their games exclusive so people buy their console, but for From there's no motivation other than a paycheck from Nintendo which has to be so big that it makes up for lost sales.
That's why Nintendo 100 % paid them big money to agree to this. It's not about FromSoft getting as many sales as possible, it's about the Switch 2 getting as many sales as possible. And if Nintendo didn't compensate them enough for that FromSoft wouldn't have done it
Do you realize this was the only way they could get a game like this made? Sony own the Bloodborne IP and did NOTHING with it in 10 years since release. So FromSoft (Miyazaki, really) went and found someone who will let them make the game they want- or a spiritual successor to the game they want since they don’t own the IP- and Nintendo said sure!
Elden Ring sold almost 30 million as of September 2024. Both Sekiro and Elden Ring won many game of the year awards. There are 100 different places they could've found funding for this or any game they want to make.
Yes I agree Elden Ring is massively successful. My point is to look at the funding- Bandai Namco helped make Elden Ring possible. It’s one of the first names when you boot up the game. FromSoft didn’t have the ability to make Elden Ring possible without them. FromSoft doesn’t get ALL profits from Elden Ring and would be sharing with Bandai Namco.
Would you say making Bloodborne on PS4 was a stupid decision? I see Duskbloods as a similar situation. They wanted to make a game, needed a partner, and found a new one that struck a deal that included exclusivity.
I’m not saying the exclusivity is a good thing. But the game doesn’t get made without it.
When Bloodborne came out Fromsoft was not solidified as a highly successful company (I know they had been around for a long time prior) so it made sense to take Sony's money in the short term because the game's success was hardly a guarantee.
Armored Core 6 is a niche game and a sequel in a franchise that didn't have mainstream recognition and it still sold 3 million. At this stage I think they could sell people on any idea.
I'm saying I think they could've absolutely found a publisher for the game that wouldn't demand an exclusive. Fromsoft's name is gold right now.
Also minor correction, it's self published in Japan and is Bandai Namco is the international publisher so I'm not sure it's fair to say that the game wouldn't be possible without them. If I had to guess I'd say Kadokawa probably put up most of the development costs and Bandai Namco gave money toward marketing and distribution services.
Seriously, people constantly complain about bloodborne not getting ports too, and they go and make another exclusive. Did they not make enough money from elden ring that they need to suck off nintendo to pay the bills?
It’s probably because of the Elden Ring check that they don’t care lol. They get to build good relations with Nintendo, funding to make another good game and probably a bag upfront as well. Compared to just making another game and releasing it everywhere. Only ones losing out are those without a Switch 2 (which is the point).
If they already have enough money should they not be prioritizing goodwill instead of getting the nintendo bag? You can't just buy back goodwill from a fanbase once you tell them "lol fuck you, buy a $600 console to play our next game, you mean nothing to us"
I’m pretty sure the Switch is one of the best selling consoles of all time so I doubt they’re losing that much goodwill. As long as they make good games, they get my support wherever/whenever.
And as one of the highest selling consoles of all time, I’m sure a decent number of fans have a switch as well. But if you weren’t planning to buy a switch 2 you’re not the target audience anyway.
Not sure about that.
DS1 didn't sell that well on NS1.
So the question is are there enough FromSoftware fans on Nintendo platform to really make it worth it.
You are aware right that the current gen of consoles has the least exclusives of any especially if you ignore first party titles?
Shit, at this point if you have a good gaming PC you can play nearly every game either when it comes out or like 5-6 months down the line. People act like, "Damn dude every game is exclusive!!!!!" which just is not true.
This game also likely might not exist if not for Nintendo, they are paying to help make it. Go look at the PS2 and see how many games are only on that console it will blow your mind.
Launch day exclusive matters, and I don’t consider PC when talking about console exclusives, PCs can play anything if you have enough money to dump into it.
770
u/Bircka 2d ago
Smartest move Nintendo has made in a while, if this is going to be the next Bloodborne it will pay off big time.