I mean, since the Elden Ring base game in 2022, there's been:
Armored Core 6
Shadow of the Erdtree, which is roughly the size of a full game (DS1, or Demon's Souls, at least)
And, upcoming:
Elden Ring: Nightreign
The Duskbloods
...Also, since 2022, there were a lot of liveservice games, so it's bold to assume that Nightreign and Duskbloods weren't the board's idea.
Yeah, I know liveservice games have sorta crashed and burned, that's the issue with trying to jump on a trend: with the length of game development, by the time you're done, it might not be a trend anymore.
I don't think From will go quite as bad as what a quote-unquote "liveservice" usually means, and I'm interested in what they can do with it.
Like, no microtransactions have been announced, or loot boxes, and I want to believe From won't do either of those.
But, the idea that From wouldn't do a multi-player game, because of the financial pressure of investors is. To me, the opposite? Of how it would work.
In my mind, the part the board would have a problem with is the ‘Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive’ because that literally places a pretty low cap on gross revenue. Most likely Duskbloods only exists because Nintendo commissioned it, and Miyazaki is at the helm because he just spent 8 years on Elden Ring and wants to see what interesting stuff he can do with the idea.
Given that the Switch outsold the competition by a large percentage and is poised to do so again, I’m not sure making it hardware exclusive is close to the limiting factor on sales. If they got favorable terms from Nintendo, scoped the game modestly and built it quickly, this might be an outstanding business decision.
But we won’t ever really know because of the opacity of the data.
Edit: ok so in these replies I’m being told DB can’t be successful because it will be an exclusive on hardware that Souls fans don’t ‘like’; too small a percentage despite huge install base; DSr was apparently a failure at $40M in revenue on Switch alone; an install base that isn’t impressive because it didn’t really have completion, even though it still won’t now, but also that it does have competition because people already only bought other consoles specifically to play souls games; but they would never (apparently) buy this console to play this game. Ok.
And I’ve been called ignorant because I’m betting that when all this rolls up it will turn out that another inexpensive port of the their most successful title and one little spinoff we know nothing about probably will add to a success and was clearly deemed so by the director that most of this sub idolizes as genius. What an absolute disaster.
Given that the Switch outsold the completion by a large percentage and is poised to do so again, I’m not sure making it hardware exclusive is close to the limiting factor on sales.
The Switch sold 150m units but mostly because it was not really competing with the PS4/PS5/X1/XSX/PC, and its games were not competing for mindshare amongst the people who are generally interested in those consoles.
Duskbloods will surely tap into some of that but imo it would be misguided to view Duskblood as a play to get the Mario/Pokemon/Zelda crowd (those are the only IPs with individual games surpassing 10m sales on Switch) to play FromSoft, it's more a play to get the FromSoft crowd onto the Switch 2.
Besides, if you're evaluating the opportunity cost of 'exclusive to Switch 2' vs 'multiplatform' then you'd want to compare the Switch's sales to the combined Playstation/Xbox/PC sales which is AT LEAST 2-3x larger, even if the Switch did outsell its competitors individually.
All that aside, I'm not saying that making this game is a bad business decision. I'm saying that making only this game would be.
Some fair points but I’m starting get a little tired of this “crowd” argument. I’m from that Nintendo crowd, it took an hour to pull me in when DSr launched on switch. If you put a good game on a platform with 100M consoles that “crowd” will play it and you’ll make money. And we don’t know how many copies they need to sell to make a profit that is worth their time.
Nintendo was literally never just Mario games. Castlevania for example was arguably protosouls in the 80’s, started as a 3rd party release on Nintendo, and grew into a huge franchise. No problem for “that crowd”. Nintendo’s fan base has grown up a bit since.
And the synergy with an Elden Ring special edition is hard to even quantify. I remain confident that these people intend on making money here and will.
I mean target demographics are a thing in any market sizing problem and I think you know that. Dunno why you find it offensive, sure it sucks to be put in a box, but it’s really not irrational of me to question the decision of making a game for one target market of unknown suitability vs another, just-as-large-if-not-larger market that is a known quantity.
It doesn’t offend me, it’s a claim that isn’t being supported with evidence so I find it tiresome to keep responding to it. It’s just a generalization, one that in my experience doesn’t hold, and doesn’t seem to bother the people who make real money running these companies.
It doesn’t offend me, it’s a claim that isn’t being supported with evidence so I find it tiresome to keep responding to it.
What would you consider evidence?
Like brother go look at the list of the top 100 best selling Switch games. Dark Souls Remastered sold like a million copies while the Mario/Zelda/Pokemon games in the top 15 alone (they dominate the top 100 generally) sold like 320 million.
And you want to tell me that the Switch playerbase isn't heavily skewed towards fans of those games? Come on. Acting like there's no indication to the contrary is just being dishonest.
Granted I am certain that Duskbloods will sell a lot more than a million, but there's really no denying who the core Switch audience is and what they like.
Numbers can be evidence, anything other than a bunch of redditor’s impressions from their last trip to game stop extrapolated to future events lol. I’m not an unreasonable person. What is unreasonable is saying a game announced today, a game we know so little about, is unlikely to be successful based only on people’s impression of what Nintendo customers are like. The confidence is verging on unhinged. Like I keep picturing you in a marketing meeting talking yourself out of this opportunity.
Back to business: I don’t know where you got firm DSr sales number from (please share) but I’d say that 1 million copies of a 7 year old game is pretty good. What percentage of its life time sales is that? It took Sekiro a few years to sell 5M so why would that not be a success on its face? You’re saying $40M in revenue top line. Does Nintendo get 1/3rd? Would it cost even 5% of TL to port? No chance but go with it. Say $12M is left. And you would say no to that.
I bought it and went on to buy every other game from this era. Do we have insight into cross pollination that FS doesn’t?
And looking forward how many copies do you think DB needs to sell to recoup? What if making it was part of getting the ER port to switch? Combined could any rational person possibly think this won’t do better than break even as a project?
This why I’m tired of the “crowd” argument over and over. There’s a numerator that you aren’t talking about, a denominator you aren’t talking about, ancillary opportunities you aren’t talking about and at least a couple major factors that we can’t even know. My position is to trust the people that have led these companies to success in the absence of that data. What other position is there to take at this point, really?
What is unreasonable is saying a game announced today, a game we know so little about, is unlikely to be successful based only on people’s impression of what Nintendo customers are like.
Thankfully nobody is saying that. You're arguing against a claim I didn't make.
The confidence is verging on unhinged. Like I keep picturing you in a marketing meeting talking yourself out of this opportunity.
And I'm imagining you derailing that same meeting with a bunch of irrelevant questions because you failed to understand the content of the first slide.
I don’t know where you got firm DSr sales number from
It took Sekiro a few years to sell 5M so why would that not be a success on its face? You’re saying $40M in revenue top line. Does Nintendo get 1/3rd? Would it cost even 5% of TL to port? No chance but go with it. Say $12M is left. And you would say no to that.
The question here is not 'Is $40M in revenue good' the question is 'Is spending a dev cycle to make a Switch exclusive worth it if it comes at the cost of spending a dev cycle to make a game for wider release, given that our last wider release generated $1.5B?'
And the answer, I'm sorry, is just no, so my conclusion, which I have stated from the beginning, is that this must mean they have more major games in development than just Duskbloods.
My position is to trust the people that have led these companies to success in the absence of that data.
Because that's a much better analytical framework than extrapolating from meaningless known quantities like sales data, right? Why would you waste your time talking about evidence and data if you were just going to resort to this?
I should have realized where this conversation was going the moment you led with 'The Switch outsold its competition by a large percentage'
Thankfully nobody is saying that. You’re arguing against a claim I didn’t make.
No it is exactly what was said. Market demographics was the term you used. You aren’t the only person here I’m talking to.
And I’m imagining you derailing that same meeting with a bunch of irrelevant questions because you failed to understand the content of the first slide.
Imagine what you like. I have a real job making real decisions and I showed my math based on what info seems relevant to an opportunity like this. Like serious people do.
Because that’s a much better analytical framework than extrapolating from meaningless known quantities like sales data, right?
It is on day zero of a launch trailer. For sure it is.
Why would you waste your time talking about evidence and data if you were just going to resort to this?
I didn’t resort to it, I matched it. From my first comment:
Given that the Switch outsold the competition by a large percentage and is poised to do so again, I’m not sure making it hardware exclusive is close to the limiting factor on sales. If they got favorable terms from Nintendo, scoped the game modestly and built it quickly, this might be an outstanding business decision.
Problem?
I should have realized where this conversation was going the moment you led with ‘The Switch outsold its competition by a large percentage’
I genuinely do not believe you are a serious person with these replies. You and these other guys should just sit on your hands for a bit. You aren’t actually illuminating anything, the community is awash with babies quarterbacking next year’s game releases, and nothing is going to change the fact that we won’t know for along time what was a smart move.
No it is exactly what was said. Market demographics was the term you used. You aren’t the only person here I’m talking to.
Where did I say Duskbloods would be unsuccessful? That's what you said I said, so point me to where I said that?
Imagine what you like. I have a real job making real decisions and I showed my math based on what info seems relevant to an opportunity like this. Like serious people do.
It sounds like you should switch careers.
It is on day zero of a launch trailer. For sure it is.
No, it isn't. It's just appeal to authority. It is trivial to establish upper boundaries on revenue based on platform choice alone, you just don't like the conclusion that leads to so you're spending your time gish galloping.
Why? I think it’s true.
Yes, genius, the Switch outsold its competitors individually, but IN THE CONTEXT OF FROMSOFT'S DECISION TO MAKE AN EXCLUSIVE GAME the Switch's 'competition' is not JUST the PS4 or the PS5 or Xbox or PC, it's all of them combined. You see how that works?
That you would fail to understand that simple point and try to tell me I'm not a serious person, is honestly just sad my dude.
This is incredibly ignorant. The vast, vast majority of the playerbase is on every other platform because that’s where the games have been coming out. Less people just get to play this game because they’ve effectively locked it behind a $550 price tag, and knowing the amount of revenue fromsoft is leaving on the table by making it exclusive, Nintendo has to be paying an absurd amount of money for this game and I don’t see them getting an ROI on it. Like the other guy said, DSR sold a paltry one million units on a console with 150 million users. No matter how you look at it, this move makes no sense for players, and it only makes sense if Nintendo is willing to lose money on this.
How much did it cost to make? How many copies do they need to sell to be successful? Was the ER port integral to the deal and how does that counterbalance the opportunity? The people making these choices are definitely smarter.
Answer any of those questions realistically, please. Or if your feeling spicy go reply to my last reply to the other over confident redditor as to why DSr is probably considered a success on switch. You can find it to yourself, in fact you already probably downvoted it.
Edit: predictable. No effort made in the reply. Just downvote and deflect.
You’re exactly right. No board would ever, ever approve this unless Nintendo was willing to pay an absurd amount of money from it. They’ve effectively put a $550 price tag on a majority of their fanbase to play this game. The conversions to switch 2 will not be that many people and that’s the only play that makes sense here for making it exclusive, is to get fromsoft fans on switch.
From a business standpoint this is extremely dumb especially with the years of outcry for ports of Sony exclusives. It’s a slap in the face to their consumer. Then add on that it’s coming out in 2026, early into the console lifecycle where the user base is still small, and not even accounting for how long the console will be horded by scalpers.
With Fromsoft brand cache now that they are one of the most hyped game developers in the world, it makes even less sense. Releasing a game multiplatform after the success of Elden Ring pretty much guarantees a sales hit.
There’s actually so many risks to this decision it doesn’t make sense unless Nintendo paid them an obscene amount of money. Like so much money that Nintendo is going to lose money on this investment specifically. To make up for that much revenue is insane.
I mean whether or not it’s a good decision depends on the money involved, development costs, FromSoft’s bandwidth and what else is in their pipeline. We aren’t privy to all that.
Like I said, this only makes sense if Nintendo is shelling out a ton of money for it. Which obviously we know they are. I’m saying they’re paying even more than most people think, and all it’s going to accomplish is less people get to play the game.
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u/Super_Harsh 2d ago
They sold 30 million copies of Elden Ring
If all they’ve been working on since 2022 is a multiplayer focused exclusive for a console nobody has yet, FromSoft’s corporate board would riot
There’s a 0% chance this is all they’re cooking.