$814M invested into The Initiative and Perfect Dark wasn’t just a dev budget, it was capital allocation across talent, outsourcing, infrastructure, payroll and years of operating expenditure. A textbook example of sunk cost, impaired investment and shareholder value destruction.

ABSOLUTE #FACTS @Crispybomb Its wild to me that these "so called" gaming journalists have concerns for @XBOX but completely ignore the complete shit show @PlayStation is experiencing for that last few years with 1st party!

If you thought the money Sony spent and lost on Concord was bad, wait until later today… AAAA

Gears of War: E-Day reportedly has an over $400 million development budget [via @_Tom_Henderson_}

Gears of War: E-Day reportedly has an over $400 million development budget [via @_Tom_Henderson_}

Here's how PlayStation Studios games from the past year have sold on PS5 (@alineaanalytics estimates) Ghost of Yotei has been a resounding success for Sony since launching exclusively on PS5 back in October. It’s amassed 4.8M copies sold, generated almost $350M in revenue, and is still selling. For the past fortnight (let’s reclaim that word!), Yotei has had its first PlayStation Store discount (down 29% to $49.69), and we’ve seen a clear bump since. In those two weeks, Yotei shifted an extra 250K copies. Players are sinking their teeth in, too. Average playtime overall is 47.7 hours (median 45.5), and around 7% of players have logged more than 100 hours. Fair play. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach has now sold 1.7M copies on PS5, amounting to gross revenue of $116M. Decent result, but you’ve got to imagine Sony and Kojima wanted a bit more. A wrinkle is that two weeks after the Steam port in March (9 months after PS5), DS2 sold 70K copies on PS5, its best two-week stretch since launch on Sony’s platform. There was a price drop to $50, but this was the third time it had hit that price, so the cross-platform marketing was doing work of its own. We saw the same effect with Stellar Blade on PS5 last year when its Steam version landed, and there, no discount was involved. MLB The Show 26 has sold 745K on PS5, generating over $50M, with almost 95% of its audience in North America. Over 30% of MLB players have logged 100-plus hours, and the game has held PS5 daily actives of around 500K since launch. So MLB is sticky with high engagement, but MLB The Show 26 is selling slower on PS5 than last year’s edition, which had moved roughly 1.2M copies by this point. Whether that’s because Americans are eyeing up the FIFA World Cup or something else remains to be seen. Either way, a loyal base that’s quietly shrinking is worth watching (unlike baseball, in my humble Welsh opinion). Saros has sold 406K on PS5, generating $30M. It’s a fantastic game with a committed niche audience (including myself!) But if Saros doesn’t get a PC port, it likely won’t break even. Sony will eventually claw back revenue and value through PS Store discounts and an inevitable PS Plus stint. But if revenue was the priority here, this banger of a game hasn’t succeeded. The Steam-port question hangs over Saros, with a lot at stake given recent studio closures. Marathon has now sold 347K on PS5, with around 75K of those arriving after the free week timed to the Season 2 launch. That’s a decent sign, but the not enough the move the needle. Of those who played Marathon on PS5 this month, almost 12% also played Destiny 2 on PS5, no surprise given Bungie dropped Destiny 2’s final content update two days ago. We’ve got a bigger Bungie/Marathon/Destiny piece coming next week, so subscribe to the newsletter (link in bio) to get that ASAP. God of War Sons of Sparta has sold 132K copies (almost $4M). A tidy result for a shadow-dropped Metroidvania spin-off that mostly underwhelmed critics but has earned a small band of defenders. Most Sons of Sparta players have, predictably, played 2018’s God of War and Ragnarok, but the PS5 hardcore showed up here in a telling way. About 15% of Sons of Sparta players have also played Saros, more than have played Silksong (13%) or Animal Well (9%). In other words, this converted PlayStation and God of War fans more than Metroidvania fans. More on the free Substack. Link in bio.

As an Englishman who has spent most of my life in Scotland, I’ve never really understood the rivalry people try to create between the two nations. At the end of the day, we’re all part of the same country. I’ll be proudly supporting Scotland at the World Cup Bring it hame 🇬🇧

#CrimsonDesert has sold through over 6 million copies worldwide. Your adventures and tales continue to make the journey of Crimson Desert even more special. Once again, thank you to every Greymane who has stepped into Pywel and experienced the world of Crimson Desert in their own way.

The top 10 best performing games of Summer Game Fest by most covered, watched and discussed: 1. God of War: Laufey 2. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3. Resident Evil Veronica 4. Wolverine 5. Gears of War: E-Day 6. Kingdom Hearts IV 7. Persona 6 8. FF7: Revelation 9. Spyro: A Realm Beyond 10. Until Dawn 2 Via: thegamebusiness.com/p/the-bi… #SummerGameFest #PS5 #Xbox #Nintendo

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is reportedly planning a huge wave of layoffs, with her refocusing Xbox's budget on exclusive games that are good enough to compete with Sony and Nintendo. via Bloomberg