The budgets of two of Sony’s biggest ever games have been revealed due to some poorly redacted documents, submitted as part of the FTC’s ongoing lawsuit against Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. The US regulator is attempting to temporarily impede the trillion-dollar tech titan’s unfathomable $69 billion buyout of Activision Blizzard, and a slew of gaming companies have been sucked into the ensuing chaos.
One document, which has been poorly redacted by PlayStation’s legal team, clearly reveals the budgets of two of its biggest games: Horizon Forbidden West and The Last of Us: Part 2. The latter – which started development as early as 2014, just a year after the original game – cost Sony an eye-watering $220 million to make, while Aloy’s sophomore outing weighed in at around $212 million. In both cases, over 200 people were working on the projects at peak times.
It's worth noting that none of this includes significant marketing spend, and purely accounts for the game development. Sony notes that “global marketing costs for AAA games are large, even for established franchises”, although it didn’t attach a figure.
The production costs aren’t particularly surprising, as we know game development budgets have been ballooning for quite some time. It does, perhaps, underline the Japanese giant’s reluctance to include these titles in its PS Plus subscription on launch day, however – something the company has argued is unsustainable.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 118
Did it make much more beyond that budget?
@KundaliniRising333 Document doesn't say whether either game is/was profitable, unfortunately. I imagine they probably were, though.
Wonder how much starfield cost. With it going to game pass day one , you have to wonder
I always admires how much the big aaa games cost to make. Especially PlayStation games.and those games take a lot of years to make.thats a lot of money for horizon forbidden west and the last of us part 2.word up son
All that money and Horizon 2 wasn't that much better than the first lmao
Spider man 2 probably cost 300 million dollars to make. This the reason Sony starting to make live service games, because Sony just making big single player games wouldn’t be financial sustainable anymore.
@Americansamurai1 1 Starfielion Dollars, obviously
More Last of Us and Horizon are in the works. So I'd imagine they more than made their money back.
@get2sammyb yeah I assume the last of us was likely so, but I am curious about how profitable Horizon was with its release window and such. It would be interesting to see how worth it these bloated budget 6 years to make games really are, because they certainly don't do the console generations any favors in terms of diverse output (as we wont see much from these studios likely until the tail end of this generation).
@KundaliniRising333 8+ million copies sold for $70 makes 560000000 (obviously excluding discounted sales and people who bought more expensive digital deluxe and collectors editions)
Pretty safe to say new Horizon made some money for Sony
"trillion-dollar tech titan’s unfathomable $69 billion buyout"
Has anyone noticed that PushSquare makes this statement more sensationalized with every article?
It's becoming Japanese Fighting Game sequel title ridiculous at this point! 😂
Even if you don't like TLOU2's story for whatever reason you have to admit that gameplay and presentation wise it's a nearly impeccable product! And the story is an improvement over the first so that helps as well.
No idea why Horizon is so expensive tough.
Even if Sony only broke even selling copies of these (and other big budget 1st party games), they are at least bringing in old and new players - and making sure their 30% cut of software developed by 3rd parties is in their pocket.
Another piece of big news :
MS considered buying Square Enix back in 2019, I am just beginning to hate this trend of mass consolidation, what's worse is this company will probably get away with it.
Sony really start to make some moves fast .
And people wonder why Sony don't put there games on Plus day one.
@jimbouk If Sony somehow finds the coins to make a big purchase like Square Enix then the ABK acquisition will be allowed to go through.
This is why the indie space has been the saviour of gaming, it's genuinely astonishing what small tight teams can do.
Lucky they have the money from COD to help pay for that development I guess…
Putting games with such a high budget day one into a subscription service would definitely make it unsustainable. Even with Starfield they are upping the price of gamepass and xbox consoles since they need to recuperate money to make it worth putting high budget games onto gamepass day one.
They are even offering gamepass subscribers 5 days early access for £35, thats how bad they need revenue elsewhere to make putting these high budget games on gamepass worth it.
Seems this is very much the warning that Shawn Layden was talking about regarding AAA becoming unsustainable back in 2021.
@GamingFan4Lyf No lies detected, though!
How did Horizon Zero Dawn cost 45 million dollars and Forbidden West 220 million?
Sounds completely mismanaged. They are barely differences between them.
So no profit at all?
Horizon around 8 million units sold which would be no more than 250 mil in profit (least amount would be sold for actual full price) approximately?
I will never get blockbuster gaming
@JAMes-BroWWWn Then you haven't been looking properly, FW is night and day graphically over ZD.The world is bigger with underwater locations. Animations are way more advanced in both cutscenes and gameplay. The UI had a complete overhaul as well.
Not to mention that the economy in the past 5 years has made things more expensive and Guerrilla have a lot more employers now so it all adds up.
This is why if we want to be able to keep enjoying such titles we need to pay for it, otherwise these will unlikely be made in the model MS is trying to push everyone towards
Horizon sold 8.4 million units…504 million in revenue, roughly. Safe to say they profited at least 200million+ off it. Games today have a huge long tail as well.
By June 2022 according to Wikipedia, Last of Us 2 sold 10 million. Using $50 as the average price that’s at least 500 million revenue there too. Never mind whatever boost in sales it’s gotten since the HBO show and whatever money Sony made from selling the rights.
Safe to say even those the price tag is huge there’s tons of money to be made.
@AdamNovice All I read was mismanaged. Every point you made, did not remotely explained how the costs went from 45 million to 220 million. Because of little bit more map, a few animations and nicer graphics it drove the costs up to almost 500%. Guerrila Games is mismanaged. Even The Last of Us Part 2 is questionable.
Hows the saying: give an artist enough rope and he will hang himself.
These people completely lost their minds.
Whoa! 200? Its high even for holywood standards, but those games are more profitable then holywood movies i think, the video game industry isnt biger than movies industry?
@JAMes-BroWWWn Do we know for sure Horizon Zero Dawn cost $45 million, because that does seem low?
I'm not saying your wrong, of course, just don't remember seeing that figure myself.
Either way, I would say everything in Forbidden West is done to a much higher fidelity at a much larger scale, which obviously does mean it's going to be more expensive.
Day and date on a subscription service kills this sort of financial investment, I'll happily pay a premium for quality over quantity.
@JAMes-BroWWWn So your choosing to believe your own little narrative rather then someone who explained the reasons why a game's budget has gone up exponentially?
You do you, just don't expect others to take your point seriously.
@get2sammyb You wrote the article actually. https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2017/03/horizon_zero_dawn_cost_a_reported_e45_million_to_make
@AdamNovice You didnt provide any point for an explaination of an almost 500% increase in costs. GG is mismanaged.
There is no way to survive releasing these games day 1 on the subscription service. Microsoft survives only because they only released very few first party AAA games (most bombed) since gp launch (and padded with indie games) and they have loads of money from other sectors. No way Sony could afford to release their games day 1.
@get2sammyb "You wrote the article actually."
Yeah that's kind of embarrassing.😂
Does seem like a lot of money for sequels. Horizon seemed to be pretty much using the same engine as well. I think TLOU had an overhaul, hence the remasters, but still seemed like a lot.
@JAMes-BroWWWn, I have a suspicion at least a quarter of that is for the actors. Pretty sure it's got at least double the actors and much more dialogue for them.
Also, the map is a lot bigger, much more side quests, graphycally superior in every way.
Do you think the actors are getting paid the same amount as in 2015-2017? If their managers know it's a Sony project, they'll squeeze them to death.
That seems more than a bit inflated.
Sounds like Forbidden West made a healthy profit. Great news
@rjejr You should play Forbidden West sometime, it's great
@Krysus, Actually no. A big reason why Nintendo is so profitable is their use of very low number of actors in their games, and if they use Japan actors, those probably get paid a lot less than western ones. I bet these Sony projects lose a lot of money on actors. I even wonder if Death Stranding made any money at all, with all those Hollywood stars.
This is the reason for the recent push to digital-only with the likes of Alan Wake 2 and Like a Dragon: Gaiden. Get rid of the overhead with all the plastic and eliminate game trading so the number of copies sold goes up. I am not looking forward to it myself, in fact, I prefer buying a physical copy of a game.
However, our movies, tv, books, and music have all gone to digital collections and it's just a matter of time before it happens to games as well.
Just as a PC user the last time they bought a physical game.
@NathanKang horizon was in the top few games of the PS4 so to be not that much better is an achievement 😂😂
Meanwhile, Nintendo keeps pushing the envelope on a comparatively peanuts budget (see TOTK and how it uses ancient tech to create emergent, complex gameplay not seen on much more powerful platforms).
Money well spent if you ask me
@clvr in all fairness, Nintendo can sell anything and its fans will eat it up. Example: Mario Kart. The didn't bother making a new one. Just ported the Wiiu one which has probably sold more than all of Sony's first party games on ps5 combined. Pure profit.
@naruball you know, it'd be great if you could reply to my point instead of devolving in bashing Nintendo fans.
What does any of that have to do with what I said?
And made their money back in the first month. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t keep spending that much on them.
At these costs it's virtually suicide for a studio to have a dud release.
It makes me glad there's such a strong indie market but also studios making plenty of AA games out there.
Insane.
For point of reference, Uncharted 2 cost 20M to make, just 20M. Those costs are crazy.
I think @JAMes-BroWWWn is spot on on this. I say this as a huge fan of the series but there's a certain point where there's egregious spending on trivial results, far beyond cost-benefit. The groundwork for the game was already laid out. The sequel makes everything bigger, better, prettier, sure, but for costs to multiply by exponents for a sequel that primarily is an iterative step away from what was already made for fractions of that budget doesn't make financial sense either from a management perspective, budgeting perspective, or ROI perspective. If that much money was spent to deliver something that isn't significantly meaningfully different from it's source material, that is money that was simply not well spent. It's the fundamental problem with the sustainability of "AAA" gaming at large that needs to be reigned in before it crushes the industry.
At the same time, though, these numbers seem off. It seems unfathomable that costs would have multiplied so extensively in that space of time, and just in 2020 Jim was talking about games costs "sometimes over 100 million" like that was meant to be an eye-opening number, it doesn't seem likely the costs DOUBLED in 2 years from that. I can't help but think they're creatively bundling other expenses into this number, such as Guerilla's new office building, IT purchases not directly tied to the existence of one game, etc, etc.
Otherwise, there's no reality in which "keeping up" with expectations should be yielding to spending many, many, many multiples more each generation to make fundamentally the same product but prettier. Someone needs to assign budgets and tell teams to work to that budget at some point before the industry just capsizes itself.
Someone’s getting fired for this.
God of War 4 sold 20 milion units and made a profit ouver 1 bilion, so if the game cost 200 milion to be made it have do sell more than 4 milion units to pay itself. That said i dont think games cost 200 milion to be made.....
@clvr "peanuts budget"
I specifically referred to this point that you made. All I'm pointing out that Sony isn't Nintendo. They can't release a ps4 game on ps5 with very few changes and make it an evergreen title. I'm not bashing Nintendo. I'm saying that what works for one company doesn't for another.
For anyone concerned that Microsoft will continue their consolidation of gaming publishers following a successful acquisition of ActiBlizz, don't worry. If successful this will put the nail in the coffin of Microsoft's spending spree. Any future major purchase attempt won't make it past any competition watchdog.
Be more concerned if this deal doesn't go through, particularly if you don't care much for ActiBlizz titles. Microsoft will have $69 billion burning a proverbial hole in their pocket and will go after other publishers instead. Although this time, they might not hedge all their bets with one. I could see them going after cd projekt red and other similar sized studios, maybe also looking to some of the Japanese companies to round out their portfolio. Ubisoft could also become a possibility given that they have been the target of buyouts in the past. Denying this acquisition will just see Microsoft shift their attention to other targets.
$69 billion would make 27 games each with a budget of $250 million, plus a few million left over.
Shame MS can't get creative isn't it, they've sure got the money to be.
@JAMes-BroWWWn A lot of the game budget is also marketing. Remember that Sony was putting up life size statue in cities across the globe for Forbidden west. This is why you don't see Microsoft and Nintendo doing crazy marketing for their games.
@naruball and it still has nothing to do with what I said.
I was referring to the way a game like TOTK has a significantly smaller budget, despite having a similarly huge scope and way more complex systems (on way weaker hardware no less) than Horizon.
Now explain to me where Mario Kart or Wii U re-releases enter the equation.
@Triumph741 guerrilla's tech is no joke. Their assets are very high quality. Licensing of LA landmarks also. The gameplay is whatever but the presentation and visuals are second to none. Even that conversation tech must have been a lot of investment. It shows in the quality of every dialogue scene
I am so glad Sony is giving these budgets for these great games. I want to play game like these and prefer to play 2-3 of them comparing to 10 of Redfall, Halo 6, Grounded etc. Quality>Quantity.
Removed - trolling/baiting
@Scottyy that’s a really weird comment especially when there are like 6 Uncharteds, a million Ratchet and Clanks. What has Grounded got to do with it? Have you played it? I’ve had so much fun with that game. Just feels like a random attack on Xbox even though their games have way more variety. And Halo isn’t exactly spammed out; it started in 2001.
In my opinion these big budget games are great but you also need smaller budget games to go alongside them. As these all end up feeling quite similar (have you ever climbed a rockface/mountainside by any chance?). Despite being highly polished.
@K1LLEGAL
I never mentioned there shouldn't be sequels though. I simply talk about the overall quality or lack there of. Grounded is one of the first games that comes to my mind when I think of Microsoft also considering these information comes from the ABK deal court, mentioning them isn't much of a strecth. I wouldn't oppose Microsoft having more diverse game catalogue but do they feel on par with PS? Not by a long shot most of the time so that diversity doesn't mean anything to me tbh because I simply don't want to play. Sony is trying that sometimes too with Sackboy, Destruction, PS VR, Astro, Returnal,
I agree about smaller games. I like what they did with Tearaway for example. But if I have to choose between, I would go for AAA. But it would be nice to see something shorter every now and then because AAA dev process takes too long.
@clvr, you started it coming here to brag how good Zelda is. We already know, don't need to shove it in our faces, we've seen the reviewes. It's the same story with you Nintendo fans, but we have something you can't play on your Switch. Hint, it's made by FromSoftware.
Lol as if anyone posting here has any idea what the TOTK budget is
I adore the game; based on its depth and scope I would guess that Nintendo put an insane number of very well-paid bodies to work on it — & for a significantly longer period than the gap between HZD and HFW
1st party games don't need to be massively profitable really, heck they can make a loss, this is not how Playstation makes it's money.
These games are instead designed to entice people to buy the console and spend money in the eco-system.
@4kgk2 1st party games don't need to be profitable, this is not how they make their money.
@NathanKang I mean, that is YOUR opinion. Mine is that honestly it was a worthy successor narratively, and certainly improved upon the first technically. That's saying something when so many sequels drop the ball or end up losing their way entirely.
@rjejr It is the same engine, Decima, but with a lot of upgrades.
@TrickyDicky99 Bingo.
@KundaliniRising333 at what is it 7 million sales yeah I'd say so
zero dawn was a better game than forbidden west and cost less to make
This sort of game dev cost is unsustainable longer term. In pure sales and revenue after supplier costs etc. and marketing, a game selling 10 million units over a lifetime is going to be profitable but not by much. At the same time, Sony as a publisher is spending as a strategy towards an eco system so the benefits are not just in unit sales but brand and loyalty etc.
@naruball "They can't release a PS4 game on PS5 with very few changes and make it an evergreen title."
The Last of Us Part 1?
@Scottyy I apologise I think I misunderstood your initial comment. I read it as like “10 of” meaning they keep pumping out the same game.
Everyone likes what they like; but for me I look at a studio like Obsidian where they have Grounded as an ongoing game; they release a passion project in Pentiment; and then have the bigger budget Avowed on the go at the same time. That is a good mix to me and means you get more regular releases. Of course only a studio of a certain size can keep that going.
All of these articles about games taking 5-6 years to make but that is only because of the sort of games they are making.
@naruball They have also added 48 new courses and a bunch of new characters.
@__jamiie did it become an evergreen title or did it immediately get bashed to infinity and beyond and disappeared from the charts? The different between the reception of the two games has been massive.
@__jamiie of course they did. But it's still the same game with additions, just like any racing game, e.g. Gran Turismo 7 now as opposed to when it launched (to my knowledge anyway, I haven't played either).
@naruball To be fair, adding 48 tracks makes it very different to the Wii U version.
@__jamiie yeah, fair enough. I don't know how many tracks Forza or Gran Turismo has added, so I'll leave it at that.
@TrickyDicky99 very well said.
@naruball And I would say that's exactly why Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has become an evergreen title. Nintendo have made substantial changes and reasons for people to keep buying and playing the game. It's so much more than a port of the Wii U game. The fact that I finished every cup on every difficulty on Wii U but am now able to play brand new content now and in the future shows that Nintendo made a bigger effort than just an up-res or frame rate boost.
Don't get me wrong, The Last of Us is one of my favourite games ever (and I happen to be one of the morons who triple dipped).
@K1LLEGAL
No problem mate. You see, releasing Grounded or Pentiment is not a problem but they feel like canon fodder when they didn't release an AAA before or after them relatively close. I was curious about the Avowed but even that looks like AA caliber. I can't help but feel like Xbox side almost always focus on that caliber instead of big budgeted blockbusters. I love blockbusters first and foremost so they simply don't speak to my needs.
I have 3 year GP btw.
@get2sammyb I just don't trust these numbers, seems unreal to be honest.
@NEStalgia The quote was:
“We are not going to go down the road of putting new release titles into a subscription model. These games cost many millions of dollars, well over $100 million, to develop. We just don't see that as sustainable.”
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2020/11/sony_on_ps5s_response_to_game_pass_there_is_news_to_come_but_not_today
The actual quote definitely fits what we see.
@Americansamurai1 I think that one is another hype as many predicted it would start as something like the initial verwion of no man's sky that gradually grow. So it make sense to appear as a day one game pass with the promise of becoming great after a few years!!!!
@NEStalgia
Rents do usually count towards budget. Its not just about employee pay, their healthcare, the free sodas in the break room, in addition to any outsourced materials (art assets, motion capture equipment), hell, new computers, new desk chairs, electric and water bills, janitorial services, everything counts towards budget.
As for the game, even without having played it yet, I can tell there is a big difference between the two games, visually and in scope.
Could have they gotten away with a much more toned down approach? Yes. I have argued about this before, games keep getting too big, and resource keep being sunk in things that, although different, few players notice.
I like to look a this video comparison of Doom vs Doom Eternal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNz-j6ZwmYM
You will se a huge array of redesigned assets, very little amount of reuse. Side to side, it is impressive how good some of this stuff looks, I can almost understand the desire to be that ambitious, but for a game released within the same generation, they could had gotten away with reusing more assets from the previous game. Games tend to reinvent too many things that dont have that much of a lasting impression outside these side-by-side comparisons.
IMO, that level of invest should be reserved for new IP or generational jumps. I guess it could be argued Horizon Forbidden West was meant to be a generational jump, though.
I'd anything it helps illustrate Microsoft's willingness to under cut its rivals. Every Xbox first party game is put on game pass on release day. Many then get gamepass for a month then quit when done with the game. Sometimes with special offers, this is a substantial loss and honestly impacts the company's ability to make quality titles without throwing more money on the fire. The hope is with enough critical mass every Xbox gamer will be on game pass, if Microsoft becomes market leader that could result in 100m subs. If that leads to the complete elimination of optical drives they'll have what they wanted from the very start. Control and dominance.
So they don't make the hundreds of millions back and now they are manipulating the market so sony can't function as a competitor. They are tying up third parties to be gamepass offerings trying to reach critical mass.
By letting this go through it won't matter as it forces sony into a position they can't compete. MS is spending 69 billion. Sure they won't take cod away, but with that sort of market manipulation they won't need to. They'll burn sony out in 10 years time even if they put their games on ps+ on launch day. Microsoft will get what they want. Forcing the consumer into a space they really didn't want in the first place.
@VaultGuy415 I just finished HFW and the dlc, both on PS5 and both good. The dlc did seem a little brighter but that might have just been the biome. I did prefer the first game though, much cooler story than the 2nd. The 2nd dlc I think was better than the first, I like epilogues better than just another area to explore.
@guitarpete987 Decima
That's what I thought. If they had to pay to build the engine for HZD then you would think it would be cheaper to make a sequel. OR at least not 8x more.
The article didn't mention covid, which obviously wouldn't have affected TLOU2 but could have affected HFW. 🤷♂️
@Grumblevolcano Well over 200 million and well over 100 million are pretty different numbers though. I mean while you're not categorically wrong that "well over 200 million" also qualifies as truthfully "well over 100 million" it's kind of like saying a "PS5 costs well over $250" if what you mean is "over $500." I still suspect this document's numbers are inflating the truth through accounting. The budgets shouldn't have jumped on that scale between last gen and this gen, let alone for a cross-gen game, and if they did, whoever is managing it is failing on an amazing scale. Remember, it's another document in the salvo of two global megacorps pretending they're struggling rural farmers that can't afford the price of grain for their chickens anymore.
@Tharsman That's exactly my point though. Sure side by side, this improved that improved, everything is prettier, shinier, more detailed, it doesn't impact the experience in any meaningful degree and we're basically making the same game over and over again but spending 4x more each time because we wanted to record the actual sound of the actual mating call of an actual Uraguyan Purple Breasted Barn Owl at the stroke of midnight during a lunar eclipse for maximum authenticity. It implies that somehow what HZD does is somehow so terrible and unenjoyable it's just not fit for consumption in today's market. Meanwhile it's arguably the more beloved game of the two even if HFW is "betterer." It's not spending to meet consumer expectations, it's spending to meet developer indulgences.
It goes back to what was kind of an ironic Halo meme ragging on ND for TLOU2's fruit physics. That's a heck of a glass house to be throwing stones through but the joke is real. They probably spent thousands, or worse, tens of thousands making, designing, testing, and re-testing fecking animated fruit nobody will even care about or notice and has no impact on the actual game. They did it because they could, and it seemed "cool work to do", and somebody else would pay for it. People in places like this may go on about this stuff somehow feeling like they're patrons of the arts funding creative endeavors by commissioning majestic works of animated melons like some sort of smoking jacket millionaire, but in the real world it's a mass produced consumer commodity product fit for a purpose, and that was simply money wasted because it could be wasted. Considering this doc says that game cost more to make than this one and this one is monumentally larger and more systems-driven, it amplifies how wasteful things like that were.
I don't mean that as a knock on Horizon itself, like I said, I love the series, it's a knock against the mentality of the entirety of the AAA industry. I'd have loved the series if it was a new game with new systems with modestly improved visuals over the already excellent visuals of HZD. It would cost more to make, yes. It would not cost 3-4x more to make. They spend money like aerospace R&D government contractors with an open checkbook. Run out of money? Just raise taxes! I was going to say defense contractor, but no, even they have a budget. It's a high budget, but mil puts up a spec for some pipe dream project, shops for price points for who can build it cheapest, and boom, that's it. Here's your 1.2 billion, if it costs more, it's out of your pocket. I don't think there's anyone in a AAA publisher c-suite that knows the word "budget", but they seem to know the word "closure" very well.
I criticize Nintendo's excessive minimalism at times, often doing too little for even more money, but their principles aren't that far off reality. They set a budget, they build to a budget, they don't do unnecessary work to deliver the target experience, and they still end up overshadowing everyone else when they do it. As an oversimplification totk is literally just a BoTW mod for $70, and the whole industry just stopped existing when it launched. Yes, that's a rip off even compared to Sony standards. But there are still useful lessons in what they do for others in the industry, even if it's a really good mod. I'm pretty sure Horizon could have shaved 100 mil off their budget not worrying about how perfect leaf flutter is in a breeze and just work on things like, idk, making sure the game's not a choppy mess at launch.
All that having been said, and it's all a valid discussion on the state of the AAA industry, it's bottomless spiral, and a topic started by Yokoi in the 90's, brought up again by Layden in the past decade, and then ignored and run full seam straight at the iceberg by everyone else, but, again, I also suspect this "HFW budget" (and the TLOU2 "budget") above is.....generously padded beyond just the production of those games. New (extra luxury) offices, IT spending, additional studio growth/expansion intended for more parallel/support development, movie development, branching into new projects, overall future investment not really tied to these games probably conveniently ended up in this number. It's not an itemization for investors or a tax audit, it's a statement to a court to achieve a specific result where other such delectable truths as "unanimous" publisher consensus and their whole company being dependent upon a single third party game were also presented by them. "Creative accounting" to show more favorable numbers for their intended results here bears no ill consequences and doesn't need to match the numbers on an actual audit.... We got a sharpie-leak of "confidential" information, but it's non-legally binding "confidential" information they wanted to produce for the court to validate their argument. As long as it's "true enough" if you cover one eye and slide one page over the other, it's true enough for purpose.
But seriously, who is getting fired for redacting this? 'Hmm, my marker is getting a bit dry. Shall i stand up from my desk and get a new one? Nah, it's only a billion dollar lawsuit. Why bother.'
@Futureshark Pretty sure it would be 276 games at £250 million each divided into £69 billion. Absolutely crazy when you think about it!!!
@JAMes-BroWWWn he gave you a couple of valid point but you decided to go all LALALALALA I CANT HEAR YOU and also what do you know of Videogames budget managment??? one must be really confident on his own ignorance to pretend to know better than the people that have been doing that for years.
@W0rl0ck
Haha, that was my bad maths giving a much more conservative estimate.
Yes it is bonkers and really makes me wonder where is the business sense. So much potential for investment wasted.
@NathanKang you definitely did not play forbidden west. it is far superior and it's not even close.
@Triumph741 it has everything you said last of us has and a way better story. shouldn't be hard for you to figure out.
@middyone weak bait
@JAMes-BroWWWn are you ceo of a muli billion dollar company? no? then hush up you have no idea what you are talking about lol. the first horizon made sony over a billion dollars if they want to spend a fraction of that money on the sequel that's gonna make them even more...that's what they are gonna do. nothing is mismanaged...just a classic example of somebody on the internet thinking they know better than a multibillion dollar company.
@Triumph741 you're the one baiting saying that the story is improvement over the first last of us lol. the fact horizon is open world and lou is linear should make it cost more. do the math
@middyone The story is an improvement over the cookie cutter original and open world doesn't mean anything when the writers and gameplay designers are creatively bankrupt
@Triumph741 creatively bankrupt yet made a better and more interesting story than the trash story of the last of us 2 lol. creatively bankrupt never felt so good. different doesn't mean good and the fact ya'll always use that excuse for part 2 proves it's bad. there's no comparison with the gameplay so don't mention that lol. horizon over a mile any day.
@middyone Of course you like Horizon more. You have no taste
@Triumph741 forgive me for having standards. the first last of us was good second was trash. it's facts.
@middyone that's just not true, the last of us 2 is a phenomenal game that gets a bad rep just bc it destroyed the expectations of the fanbase and made ellie the "villain" and also bc incels and simps on the internet hating abby for the horrible horrible sin of killing the murderer of her own father, the audacity!!!!!! and also bc she's a baddass and buffed, but mark my words, season 2 of last of us is going to vindicate the game big time, just wait.
@LordBakemono i had no expectations and was looking forward to it and it still disappointed me. Not because of a certain death one hour in and everybody knows who the real villain is lol. I really hope it does vindicate the game...I REALLY DO. this is the one time I hope they stray away from the source material.
This pretty much Confirms TLOUII was a financial flop. If it made a profit, it barely broke passed even when you include Marketing.
The post first week 6 Million sales were heavily discounted and I saw the game for as low as $10. I will assume that the 10 Million players number is real, but that doesn't account for people who borrowed the game or bought it second hand.
@LordBakemono What points were given? A bIgGeR mAp? NeW aNiMaTiOnS? UnDeR wAtEr? Ridiculous to claim that those points caused an almost 500% increase on costs. Get the ***** off!!!
GG is mismanaged.
@middyone Yes, Multi Billion Dollar companies always know better.
It's not like people told that Billion Dollar company that those expensive memory cards is a stupid idea and will be the reason why the Vita will flop.
It's not like people told that billion dollar company that Cell Processor are really hard to develop for and they shouldn't put em inside a console.
It's not like people told that billion dollar company that Cell Processor are NOT the future and you'll have problems to play those games on subsequent consoles.
It's not like people told that billion dollar company that glueing that ID and the PS Name together into database would result into issues changing PS names in the long run.
It's not like people told that billion dollar company that transparency when DDoS occurs is highest priority. Remember 2011?
It's not like people told that billion dollar company launching a 700 dollar console is DoA.
Bottom line: Billion dollar companies make mistakes all the time. And GG being mismanaged is one of em. Now hush you coparate slave.
@middyone you had no expectations towards a sequel for one of the greatest games of all time??? sorry but i find that really hard to believe, and you just proved my point by saying "i hope they dont follow the source material" bc believe me, they're going to double down on it, the bottom line is last of us 2 is a phenomenal game regardless if you like what the creators did with their story, it has a powerful message and the fact that a lot of people had a such a visceral reaction towards it is proof that the people at naughty dog are the best videogames storytellers around, bc that's exactly what they were trying to do.
@LordBakemono first of all...it's subjective if the first game is one of the greatest games of all time. secondly...I just didn't think about it too much...sure I was looking forward to it but I wasn't watching every trailer etc. please no lol...if they do watch the ratings drop. it has good gameplay sure. i'm pretty sure neil didn't want this reaction to his game lol...bro was butthurt and even tried to prove the haters wrong by telling everyone to vote. somebody who wanted that reaction doesn't say let's prove the haters wrong lol.
@middyone I have over 20 hours in Forbidden West. The only thing that's different is that the game looks better than the first. Otherwise, sequel sucks. There's a reason no one talked about it after Elden Ring dropped
@NathanKang i have over 200 hours in forbidden west and I can without a shadow of a doubt say you're a liar. in both areas...if you're gonna bait you're gonna have to do better than that.
BOTH where awesome games
@NathanKang nobody talking about elden Ring
@Kelrics90 TLOU2 was good and iv played 1st on.ps3 then ps4 now part1 on ps5 loved both games
@NathanKang that's bs Forbidden west is a fantastic sequel and the 3rd game wil be too funny thing u criticise it but u wil buy and play it aswell just like millions of others
@JAMes-BroWWWn you're out of line but you're right lol. first of all I never said companies always are right and never make mistakes...i said they know better than you otherwise they wouldn't be a mulibillion dollar company in the first place and you wouldn't be a keyboard warrior but a head of a mulibillion dollar company if that was the case. notice how you skipped over the part where I said guerilla made sony over a billion dollars with the horizon franchise lol. if you don't know how to do map that's about a quarter of what they spent on horizon forbidden west. quality costs money and it has been successful for sony for all of the ps4 generation and now ps5 gen.
bottom line : gaming is the biggest money maker for sony overall so of course they are gonna give them whatever they need to make a great game.
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