Rise of the Ronin Would Not Have Been Made Without Sony

They really should have offered the full spectrum of technical and animation support for this game

wasnt an enjoyable game to play so bloated and repetitive

Excellent game, would play it again on the PS5 Pro if the performance was better with ray-tracing enabled.

Damn Push Square gave this game 6/10, is it really that bad?

@Oram77 Nope, Push Square is tripping.

@Oram77 The only downside I found with it was the Team Ninja loot flood you have to deal with from all enemies. Excellent action RPG set in an interesting time in Japan's history with a large, rich game world to explore.

@MaelysLeFleau @Zeke68 Thank you both, from what I heard the game is alot better than an 6, will add to the list.

With the development time needed to make games these days, I think these types of partnerships are incredibly smart of Sony to pursue. Rise of the Ronin is a hugely ambitious game with a reach that sometimes exceeds its grasp but gets enough right to stand on its own as a unique and immensely satisfying Samurai sim. Loved it.

@Oram77 Thought it was garbage. Dull and repetitive open world, simplified Team Ninja combat, doggy-doo performance in a game that wouldn't look out of place in the early PS4 days.

I'll get it on sale someday. Too many games, too little time.

@Porco You made that up, the only time Koei Tecmo ever mentioned sales was in June last year during a Fiscal report they said it was their best selling game so far(likely meaning fastest selling, and it had sold more than both Nioh games at the same point)

Source: https://www.thetechgame.com/News/sid=43009/rise-of-the-ronin-is-koei-tecmos-bestselling-game-so-far.html

Stellar blade would not have been as high quality without Playstation

I really enjoyed the game platinumed the game and loved the story the open world wish there was dlc for it! Wasn’t as hard as nioh

@Oram77 yes. Pants

@ChrisDeku just because it sold the first 1m copies faster than their previous games doesn't mean it met sales expectations. far from it. also, 5m copies was their sales expectation. it's out there. look it up. thankfully, some dedicated people have done the legwork as tecmo-koei will not announce sales figures directly (it might have something to do with them not being thrilled about the sales, but that's just a hunch). you can go educate yourself here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/riseoftheronin/comments/1iecdd8/ronin_did_not_meet_sales_expectations_but_neither/

@Oram77 the game is fine. And features an interesting setting (1800s Japan interacting with Western powers).

World is not dull or repetitive. Those statements are the same tired arguments people throw out because they’re tired of open world games…so everyone should be.

Games good, not great but pretty good. Why can't many people live with that without feeling the need for bashing something.

@Porco 5m would be a lifetime sales expectation, not a 3 months sales expectation. Have people forgotten how time works?

A reddit post is not a source and there isn't a single quote saying it didn't meet sales expectations, just a dude analysing one quarters worth of data and comparing it to lifetime sales expectations(modern games sell for 5+ years)

I've wanted this game but it never seems to go on sale. Guess I'll keep waiting.

@RagnarLothbrok Yeah, but no one would have heard of it and I seriously doubt the production value would have been the same, since the studio behind the game got financial support from Sony.

@Contimaloris It's been on sale several times now on the Playstation Store.

This game is so underrated. It may not be graphically impressive but I sure love the aesthetics of RoTR and how open world it is.

@Oram77 I had fun, and did not regret it

@Oram77
I played it after quite a lot of patching.
I thought it was a decent enough game, with an interesting setting, and some brilliant combat. Its really quite a long game indeed, but I dont necessarily think it was overly bloated as a fair amount of the side content was decent enough.

The game had 2 main issues:

1. Performance can be very patchy - sometimes its excellent (in the key main story missions it holds pretty well), othertimes its ok, and at times its appalling with what feels like drops below VRR of 48fps, and stuttering. The performance issues are quite odd, and dont necessarily seem to be just down to GPU or CPU even (the graphics are not fantastic at all, and there doesnt seem enough going on to stretch them either). They really needed help from Sony here.

2. The story allows you to pick from 2 sides, and then change back and forth at a few set points along the way (and sort of pushes you to do so due to the narrative) - the trouble is this makes the story a fairly incoherent mess at times, and even forces you to work for whichever side you haven't chosen. The ongoing story doesnt change much depending on the side you have picked for each section, and it all feels like your choices are having very little narrative effect.

@Porco

you do realize that the majority of sales for a given AAA title, generally speaking, occurs in the first 3 months don't you?

No, they don’t. It’s not 1997 anymore, games don’t get outdated quickly(or at all). Secondly, Rise of the Ronin launched on 22nd of March, so it’s first quarter sales period would only cover 9 days(financial period ends 31st of march).

Sony published games:

Horizon: Zero Dawn sold 2.6m in 2 weeks, 10m in 12 months and lifetime sales are at 24.3m as of April 2023.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift apart sold 1.1m in its first 6 weeks. 2.43m in 12 months and 3.97m in 2 years. Lifetime sales will be much higher.

Miles Morales sold around 2-3m in its launch quarter. In 9 months it had sold 6.5m. By June 2023 it had sold 14.4m.

Ghost of Tsushima sold 2.4m in its first week. 5m in its first 6 months. By September 2024 it had sold 13m.

The Last of Us sold 3.4m in it’s first 3 weeks, and had broken 20m units by May 2019.

Established Franchises are more front loaded but even God of War(2018) had legs. Sold 5m in it’s first month, 10m in 14 months and 23m by November 2022.

@Porco This days big company has lifetime sales target, not just the first 3 months. They know their games keeps selling for years.

Capcom for example, the president said he's aiming SF 6 lifetime sales to reach 10 million copies and it already sold 4.4 million copies as of December 2024 or 1.5 year since released back in June 2023. The game is still selling as we speak and very popular too.

Just imagine if this game was published by Ubisoft. Zero chance it would get the weird vitriolic defense when it's criticized.

@Oram77 imo, it's exactly that "bad." A little better than average.

@LikelySatan So like Avowed levels of average?

Are people still claiming this game failed? 😅

It was selling faster than Nioh and Nioh 2 and they announced its one of their best selling games ever, and that's just on one platform.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.playstationlifestyle.net/2024/06/12/rise-of-the-ronin-sales-koei-tecmo-best-seller/amp/

@Oram77 Well Rise of the Ronin scored higher than Avowed on PC, infact it's got a rating of 80 which means it's a good game, not average or "bad".

I ignored the reviews and kept interest in this and picked it up a month or so ago, on steep sale mind you.

I am sad to report that most of the criticisms are quite valid. The awful loot design from nioh and woh long return here. The game starts to show its repetitive ubsoft like design pretty early on. The visuals, atmosphere and story dont really hold it together as they are both pretty bad in delivery.

After dozens of hours i started to get the same feeling i do with modern day ubi slop. I started to feel like it was more a chore to play than fun. One of those situations whereas a gamer I no longer looked forward to playing it but instead felt obligated to because of the time already invested in it.

This is now a red flag I look for and immediately take a break or abandon a game. A lesson I learned through the ubi soft formula. As you can get lulled into the mindless chase of the map icons and no longer having any fun doing so.

Even getting it for $19.99, I ultimately am left disappointed but am at least glad I gave it a shot despite reviewers I trust basically being entirely accurate in its mediocre implementation.

I haven't returned to it since. However, it remains installed just in case I need some mindless distraction on a sleepless night.

As rough around the edges as the game was, it was the first Team Ninja title that I legitimately noticed major improvements in controls, physics and fluidity in. I’ve been critical of their engine for many years but this game was genuinely a major leap forward. While it’s difficult to go back to due to the leaps since in other games, it absolutely deserves a playthrough.

@UltimateOtaku91 having less staying power (people playing after release window) apparently amounts to failure according to some people. A failure would be concord, this game was wildly successful. It was released as is, complete. It was mean to played through once or twice, enjoyed, platinumed by huge fans (I didn’t platinum this one but enjoyed it greatly) and moved on from. That’s not a failure, that’s a studio understanding their purpose in making a video game: it’s a form of entertainment to be enjoyed and then graduated from. Games that are mostly single player and have major staying power, like Skyrim or Elden ring, despite being well known are an anomaly. They weren’t designed to accomplish that, they were just so good that they accomplished more than their developers anticipated.

I haven't played this game yet but I've heard lots of very mixed reviews. I'm a big Team Ninja fan so I'm sure I'll give it a go at some point.

I'm just glad that Xbox decided to partner with them to get Ninja Gaiden 4 made.

@get2sammyb Finally, someone talking about second party games. Can you also fix articles refering to Death Stranding 2 as "first party"? It's made by an independent studio and the IP doesn't belong to Sony.

@Oram77 that's what it seems like.

@PuppetMaster long tail of sales is entirely dependent on the game or franchise. in the case of this game, being a new IP that people were luke warm about and having since disappeared into the ether the way it has, i just don't see it. if tecmo-koei never gives a sales update or annaounces a sequel, we will know for certain that it severely underperformed i suppose... for the time being, i'll use the data that we do have to make the assumption that it was not successful for them nor sony. 1m in sales for a 3 month window (with a ps5 install base of about 60m at the time) just isn't going to cut it in the AAA space any longer. 3m+ and it would have had a chance.

I've only tried the demo and the graphics was just to off putting, I didn't play it long enough to have a saying on the gameplay but if you're into good looking games, this is not it..

@Porco You don't see it but that's not the case for KT / Sony. They know a lot more than you do and why they have lifetime sales target for their games, either that's a new IP or longrunning franchise.

But why are you assuming this game isn't a succcess when KT, the creator and owner of the IP, has all the hard data that you don't have and said it sold well beyond their expectations?

You don't even know exactly the budget of this game but you already determined that 1 million copies in 3 months are not enough. Meanwhile Nioh 1, also a KT game which was in development for 13 years and has changed direction multiple times, it was sold 1 million copies in less than a month and for KT / Sony that was a success.

You shouldn't assumed too much when you don't have enough infos in your disposal.

yeaaaahhhh that third party mate

@PuppetMaster correction, he said it was selling faster than the nioh games. another meaningless data point if it fell of a cliff and garnered mixed reactions. in either case, rise of the ronin likely has a budget many times larger than nioh so an equal sales comparison won't cut it with this one. if ronin has a budget 3X larger than nioh, then it needs sales 3X larger than nioh and we know that is a tall order considering its moderate sales in its first quarter.

@Porco It's seling faster than Nioh 1 & 2 means Rise of the Ronin is on the same path if not bigger success than Nioh. But for whatever reason you keeps assuming the game is underperformed.

And what you said about the budget is 3x times larger than Nioh is a big what if. I say the budget could be in the same range as Nioh or Wo Long or maybe a bit more. Heck, it could be cheaper since KT are well known to reused some assets between their games to cut development time and keep the budget as low as possible. I don't see any KT games that screams like they spent more than $100 million and used cutting edge graphics.

FYI. Nioh project estimated budget was 3 billion yen or in today currency is around 20 million USD and that included a live action movie adaptation directed by Akira Kurosawa son that sadly didn't happen. So i don't believe if Rise of the Ronin budget is 3x times larger than Nioh.
https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/10/29/kurosawa-comes-to-ps3

Beside KT and Sony, no one knows exactly how much Rise of the Ronin cost. So there's no point to assume if it 3x times larger than Nioh. But if KT financial report says Rise of the Ronin is their one of best selling game and sold faster than Nioh then i don't see any reason why they must lie about it.

@PuppetMaster ultimately, we are just making predictions here. but come on now... nioh was not an open world game. there is zero possibility that the costs are similar considering ronin is open world game, has much larger scope and marketing budget.

i made similar, educated predictions, about ff 16's abysmal sales and was attacked by a few people in the comments, including that "ChrisDeku" guy here. i did not buy the narrative for a second that s-e was happy with the sales, despite misleading people early on. i said ff 16 would go down as the worst selling mainline ff game since the ps1 era and lo and behold, it is looking that way. recently, Hideki Yasuda, stated that it has sold around 3.5m copies. since the launch of the game, it only garnered an additional 500k copies, which includes pc sales, some two years later. it is a bust and goes against everything you were saying about games having a long tail of sales. sure, it does happen from time to time, but more often than not, majority of sales are going to be generated in the first quarter and first year on the market.

i don't just pull my predictions out of thin air. also, i am objective about it, unlike some people who don't want to imagine for a moment that something they are emotionaly invested in could not meet expectations. i don't get it. it's just a game. some games fare well, others do not. usually, let's say 9 times out of 10, when a game does well for a publisher, they are proud to announce sales data to shareholders very loudly. that is certainly not the case here with ronin or recent final fnatasy games.