Bayonetta was released on the PC last month and it appears that it has met – or even exceeded – SEGA’s expectations. In an interview with PCInvasion, SEGA Europe’s Senior Vice President of Commercial Publishing, John Clark, claimed that the company is happy with Bayonetta’s PC sales.
Clarck claimed that the game has sold 170K copies on the PC so far, and that SEGA is really happy with the performance of the PC sales.
Steamspy’s data appear to be spot on and confirm that figure as according to them, Bayonetta has sold 176K copies on the PC.
SEGA will release tomorrow Vanquish on the PC, and remains to be seen whether that title will be able to sell more than Bayonetta!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Evil PC pirates, always pirating everything.
Sadly I bet more copies have still been pirated than bought. Which is why developers still continue to put most of their efforts into the console versions of games and we have to wait ages for patches if were lucky.
That’s irrelevant. Of course more copies will get pirated than purchased, because you don’t have to buy the game. However there’s literally no proof and no way to quantify the copies pirated. And it doesn’t matter because it isn’t money lost.
What?
Dude, english is not my native language and even I understood. In short, cut the BS of ‘more copies have still been pirated’; there’s no way to figure that number and even then, most people that pirates the game won’t buy the game anyway for a number of reasons, mainly: no money. So no that much harm done in sales.
I understood him but couldn’t believe what he was saying.
“Download = lost sale” = bullsh*t.
I get what you are saying but I don’t strictly agree as whilst that may well be true for a large percentage a lot of people will just because they can.
It’s the same basic principle as with the Denuvo argument, really; the ability to purchase the game legally (i.e. whether or not it’s actually available in your country), financial capability to purchase (available + you’re not broke), & the actual willpower to buy the damn thing.
Now, since it’s available on Steam, short of some Morality Police c*ckblocking it for some reason (“she shows too much *ss”?) means it’s basically universally available, & it’s well priced, so that cuts out a lot of the “it’s too expensive for me – right now” people, leaving us with the mere willpower to buy it, in which case we get down to a completely case-by-case basis thing.
After all, sure, some people will pirate it regardless of what, absolutely, but overall, it’s a very attractive package (it performs well, it’s a quality game, & it’s relatively cheap), meaning there’s not much else that can be done in the way of incentivising sales, either with Denuvo, or with an even lower price, or whatnot.
So, yeah, some people will pirate it, but it’s not a big deal, really, it’s just a byproduct. SEGA & Platinum both have already done just about all that they can to limit piracy as much as possible, beyond that, it’s up the player themselves to decide whether or not it’s worth supporting the continued development of such projects.
Matt, you have to understand that piracy is a free publicity. Do you think Scott would make milions if Five Nights At Freddy’s “games” weren’t pirated like crap in the first place?
Let’s get this straight again:
1) Pirates don’t have money to pay the full price anyways. No Day 1 sale was lost because in their case none existed in the first place.
2) They tend to buy games they liked in the long run in the sales and ALSO they are the biggest word of mouth marketing tool out there – and let’s not even go to lengths of saying that some of the biggest streamers started as kid pirates as well.
There is more to it Matt. Trust me on this one.
Well thanks for your mature and respectful reply, what a refreshing change.
Of course you are right that there is far more to the issue than I realise or understand however, from a business standpoint it does also make a lot of sense.
I remember seeing quite a few metrics of copies sold being a small fraction compared to actual players playing. If I was a developer I too would put far more effort into a console version as they know that they will get a far better return on the game.
I do still firmly believe that piracy does more harm than good for us PC gamers.
I am from the industry myself, not gonna hate you for your opinion mate ;).
I will respond to your points later :).
A company once did a test and secretly connected the pirated versions to a test server to check player counts and only around 15% of the players were legit. LOL I know not all the pirated versions would have been sales otherwise but that’s gotta hurt. That 85% of something you sweated for years for is just poof into some nerds pc for free.
They might (and will) join later. It’s just PC gamers are in no rush, there are so many games being released for the platform. For example if you are XBONE user, you have some multiplatforms and then like 3,5 exclusives? You better buy everything they bother releasing for the platform. PC gamer can choose from so many games.
The problem with console vs PC players is, that you can’t take the number of players (all-time numbers that is) as a number of copies sold, since quite a huge portion of console sales are preowned ones.
The markets also differ – PC scene tends to be steady generating income over time, while console gamers prefer to buy game on day 1, sell it afterwards with the biggest revenue and move on to another title (that applies to single player games mostly). Also – there is the biggest number of games released on PC as a platform, so players can differentiate a lot and the F2P scene is very strong as well. Long story short – your game needs to stand out very much in order to attract as much people as possible. See Evolve as an prime example – they went from 60 dollars game + 2 Season Passes to Buy once get everything to F2P and near bankruptcy.
Pirates have been around for as long as PC gaming.And since no one can actually know how piracy affects PC sales either in good or bad way so there’s no point in playing the guessing games.
As for your developer’s comment here’s a better reason why they do so-it’s because they’re lazy.
And in the case of Platinum, they’re Japanese, so they’re console gamers from birth, which grow up to become console developers.
Cycle of life, & all that.
Stop being an idiot. Denuvo games WISH for 176k sales in such a short time.
Freaking idiot. If there are all those imaginery sales lost on pc becuase of piracy how come console games sell low lately?
How come denuvo did not skyrocket sales?
Also dont talk about patches, console games get patches on day one and still have bugs.If your argument is perfomance issues than know that consoles always have perfomance issues.
I think Vanquish will sell more than Bayonetta.
Definitely. It’s a shooter vs. a Devil May Cry-type game, if nothing else, which automatically gives it a wider range of appeal compared to Bayonetta.
Dragons Dogma sold about 700k, so I assume this will sell similar in a years time.
PC Gaming: Dead, Dying or Irrelevant Since 2002
One of the two popular myths surrounding PC gaming. You can point out that PC games sales increase year after year and they will say, “yeah but that’s just because of microtransactions and hardly anyone is buying AAA games on PC”. You point to the tens of millions of AAA games being sold every year for PC and they go sit quietly in the corner and wait a while and then come back later babbling about PC gaming is dying all over again.
The other popular myth about PC gaming being that we’re mostly pirates and don’t buy games. Some even believe the nonsense that a pirated game = a loss sale.
What the hell does that have to do with anything?
the last masterpiece from pc gaming is half life 2….2004….
The Witcher would disagree. And just because consoles were graced with a sub-30fps piece of crap with the 3rd game (let’s not even get into the awful 360 port of TW2) doesn’t mean it isn’t a PC game through and through.
Well, the U.I./gamepad controls/graphics downgrade/ultra-low cpu usage would have most believe it had consoles in mind while being developed.
Witcher 2 was thoroughly consolised. Witcher 3 is more of a PC-first, consoles-second deal. They even admitted to making Witcher 2’s UI for consoles.
so you sare saying stalker and witcher and arma 2 and 3 and…. yeah i wont even bother finishing my point.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0eb550708f785f6fc7c901e842bbe4b4de67ff7bcbe56a255a0fc177ff725ec6.jpg
Walikor, Walikor. Never change. You are perfect just the way you are. Perfectly hilarious to read your silly comments that is. When I see the way your mind works I am indeed grateful that I don’t have to be a Console Peasant. Thank you for being a constant reminder to me of just how fortunate I am to be a PC gamer.
LOL 🙂 it never gets old does it.
Imagine that. You deny an audience a game for 7 years and then you finally release a polished, great port of that game on the system and then people buy it? Weird.
Really weird. It’s almost as if quality games (that work, obviously) will always sell themselves, irregardless of what else.
Strange. It just doesn’t make any sense.
Mind you, we’ve been getting some Japanese Samurai Warrior style releases the past few years from the likes of KT and Bamco, in poor quality, to a point where thirsty fans will give their shoddy works a pass. It’s refreshing to see a polished Japanese game selling well and getting what it deserves.
Which is unacceptable, I fully agree, but even Dark Souls, with its ridiculously bare-bones release, sold well, & Bandai Namco learned from it, making improvements to the sequel….. downgrade aside. It really should be an entirely case-by-case basis affair, though at the same time, yeah, we should overall be moving away from giving Japanese developers such a blatant pass these days, as more & more of them are coming out with Bayonetta & (hopefully) Vanquish-type ports.
23 hours & counting……..
Most didn’t though. 😀 yar
170k sales.. that’s like very pathetic comparing to consoles like millions. shameful PC pirates. shameful.
Were you dropped as a child? The game has been out for what a month? It is has been out on consoles for many years. How come no bayonetta 2 on x360/ps3? Console gamers must be pirates.
Freaking idiot, denuvo games WISH for such high sales in such short amount of time.
If that’s sarcasm, might want to clarify it a bit, it’s a little unclear.
If not, it’s a 7.5-year old game in the Devil May Cry genre. Most people don’t even know it exists, never mind what it’s all about. No doubt quite a few of those copies sold on brand recognition alone, namely, PlatinumGames, now that people are becoming more & more aware of them, but even so, when this launched back in 2009, it no doubt only did “so” well back then, either.
The “millions” in sales it accumulated happened over months & years post-launch, not overnight. Hell, it sold so badly at first, that sequel was a f*cking Wii U exclusive, ffs.
Dude, this is an old game, a niche one at that, that isn’t that popular to begin with, though it has a cult following. Considering this, it’s actually pretty great.
Also, where were those millions of sales on the console versions for Bayonetta. If it had sold millions, we wouldn’t have had the sequel a goddamn Wii U exclusive, smh. Oh wait, if it ain’t COD or your next generic open world sandbox game no. 79, it won’t sell. Got it.
You know what’s really pathetic, your trolling and your existence. *drops mic*
You do know it sold so poorly that the sequel was canceled, right? That it took Nintendo too keep it alive for a sequel. Please, tell us you understand something so simple…..please…
I am 1 among 176,000 ~
I got say, it feels good to be there. They did something great to deserve it. There should be more 😀
If you can afford it, buy it. If you can’t, pirate it. You’ll get no disdain from me 🙂
“I’m sure they improved because of the sales”
Absolutely. Even U-BE-SOFT came around on their piece of sh*t PC ports, what with all the money those jokes were costing them, in the end.
Agreed on the passes, more so for the more experienced publishers & developers than not, though, but yeah, definitely agreed overall. Like, I’d still give Ninturdo a pass if they ever brought Pokemon to PC with a shoddy port, since it’s their first game “ever”, basically, but yeah, for SEGA, Konami, Bandai Namco, etc. the excuses are drying up each time they launch a new port – especially ones such as Bayonetta & (hopefully) Vanquish.
More and more people are gaming on PC’s, Microcenter reported that PC gaming hardware is up and basically better then ever.
I rag on people at this site for hating like every game but whatever at least PC gaming is growing. All my friends either game or want to game on a PC but they also have a console too.
I’m personally against conslow exclusives on PC. The reason: console exclusives are going to be dumbed down on a vastly better platform so the original console title doesn’t look and perform that bad when you compare the two.
PC has great exclusives, the largest library and backwards compatibility. No need for anything else really.