Community MetaSteam | September 2024 - The emperor protects, BOY!

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Arc

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For reference, the last mainline "Tales of" game peaked at 60k, but that was 3 years ago. Still it gives some perspective on how much money S-E is leaving on the table with their delayed ports.

But I think what will really drive that point home will be the numbers for (the simultaneous release of) Metaphor.
I don't think Metaphor will be a massive breakout hit. It might do SMT VV concurrent at best (~20k) and probably sell in the same ballpark (500k-600k across every platform).

Persona 6 will be the big one. A day one Steam release could easily break 100k concurrent.
 
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Durante

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If Metaphor does SMTVV concurrent numbers at best then I'd say that would be an abject failure.
SMTVV is a late port of a low-budget game. Metaphor is a day-and-date release of a flagship game.

I expect it to do 50k concurrent at the very least.
 

Mivey

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Metaphor is also a completely new title, and we have already seen with Soul Hacker 2 that the Atlus brand alone can't carry a game. That has max peak of just 5K
 

Arc

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Metaphor also comes out the same day as the new Dragon Ball game. While there probably isn't a massive overlap between Dragon Ball fans and JRPG fans, it will suck some of the oxygen out of the room.
 
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fantomena

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Preordered the new Dragon Age, please be good!
Why pre-order game AAA game nowadays? Game will be much better 6 months after launch with a ton of patches, DLCs and 40% off.

And even if you want to play it asap, wait for reviews and then buy it after reviews are out. I did that with Astro Bot, I was 100% sure I would play it day 1, but waited for reviews and user impressions regardless.
 

Knurek

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For reference, the last mainline "Tales of" game peaked at 60k, but that was 3 years ago. Still it gives some perspective on how much money S-E is leaving on the table with their delayed ports.

But I think what will really drive that point home will be the numbers for (the simultaneous release of) Metaphor.
Yeah, but people actually care about and play Tales of franchise.
FF is for boomers only.
 
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Kyougar

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Yeah, but people actually care about and play Tales of franchise.
FF is for boomers only.
eh, I would say FF is for Action-Combat Coomers right now.

The older FF gamers are still longing for the ATB superiority from earlier games.
 

Hektor

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I think ya'll underrating Metaphor, considering it's meant to be the next big, Persona game.
It's literally just Persona in a fantasy universe afterall + multiplat release ínstead of being Playstation exclusive.
They even have very mainstream marketing for it, including a Formular 1 Sponsorship.

Comparing it to Soul Hackers 2, a game developed with a 5$ budget doesn't make much sense.
 

Line

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I am really curious about Metaphor, I think it can do pretty well. But I'm not sure, it has tons of attractive points for the average steam weeb, but it's also a lot less school anime... but at the same time, actual anime tend to be a bit more serious and fantasy right now? So maybe?

I hope Dragon Quest 3 Remake will get good marketing too. I could see it do some good numbers, it's a beautiful old school game, and FINALLY everywhere day one. I think it has a lot of potential.
 

QFNS

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I know very little about Metaphor but have heard good things and I like persona, so it seems like it has potential.

I'm just not gonna be rushing to play it since I'm still in Trails from Daybreak and Space Marine.
 

Dragon1893

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Yeah, I expect Metaphor to do better than SMTV, especially if reviews are strong.
I'm so bummed that unless a great deal comes along, I will have to wait on Metaphor.

As for Yakuza, I'm pretty sure most fans care a lot about the characters and subsequently the story, as nonsensical as it is. But that's part of the series' charm.
Hell, even the new cast is very strong, how can you not care about them?
 
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Kyougar

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I think ya'll underrating Metaphor, considering it's meant to be the next big, Persona game.
It's literally just Persona in a fantasy universe afterall + multiplat release ínstead of being Playstation exclusive.
They even have very mainstream marketing for it, including a Formular 1 Sponsorship.

Comparing it to Soul Hackers 2, a game developed with a 5$ budget doesn't make much sense.
Fun Fact: The character on Formula 1 driver Nico Hülkenberg's car is named Hulkenberg.

 
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rickyson33

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It's TGS week. Anything you want to see?

To me... please SEGA Shin Sakura Wars 2 please!
I feel like I already kinda know about anything I might care about there at the moment personally

the Suikoden remasters already got their release date recently, there was already that RGG event a few days ago, a Tales remaster just got announced recently so there won't be anything new for that series anytime soon, Novect(Fata Morgana dev) is working on something new that will be at some event one of these days but they've already said in their blog they aren't ready for that this year and won't be at TGS

I guess Nintendo could announce their new system this week since a lot of people seem to think that's imminent but i'll believe that when I see it at this point
 
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Le Pertti

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Why pre-order game AAA game nowadays? Game will be much better 6 months after launch with a ton of patches, DLCs and 40% off.

And even if you want to play it asap, wait for reviews and then buy it after reviews are out. I did that with Astro Bot, I was 100% sure I would play it day 1, but waited for reviews and user impressions regardless.
Well mostly because my gf had a gift card that was expiring and had to be used. Also there aren't too many RPGs coming that I want to play, so :shrugblob:
 
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spindoctor

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Reddit having a very normal reaction to the news of Steam hitting a new all time peak CCU

The Return of the Mischievous Uncle!

I'm not the best person to try and read the tea leaves for the Metaphor launch CCU but my gut feeling is that it's not going to be a very big one. If it had been a simultaneous release for Persona 6 I would have said 100k but this game seems like it's flying under the radar even though it's the next big mainline Atlus title. And it's releasing in a pretty crowded window to boot.

Also, I have to say that my metric for what constitutes a big launch on Steam has changed in the last couple of years. Now obviously there's a ton of context required to understand CCU numbers. Price, genre, advertising, franchise popularity, release delays, crowded schedules and so many other factors affect how well a game does at launch. And even 'small' numbers can mean the world to indie devs. Just the other day the developer of Lorn's Lure was thrilled that his game got 300 CCU. Another indie developer was over the moon that his game got 200 reviews faster than his previous game. So obviously, the definition of success is very different for everyone. That said, I feel like a big/notable AAA game launching with 20-30k or so is not very good at all. God of War and FF16 launching with 30k is kind of pathetic given how they're both supposedly jewels in the crown franchises for their publishers. Yes they were late and they were full price and blah blah but Steam has gotten massive in the last few years. Absolutely massive. In a world where 2 man indie games like Manor Lords can hit 150k you are not doing well if your big, AAA, 90 metacritic game arrives at 30k. You're just not. At the very least, you should be growing your audience like how Capcom, Bamco and Sega have been doing with Tales and Yakuza and so on. If your hot new game is not beating the launch numbers of the previous entry in the series which launched 2-4 years ago when Steam was smaller than today, then you fucked up. Simple as that.
 

ezodagrom

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I'm not the best person to try and read the tea leaves for the Metaphor launch CCU but my gut feeling is that it's not going to be a very big one. If it had been a simultaneous release for Persona 6 I would have said 100k but this game seems like it's flying under the radar even though it's the next big mainline Atlus title. And it's releasing in a pretty crowded window to boot.
My gut feeling is the complete opposite, I think Metaphor is gonna do really well. Though I don't have much to base this on, just a gut feeling.

That said, I feel like a big/notable AAA game launching with 20-30k or so is not very good at all. God of War and FF16 launching with 30k is kind of pathetic given how they're both supposedly jewels in the crown franchises for their publishers. Yes they were late and they were full price and blah blah but Steam has gotten massive in the last few years. Absolutely massive. In a world where 2 man indie games like Manor Lords can hit 150k you are not doing well if your big, AAA, 90 metacritic game arrives at 30k. You're just not. At the very least, you should be growing your audience like how Capcom, Bamco and Sega have been doing with Tales and Yakuza and so on. If your hot new game is not beating the launch numbers of the previous entry in the series which launched 2-4 years ago when Steam was smaller than today, then you fucked up. Simple as that.
In the case of FFXVI at least, it's the result of not nurturing the PC fanbase. The initial hype of the console release is gone, the PC version announcement was done without much fanfare, the game is releasing at the start of a very busy period so PC players are naturally gonna prioritize the upcoming new games over a late port, the heavy PC requirements are a limiting factor as well, and there's a lack of novelty to this release. Plus it's possible that FFXVI and GoW cannibalized each other potential peak CCUs.
All things considered, nearly 30k is not a surprising number, I don't think it's even a bad number when taking into consideration the circumstances of this release (though if it was a simultaneous console/PC release, it wouldn't have been a good look).
Plus, peak CCUs isn't everything, after all, PC is known for its long legs, late single player ports like FFXVI and GoWR releasing at the start of a very busy period make them more likely to end up as backlog material (with the upcoming new games being prioritized).
 
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STHX

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It's TGS week. Anything you want to see?
I don't think it's going to be there, but my answer is the next SRW. It's been 3 years since 30, even supposing they're doing a completely new style the timing should be right, and B.B. Studio recently became part of Bandai Namco Studio (which is a pretty big hint the next one is going to release worldwide too)
The problem is that a new SRW is obviously going to release in spring 2025 at best, and that period fits so much with the rumored Switch 2 release that I'm fully convinced it's going to launch there too (of course on other platforms too), but that's the thing: if it's going to launch on Switch 2, and the last Bamco Gundam related titles were all announced in directs (like Breaker 4 and Battle Alliance, oh and also SRW30 too albeit only in the jp direct) then the next SRW will most likely be announced in a Direct too, aka it's announcement is directly linked to the Switch 2 announcement, which is unlikely to happen before TGS at this point
 
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Durante

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In the case of FFXVI at least, it's the result of not nurturing the PC fanbase. The initial hype of the console release is gone, the PC version announcement was done without much fanfare, the game is releasing at the start of a very busy period so PC players are naturally gonna prioritize the upcoming new games over a late port, the heavy PC requirements are a limiting factor as well, and there's a lack of novelty to this release. Plus it's possible that FFXVI and GoW cannibalized each other potential peak CCUs.
All things considered, nearly 30k is not a surprising number, I don't think it's even a bad number when taking into consideration the circumstances of this release (though if it was a simultaneous console/PC release, it wouldn't have been a good look).
Plus, peak CCUs isn't everything, after all, PC is known for its long legs, late single player ports like FFXVI and GoWR releasing at the start of a very busy period make them more likely to end up as backlog material (with the upcoming new games being prioritized).
I fully agree with your explanation, but maybe not with the conclusion.

I think it's a very bad number for Square-Enix, but it's primarily the result of them having an utterly dysfunctional platform strategy for their marquee franchises for basically decades at this point. The fact that it took them longer to learn this lesson than Atlus of all people is what lead to these results.
 
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ezodagrom

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I fully agree with your explanation, but maybe not with the conclusion.

I think it's a very bad number for Square-Enix, but it's primarily the result of them having an utterly dysfunctional platform strategy for their marquee franchises for basically decades at this point. The fact that it took them longer to learn this lesson that Atlus of all people is what lead to these results.
I didn't mean that I think it's a good number for Square-Enix, I meant that I think it isn't a bad number for how badly they've handled FF on PC.
In other words, I think they're lucky they're still getting the 2nd highest peak CCUs number for the FF series on PC when taking into consideration the lack of work they've done in growing the franchise.
 

Vantr

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I'm expecting Metaphor to do really well. It feels like it has a big hype push so I feel like it should probably grab the top peak player count for JRPGs.

I'm more interested in how Dragon Ball is going to do. Sparking Zero seems to lean into giving the DB fans what they want so I'm expecting it to have the best franchise peak.

As for TGS

Surely Ace Attorney 7 right? There are no more games for them to port (except PLvAA) and surely the only reason they ported was to make sure all the new fans are caught up before AA7 right?
 

kio

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I'm late for the whole Yakuza talk but I think there's something to be said about the juxtaposition shock between the main story and everything else, at least it's something I personally felt in all the games I played (0, 1, 2).
It might be a cultural thing, a "not getting it" thing or a "not growing up with it" thing but I firmly believe that the games would be a lot better without all the filler, nonsense and "lol random" stuff you get from side quests and activities, especially when you put them side-by-side with the heavy and dramatic tones and themes of the main story.
I get the point is to be a bit of comic relief and light-hearted content to counterweight the other stuff but the balance is completely off, plus it's just weird stuff for the sake of being weird.
 

yuraya

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I've finally got around to messing with GeforceNow the past week and I gotta say I am very impressed. I did it for Starfield since I didn't have the space on my SSD to redownload it again. So I figured streaming is the perfect way to get back into that game before Shattered Space. And wow it worked really fucking well. On the free tier the wait is very short and the quality of everything (once you customize it) very acceptable. There was an audio issue when interacting with npcs for the initial conversation but it irons out fast. Its really impressive to just walk around Neon and my ship. The lag is practically nonexistant.

Nvidia is becoming a terrifying company imo. They keep growing and growing. All this tech they have is legit. Being able to just sign up for this and have over 300 of my steam games instantly sync up is kind of cool. The free tier is good enough too because if you pay for higher tier you kind of wind up using more data to stream anyways so it only becomes a problem. The free tier at 1080p 60fps is pretty solid to push out 5-10gb per hour. That is doable on my data. I haven't tried other games yet but if an fps rpg like Starfield works so good I bet everything else works even better.

I was impressed by Stadia years back but then the PSNow on PS4 was such garbage I kind of fell off. But trying this Nvidia stuff now for the first time is very impressive. I think streaming can definitely be the future of gaming. But they need to get away from subscriptions imo. I think the best way to do this shit is straight up sell individual streaming licenses for games you already own. Like lifetime licenses as DLC for games on the Steam store. Once Nvidia and Valve figure this out to where its profitable for everyone...I think this shit would blow up for real. It would be a win/win/win for everyone I think.


This is why I got bored with elden ring. It just felt and played like dark souls 4, they also reuse way too much.
I think what really helped Elden Ring in this case was that it released nearly 6 years after Dark Souls 3. And yea there was Sekiro in between but only a few things were copied from it like jumping. But with such a long time lapse you could tell people wanted exactly that....Dark Souls 4. Its why Elden Ring was so massive. Also From injected so much new and interesting mechanics into Elden Ring that its practically impossible to diss the game as DS4. Just being able to ride around on a horse while casting spells at enemies segmented that game into a whole different league than DS1-3.

I haven't played any of the new recent Yakuza games but them doing turn based combat for one of the newer ones felt like a big deal. Stuff like that is a good way to make them feel different even if reuse assets etc.
 

Mivey

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I'm late for the whole Yakuza talk but I think there's something to be said about the juxtaposition shock between the main story and everything else, at least it's something I personally felt in all the games I played (0, 1, 2).
It might be a cultural thing, a "not getting it" thing or a "not growing up with it" thing but I firmly believe that the games would be a lot better without all the filler, nonsense and "lol random" stuff you get from side quests and activities, especially when you put them side-by-side with the heavy and dramatic tones and themes of the main story.
I get the point is to be a bit of comic relief and light-hearted content to counterweight the other stuff but the balance is completely off, plus it's just weird stuff for the sake of being weird.
I disagree. It's okay not to like it. Yakuza does not have to sell 20 million copies and appeal to the largest set of people. It is doing its own, very strange, very childish and dumb thing, and I think any attempt to make the series more tonally consistent would just rob it of any identity and give you something super generic and boring.
I love that RGG is embracing the dumb and weird.
 

MegaApple

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For bad Koei Tecmo ports like Samurai Warriors Sanada and many Atelier games, is it better to use Special K?
 

Dragon1893

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I've been eyeing Ace Combat 7 for a while, with this 90% discount I can get it almost for free thanks to a foil I sold a few days ago. I think I'm gonna grab it.
Never played an AC game but this one just gets so much praise, especially from the guys at Digital Foundry.
 
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PC-tan

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Sony fan boys are saying that Metaphor will bomb because MS has the marketing exclusivity. Maybe they are right maybe they will be proven very wrong. Time will tell.

But they are saying the fact that trailers are not mentioned PS5 at all as the reason it will fail. Which just seems very dumb. Since those individuals seems to forget that it's also releasing on PS4 as well but are just ignoring. Strange. What happens when the PS4 version of that game out sells the PS5 version of the game?

If you are into JRPGs you likely have heard about the game. It's something else really.
 

Hektor

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Almost done with FFXVI.
It's certainly a way, way better game than XV.

But it's combat system is still shallow as fuck and doesn't feel much like Final Fantasy.
I don't understand how that happens, given that between Kingdom Hearts, Stranger of Paradise and Remake, action based Final Fantasy is a long solved problem.

The writing is also all over the place with high highs and low lows.
The characters are all really well done, but the political level doesn't work at all and gives of "1000 IQ anime guy" vibes.
 
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But it's combat system is still shallow as fuck and doesn't feel much like Final Fantasy.
I don't understand how that happens, given that between Kingdom Hearts, Stranger of Paradise and Remake, action based Final Fantasy is a long solved problem.
Different teams (well SoP is a team ninja game so ...) and they probably don't have much interaction.
 
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