Sam Lake 10 years ago in 2013: Makes a video apologizing to fans Remedy aren't able to get an Alan Wake sequel made due to financials
Sam Lake in 2023: Alan Wake 2 releases and wins Best Narrative, Best Direction, Best Art, and he gets to perform at The Game Awards
So awesome
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet sold an unbelievable 10+ Million Units in 3 days including 4+ Million from Japan Alone
• Biggest Pokémon Launch Ever
• Biggest Switch Launch Ever
• Biggest Nintendo Launch Ever
• Biggest Console Exclusive Launch of All-Time
The Witcher 3 released on May 19th, 2015. Over 4 years ago
Today, The Witcher 3 set its ALL TIME concurrent players record. More people played The Witcher 3 today than AT LAUNCH. Almost 95k concurrent
This is one of the craziest things I've ever seen for a single player game
Cyberpunk 2077 just passed the ALL TIME Steam Peak Concurrent Players for The Witcher 3
Cyberpunk: 104,827
The Witcher 3 (all time peak): 103,329
Absolutely nuts. Nearly 2 years after launch Cyberpunk has more people playing it right now on Steam than The Witcher 3 has ever had
Netflix went all out for Stranger Things 4
Episode Lengths
• Episodes 1-6 = around 1 hour 15 minutes each
• Episode 7 = 1 hour 38 minutes
• Episode 8 = 1 hour 25 minutes
• Episode 9 = 2 hours 30 minutes
Budget is a giant $30 Million Per episode. Wow
Horror Game fans we are about to FEAST
In a only 4 month release window
• The Callisto Protocol - December 2nd, 2022
• Dead Space Remake - January 27th, 2023
• Resident Evil 4 Remake - March 24th, 2023
Back to Back
• Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth - 1m Units in 1 Week. Fastest Selling Yakuza Game Ever
• Persona 3 Reload - 1m Units in 1 Week. Fastest Selling Atlus Game Ever
JRPGs thriving in 2024
Street Fighter 6 has just SMASHED the All-Time concurrent players of every Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, or Tekken game on Steam
All-Time Peak
• Street Fighter 6 - 64,000+
• Mortal Kombat 11 - 35,147
• Tekken 7 - 18,966
• Mortal Kombat X - 15,743
• Street Fighter V- 14,783
The record-breaking performance from Baldur's Gate III doesn't stop
It has passed the All-Time time peak players of Apex Legends and entered into the Top 10 Highest Players for a game in the History of Steam. 630,000+ concurrent players and climbing
Mind-blowing performance
Kojima has turned down acquisition offers
"Every day I am approached by offers...to buy our studio. Some of those offers are ridiculously high prices but it’s not that I want money. I want to make what I want to make. That’s why I created this studio."
Recent Fighting Games Sales performance
• Street Fighter 6
- 1 Million in 5 Days
- 2 Million in around 1 month
- 3 Million in around 7 months
• Mortal Kombat 1
- Nearly 3m in under 2 months
- 3+ Million by January 2024
• Tekken 8
- 2 Million in under 3 weeks
Have to give EA credit. They've released 2 AAA single-player games already in 2023 which reviewed extremely well and are releasing a 3rd single-player game in just a few months with Immortals of Aveum
What a turn around from when they said single-player only games were dead
Palworld sold 7+ Million in only 5 days. It's selling even faster than Pokémon Legends Arceus which sold 6.5m in 1 week
Sales Trajectory
• 1 Million in 8 Hours
• 2 Million in 24 Hours
• 3 Million in 40 Hours
• 5 Million in 3 Days
• 6 Million in 4 Days
• 7 Million in 5 Days
Can't over emphasize how wild it is Spider-Man: Miles Morales outsold Call of Duty Vanguard digital on PlayStation 5 in the US in December
A 1 year old, single player game outselling a brand new COD on PS5 in its second month is nuts. HUGE boost from No Way Home + PS5 Restocks
Larian Studios were expecting 100k concurrent players max for the launch of Baldur's Gate III
Instead today they hit 700,000+ and became the 9th Highest Peak Ever for a game in Steam History
The biggest Movie and Biggest New Series of 2023 so far are both based on video games
• Movie - Super Mario Bros
• New Series - The Last of Us
Hollywood executives are about to be in an all-out mad arms race for video game adaptation rights
Tekken 8 has sold 2 Million Copies since launch
Bandai Namco says sales are better than expected.
Tekken 8 is selling faster than Tekken 7. Tekken 7 took around 2 months to sell 2m units while Tekken 8 did it in under 3 weeks
The Most Popular Trailers from The Game Awards on YouTube
• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor - 4.9m+
• Hades II - 2.4m+
• Armored Core VI - 2.2m+
• Suicide Squad - 2.1m+
• Death Stranding 2 - 1.9m+
• Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty - 1.6m+
• Diablo IV - 1.5m+
• Tekken 8 - 1.4m+
This may be a shocking concept to some
But believe it or not you can actually be huge fan of Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo games at the same time. Picking "sides" really isn't necessary
Doing my first play through of Cyberpunk 2077 and I've gotta say I'm impressed by Keanu Reeves in this game
He's used extensively through the game, gives a great performance, and is a pivotal character. Doesn't feel like a quick cash in on a celebrity but a real performance
October 2023 really said let's just release all the video games
• Spider-Man 2
• Super Mario Bros Wonder
• Alan Wake 2
• Forza Motorsport
• Assassins Creed Mirage
• Lords of the Fallen
• Cities Skylines 2
• Alone in the Dark
• + More
ALL IN THE SAME MONTH
CD Projekt has announced every day this week Cyberpunk 2077 has had a huge 1+ Million Daily Players
This follows Cyberpunk
• Hitting
#1
Best Selling Game on Steam Last Week
• Reaching highest Peak Concurrent Players since early January 2021
What a rebound congrats to the team
Ah feeling for everyone at Xbox and Bethesda right now
Due to a massive mess up in the ongoing FTC case a ton just leaked. New consoles, controllers, and essentially the entire upcoming Bethesda game lineup. Not going to be a fun thing for them to wake up to
Game Pass stats from Microsoft at GDC
• Subscribers play 40% more Games after joining
• Games on average see 8.3x lift in players
• Day 1 Launches see 3.5x lift in players for large publishers, Indies 15x
• Subscribers spend 50% more
• Indies see Triple Digit Revenue growth
Larian have announced after meeting with Phil Spencer that Baldur's Gate III will ship on Xbox this year
Series X will maintain Split-Screen, Series S will not have it. Glad to see this compromise being made. Too important of a game to let slip
Xbox Live Gold is ending. It will be replaced by Game Pass Core starting September 1st
• Same Price as Gold
• Includes online multiplayer
• Will include 25+ Game Pass games including DOOM Eternal, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, and more
• Monthly free Games with Gold is ending
700,000+ Concurrent Viewers Right now for Elden Ring already on Twitch. This is already by far a new record for From Software
For Comparison, All-Time Twitch Peak
• Elden Ring - 700,000+
• Sekiro - 279,037
• Dark Souls 3 - 275,893
Get ready, there's a MONSTER incoming
Star Wars AAA Games Currently in Development
• Jedi: Fallen Order Sequel - Respawn
• Star Wars FPS - Respawn
• Star Wars Eclipse - Quantic Dream
• Action Adventure Game - Skydance New Media
• Story Driven Open World Game - Ubisoft Massive
• KOTOR Remake - Aspyr Media
Seeing
#InsteadOfGoingToMars
trending is pretty damn heartbreaking
If anything NASA and the sciences need vastly more funding than they currently recieve
1 Week ago I'd have said 800,000+ people playing Baldur's Gate III simultaneously wasn't possible. A hardcore turn based RPG from a great studio but one that never had near this level of success before
Biggest overperformance compared to expectations of a game in 2023 imo
Phil Spencer has announced Starfield has hit more than 1+ Million Concurrent Players today across all platforms
Congrats to everyone at Xbox and Bethesda
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is sitting at an incredible 97% Audience Score with 500+ Reviews and still 100% with Critics
Cyberpunk 2077 has also seen a big uplift in Sales and Players on Steam in September. Currently
#2
Global Best Selling Game and peaking at nearly 50k Players Today
Steam Global Top Sellers Last Week
1. Hogwarts Legacy Digital Deluxe
2. Hogwarts Legacy
3. Hogwarts Legacy
4. Hogwarts Legacy Digital Deluxe
5. Steam Deck
6. Project Zomboid
7. Dead Space
8. Destiny 2 Lightfall + Annual Pass
9. Dying Light 2
10. CS GO Prime Status Upgrade
Spider-Man Miles Morales has already outsold both The Last of Us Part II and Ghost of Tsushima lifetime in the United States despite launching months later
I can't even imagine the sales numbers that Spider-Man 2 is going to put up at launch. Spidey 1 did 3.3 million in 3 days.
Hi-Fi Rush is gorgeous
Brilliant vibrant use of color, character models and animations are absolutely fantastic, and the whole thing oozes soooo much style. Chai is such a cool protagonist. This is one of the best Xbox 1st party games in years
Wild they just shadow dropped this
Starfield is September 6th, 2023
Spider-Man 2 is confirmed for "Fall" and the original Spidey launched in September
There's a chance we have Starfield and Spider-Man 2 go directly head to head in the same month this September
This is not a real picture of a street. It's a screenshot from The Matrix Awakens on Unreal Engine 5 running in real time / gameplay on an Xbox Series X / PS5
What in the world
2023 is already a GREAT year for gaming with much more to come
Metacritic
• Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - 95
• Metroid Prime Remastered - 94
• Resident Evil 4 - 93
• Street Fighter 6 - 92
• Dead Space - 89
• Hi-Fi Rush - 89
• Diablo IV - 88
• Star Wars Jedi Survivor - 85
Games releasing in the first 3 months of 2023
• Fire Emblem Engage
• Forspoken
• Dead Space Remake
• Hogwarts Legacy
• Wild Hearts
• Like a Dragon Ishin
• Octopath Traveler II
• Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
• Resident Evil 4 Remake
• + more
Street Fighter 6 has climbed even higher tonight, becoming the first Paid / Non F2P Fighting game EVER to reach 70,000+ Concurrent Players on Steam
By far the biggest launch ever on PC for a paid Fighting game
Looks like this is performing tremendously well for Capcom
Baldur's Gate III has passed Half a Million Concurrent Players on Steam
It has also passed the All-Time peaks of Fallout 4, Among Us, Call of Duty, and Valheim to become the
#11
Highest Player Count for a game in the History of Steam
With 114 Reviews in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is currently the 2nd Highest Reviewed Final Fantasy Game of All-Time on Metacritic, only behind Final Fantasy 9 back on PlayStation 1
It's now the highest scoring Final Fantasy game of the last 23 years
It keeps climbing
Cyberpunk 2077 hit 85,555 concurrent players on Steam today the highest it's been since early January 2021 near launch
Amazing CD Projekt have been able to capitalize on Netflix Adaptations with increased sales not once but TWICE now with Cyberpunk and Witcher
Gotta say I'm a fan of Microsoft allowing their Xbox Studios to make these more creatively risky smaller titles like Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment
Let's some of these teams try something totally different without having huge expectations on their shoulders. Very cool hope to see more
Capcom now have two 90+ Rated games on Metacritic in 2023
• Resident Evil 4 Remake - 93
• Street Fighter 6 - 92
What an incredible run Capcom are on over recent years. Arguably, the most consistent 3rd party AAA publisher in the industry currently
Cyberpunk 2077 just hit nearly 70k Concurrent Players on Steam, the highest player count it's had since January 2021, 1 month after launch!
This comes alongside the release of the anime Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
CD Projekt has Series / Game Synergy like they did with The Witcher
800,000+ Concurrent Players on Steam for Hogwarts Legacy. Absolutely mind-blowing numbers
And there's a very real chance PlayStation is outperforming PC. The game is also pushing current-gen hardware sales
I'm expecting PR next week from WB with a colossal launch sales number.
Canceled Immortals Fenyx Rising sequel info
• Inspired by Elden Ring and Zelda Wind Waker
• Multiple Island Polynesian archipelago
• More realistic visuals
• No check list open world. Organic discovery like Elden Ring
• "Very different" Ubisoft game
Glowing previews for Alan Wake 2
• Visuals look "Next-Gen"
• True 3rd person survival horror
• Detective work solving cases
• Alan missions are very "dark"
• Influenced by True Detective, Coen Brothers, Fargo, and Se7en
The Biggest PlayStation Studios Launches Ever
1. God of War Ragnarok - 5.1m in 5 Days
2. The Last of Us Part II - 4m in 3 Days
3. Spider-Man - 3.3m in 3 Days
4. God of War (2018) - 3.1m in 3 Days
Ghost of Tsushima has had a phenomenal launch in Japan, outpacing other Western developed PlayStation Studios titles
Ghost of Tsushima - 212,915
The Last of Us PtII - 178,696
Spider-Man - 132,520
Uncharted 4 - 124,028
Days Gone - 114,319
Horizon ZD - 109,739
God of War - 50,257
Hogwarts Legacy focused State of Play this Thursday, on March 17th
• 20 Minutes long
• 14 Minutes of Gameplay captured on PlayStation 5, and interviews with the dev team
• Hogwarts Legacy debut trailer has over 28+ Million Views on PlayStation channel
Simply.....unbelievable
Palworld has now crossed Half a Million Concurrent Players on Steam. It passes the All-Time Peaks of Call of Duty, Valheim, and more to become the
#12
Highest Peak for a Game in Steam History
Stunning and shocking performance
It needs to be said
Sam Lake is one of the most talented and unique creatives we have in the industry, and we're so very lucky to have him making games
Granblue Fantasy: Relink has joined the 1+ Million Selling 2024 JRPG club selling 1 Million Units in 11 Days
Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Persona 3 Reload
Granblue Fantasy: Relink
All have sold 1+ Million Units this year!
Remedy Entertainment currently have in development
• Alan Wake 2
• Control Sequel
• Max Payne 1 and 2 Full Remake
Bro, as a huge Remedy fan I feel like I'm living in a dream come true
The Witcher 3 Free "Next-Gen Update"
• Ray Traced Global Illumination on PC, Xbox Series, and PS5
• Higher Quality Textures, Foliage, etc. Visual Improvements in every area
• Photo Mode
• Performance and Quality Modes on PS5 / Xbox Series
• Gameplay / Combat improvements
Cyberpunk 2077 just hit 1+ million concurrent players launch day on Steam
It has over 1 million viewers live on Twitch
I am speechless. These are unbelievable numbers. CD Projekt Red are about to have one of the biggest launches in the history of the video game industry. Wow
Hogwarts Legacy is the
#1
Most Wishlisted game on Steam, preorders are ranking in the Top 4 Selling games on Steam 5 weeks before launch, and I'm hearing VERY strong things about console preorders
If quality is good gargantuan launch incoming, easily one of the biggest of 2023
Sony has officially announced new PlayStation Productions Series in Development
• Horizon coming to Netflix
• God of War coming to Amazon (previously rumored)
• Gran Turismo (no service announced)
Sony continues to heavily expand their PlayStation IP into Series / Movies
As someone who played Alan Wake at launch in May of 2010 and lived through the following 13 years of it being a cult classic rarely in the spotlight
It's still surreal we not only got a sequel but now seeing Alan in Fortnite, Dead by Daylight, The Game Awards performances, etc
Games confirmed to appear at tomorrow's The Game Awards
• Star Wars Jedi Survivor
• Final Fantasy XVI
• Tekken 8
• Among Us
• Destiny 2: Lightfall
• Wild Hearts
• Larian Studios / Baldurs Gate
Games teased
• Kojimas next title
• Crash Bandicoot
• Something from Capcom
Outstanding showing for Hogwarts Legacy
• Launching Holiday 2022
• WAY more ambitious then I ever expected. The scale of everything is ultra impressive
• Visuals look GREAT
• Basically a dream game for Harry Potter fans
If this is as good as it looks it will be gigantic
Great comparison made by Adrian28x on Reddit showcasing the difference between regular Witcher 3 and and the Next-Gen Version
Huge improvements to lighting, foliage destiny, textures, and draw distance / level of detail at a distance. For free
Massive PC launch for Baldur's Gate III
Currently at an incredible 205,000+ concurrent players on Steam and climbing rapidly. It's one of the biggest PC launches of 2023 and outperforming major releases like RE4 Remake, Jedi Survivor, etc
Also
#1
on Twitch with 450k+ Viewers
In terms of YouTube engagement, Insomniac Games was the biggest winner of the PS5 reveal
The studio accounted for over 10 million views combined in less than 2 days with Spider-Man Miles Morales and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
Insomniac becoming 1st party was huge for Sony
The fact a game as freaking hardcore as Elden Ring became among the fastest selling games ever is mind blowing
Like, 12+ Million Units this fast is absurd. What a moment for FromSoftware and so well deserved for this studio
Cyberpunk 2077 has hit a higher Peak Concurrent Players every day on Steam this week
Monday: 78,478
Tuesday: 83,252
Wednesday: 86,130
Thursday: 89,395
It wasn't just a short surge in Players. Cyberpunk is still increasing players on weekdays. This is absolutely wild to see