Whilst some in the PC community have been anticipating it, initial sales of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s PC port of “Returnal” don’t appear to have gone all that well, with the title quickly becoming one of the worst-performing PlayStation games to make the jump to PC going by Steam usage statistics.
The third-person shooter game hails from developer Housemarque and sports roguelike elements. It was first released exclusively on the PlayStation 5 on April 30th 2021, where it scored rave reviews and sold over half a million copies despite the heavy supply constraints on the PS5 console at the time.
Sony was pleased enough they acquired Housemarque in 2021, shortly after the game’s release. Around that time, Sony began ramping up its push into PC ports of PlayStation exclusives following successes with “Horizon: Zero Dawn” and “Days Gone”, which scored peaks of 56,557 and 27,450 concurrent players on Steam.
That resulted in major launches for the likes of “God of War” in January last year, followed by “Marvel’s Spider-Man” in August. Both titles peaked on Steam with 73,529 and 66,436 concurrent players, respectively, along with drawing gushing reviews.
Then late last year, Sony opted to release several titles all at once and up against the usual November crush – resulting in poor showings for the PC ports of “Spider-Man: Miles Morales” (13,539), “Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection” (10,851) and the disastrous turnout for “Sackboy: A Big Adventure” (610).
Whilst “Returnal” recovered from the lull of “Sackboy” with a peak of 6,691 players, the draw of PC ports for Sony has taken a beating in recent months. “Returnal” also marks the shortest period for a new PS5 exclusive title for jumping to PC with a two-year gap – that seems to be the minimum.
That marker doesn’t include remakes/remasters of older games like “Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection” and the upcoming PC port of “The Last of Us Part I” which both made the jump in the space of 6-10 months.
A handful of major PS4/PS5 exclusives haven’t been announced as making the jump yet and would likely fare better due to being in more in demand, such as “Ghost of Tsushima,” “The Last of Us Part II,” “Bloodborne,” “God of War: Ragnarok,” “Horizon: Forbidden West,” “Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection,” and smaller titles like “Shadow of the Colossus: Remastered,” “Infamous Second Son,” and “Until Dawn”.
Source: VGC
