The pent-up demand for The Last of Us Part II resulted in some massive sales numbers for the sequel. Sony Interactive Entertainment revealed today that it sold 4 million copies of developer Naughty Dog’s grim and grueling PlayStation 4 game in its first three days on the market. That makes it the fastest-selling first-party PlayStation release ever.
This is the latest in a string of record hits for Sony’s PlayStation Studios. In May 2018, God of War became Sony’s fastest-selling PS4 game with 3.1 million copies in three days. In September of that year, Spider-Man then bested it with more than 3.3 million copies in the same amount of time. Now, The Last of Us Part II delivered a significant jump over those blockbusters.
For Sony, this continues to demonstrate the appeal of its first-party productions. The Last of Us Part Part II is a massive, expensive undertaking, but it’s also one of the kinds of games that people purchase a PS4 to play. And it’s hard to argue that the game is anything but a success.
The video game industry doesn’t share details on budget and marketing costs for games. But it makes sense that something like The Last of Us Part II, which took years and hundreds of people to create, comes with a major price tag for Sony as a publisher. But even if the game is so costly that it eats significantly into record sales, that almost isn’t the point.
PlayStation Studios’ hits bring players to the PS4. Fans do not want to risk missing out on these exclusives. And then those players go off and buy other games and play free-to-play hits like Fortnite. That’s what really helps Sony make its money. And it’s working, according to Sony’s financial reports.