Jim Ryan has expressed his frustration that PlayStation games are “gated” to an audience of 20 to 30 million people, and dreams for “hundreds of millions.”
Speaking at GI Live, the Sony Interactive Entertainment President & CEO explained how a hit PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 5 game can achieve sales of around 10 to 20 million; though later states the games are “kind-of gated” at 20 to 30 million. However, he hopes that gaming will become as widespread as music or film.
“I would also like to see a world where the games that we make at PlayStation can be enjoyed by many tens of millions of people. Perhaps hundreds of millions of people. Right now success with the current console model, a really great PlayStation hit you’re talking ten or 20 million people being able to play that game.
We’re talking about games stacking up against music, we’re talking about games stacking up against movies. Music and movies, they can be enjoyed by almost limitless audiences. And I think some of the art that our studios are making is some of the finest entertainment that has been made anywhere in the world. And to kind-of gate the audience for the wonderful art, wonderful entertainment that our studios are making… to gate the audience for that at 20 or 30 million frustrates me. I would love to see a world where hundreds of millions of people can enjoy those games.”
For comparison, Minecraft has achieved 140 million monthly users across multiple platforms as of May of this year. EA Mobile’s Tetris on mobile sold 100 million, while the top selling video game of all time on a single platform is Wii Sports (notably bundled with the Nintendo Wii itself) at 82.9 million.
After that the highest selling single-platform game would be Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow (as well as Green in Japan); at 46.02 million. Ignoring multiple platforms and multiple versions, the highest selling game would be Mario Kart Wii at 37.38 million.
At this time of writing, the best selling PlayStation 4 game is Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End at 16 million. This means Sony Interactive Entertainment (or a studio working on an exclusive title) would need to produce something just over six magnitudes in popularity to Uncharted 4 to reach 100 million.
“Hundreds of millions” would require a game more popular than Minecraft. But several games have already achieved this. The secret of a game reaching that many people with the numerous different preferences seems to be in free-to-play titles.
Smilegate Entertainment have claimed CrossFire has reached an “are-you-sure-that’s-not-a-misprint” spluttering 1 billion players, and six million concurrent players; as of February last year. Other free-to-play heavyweights include Dungeon Fighter Online (700 million), GKART (700 million), Candy Crush Saga (500 million), and Among Us (500 million).
Even Fortnite has only achieved 350 million players. But once again, all of the above are multiplatform and not exclusive.
So, the honor of the most played single-platform video game including free-to-play is… Microsoft Solitaire. 400 million strong, and bundled with every Microsoft operating system. After that (for games you actually have to willingly acquire) is Crazyracing Kartrider for Windows PC by Nexon at 380 million accounts.
Image: PlayStation, Pixabay
