Saros, the PlayStation 5 exclusive from Housemarque, reportedly sold around 300,000 copies during its first two weeks on the market, generating more than $22 million in revenue according to analyst data. Alinea Analytics described the launch as “slow but interesting”, and said the game is selling “a little less well” than the studio’s previous PS5 exclusive, Returnal. The situation is not entirely negative, however: the people who did buy Saros appear to be playing it actively, with daily active user figures holding up well after launch.

According to analyst data, Saros sold around 300,000 copies during its first two weeks of availability, while generating more than $22 million in revenue. Alinea Analytics described the launch as “slow but interesting”, placing the game among the niche titles currently playable only on Sony’s console. The firm added that Saros is selling “a little less well” than Housemarque’s previous game, Returnal, which made a more impressive early impact when it launched.

Analyst Rhys Elliott suggested that Returnal’s stronger 2021 debut may partly be explained by the smaller number of first-party console exclusives available at the time. Returnal could appeal to early PS5 adopters who naturally bought a lot of new games at full price and were eager to play something substantial on the new machine. Saros arrived in a very different environment, closely following Crimson Desert, Pragmata, and Resident Evil Requiem, forcing it to fight for attention in a space where Returnal had far less direct competition.

“It’s a real shame, because Saros is a fantastic game and frankly deserves better numbers than this,” Elliott said. “But 3D bullet hell games, especially those priced above $70, are a tough sell in the current market. Especially without a major franchise behind them, or a studio recognized outside the hardcore PlayStation community.” Housemarque therefore appears to have released a strong game that is difficult to position commercially: it does not have a famous franchise name behind it, and its genre is not the easiest sell to a broad audience.

Not everything is bleak for Housemarque. The data suggests that players who bought Saros like it and are staying with it. Elliott wrote that “things become a bit more encouraging at the DAU data level”: Saros started with around 43,000 daily players on its early access day, April 29, then jumped to 83,000 on its official launch day, April 30, before peaking near 142,000 on May 2. The post-launch curve also held up well, with daily active users stabilizing between 115,000 and 140,000 during the first 10 days, dropping below 100,000 only once, on May 11, when it reached 96,000.

Returnal is known for its difficulty, but Saros includes autosave and multiple save slots, which Returnal did not offer at launch. While Saros presents a similar level of challenge to its predecessor, it also includes improvements that show Housemarque took feedback on Returnal into account. Speaking to IGN before release, Saros creative director Gregory Louden said: “I think the lesson that we learned from Returnal was that people really loved what we created, and that we were on the right path. But I think the feedback we received indicated that more players wanted to love Returnal; they wanted to go further. For us, it was therefore about offering that possibility. That means we are not watering down the challenge; the game remains very difficult, but it also offers the possibility of modifying the difficulty level in some way.”

According to Elliott, Saros may struggle to break even, but as a PS5 exclusive there are other factors to consider. “Exclusives sell consoles, then the inertia of previous generations does the rest, and it is on third-party game launches and inherited third-party online services that PlayStation makes its real profits,” Elliott said. “Many dedicated PlayStation players bought Saros, which is the fundamental role of an exclusive.” In other words, the game’s sales cannot be judged only in isolation. A title like this also helps strengthen the PS5 library, retain committed players, and preserve the premium image of PlayStation exclusives.

One major question around Saros is whether it will eventually come to PC, as Returnal did. Sony is reportedly pulling back from PC to focus again on PS5 exclusives, and there is currently no indication that Saros will leave the console. That may help the PS5, but it also means the game cannot generate revenue through Steam. In late April, former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida suggested that Sony would struggle to recoup the huge budgets spent on its first-party games without bringing them to PC. “Releasing games on PC after a few years certainly helped recoup the investment of those big-budget games and allowed the team and the company to reinvest that money in their new games,” Yoshida said. “So, from a business point of view, I think that made sense to me.”

Yoshida did not, however, support releasing new AAA PlayStation games on other platforms from day one. “If they released new AAA games on other platforms on day one, I don’t think that would be a good strategy for a publisher like PlayStation. I don’t see any sign that they are changing strategy for this generation, but if they do, it will be interesting to see how they manage to maintain investment in big-budget games from their own studios in the future.” IGN France gave Saros a score of 8/10, writing: “A game as fascinating as it is frustrating, carried by exceptional art direction and still-solid gameplay, but held back at first by a lack of difficulty and overly distant storytelling.”

Source: IGN France