Shift Up developers expect the PC version to be a huge success amid record sales of Stellar Blade. The studio predicts that the release will exceed at least one million copies on PlayStation 5, which were sold in the first two months after the game’s release.
«In the AAA gaming market, PC devices have a larger market share than consoles, so we expect the performance of the PC version to exceed that of the console version We are particularly looking at trends such as the significant expansion of the single-player market in the Asian gaming industry».
Shift Up shared a record financial year — the studio earned $151.4 million, which is 30.4% more than in 2023. Of this amount, Stellar Blade alone brought in $43 million. The studio predicts future success «especially in the Asian gaming market».
Before the release, the studio promises to optimize the game for the platform Steam Deck. Players can expect additional content and «individualized marketing strategies», but what they contain is unknown. The PC release date remains vague, except that it will definitely happen this year.
Developers drew attention to the increase in Steam’s market share in the AAA games sector. The global success of Black Myth: Wukong made them expect the performance on PC to exceed that on consoles. Stellar Blade is based on Unreal Engine 4, so it may not have the high requirements of UE5. The game may still be suboptimal, as UE4 games, although smaller, sometimes have problems with shader compilation.
The studio is also betting that last year PC gamers brought $30 billion to the industry the total number of PC users is almost twice as high as console users ($18 billion). Analysts emphasize that PCs have greater access to and choice of early access games than consoles combined. The PC games market has been growing steadily since 2011, while consoles have been stagnating since the early 2020s.
For Shift Up, a sci-fi action game, was the first step towards developing AAA games, as the studio had previously worked only on mobile games. The success made developers think about opening an office in Los Angeles. The company held an IPO for $320 million, which does not exclude the possibility of expansion. Also, since November, Sony and Shift Up have been suing the Stellarblade movie company. The latter claimed that the developers had violated trademark rights.
Source: IGN
Spelling error report
The following text will be sent to our editors: