If you’ve played Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, then you already know how good it is. For those who haven’t, I have only pity for you. This is easily the best game to launch in 2021. It has so much going for it in terms of gameplay, and that all plays into the stunning visuals that are, quite frankly, mind-blowing. Here’s the thing though, I don’t think that the game is necessarily continuing to sell well purely because it’s good. I believe that it’s selling well because of the sheer amount of desire for a PS5, and this is a title that’s bundled with that console.
The PS5 is the best-selling console in the world right now. That’s partially artificial though, because the stock of consoles is so scarce. Each time they’re available in a store, they sell out within 24 hours. Previously, Spider-Man: Miles Morales would always get a sales boost from the console being in stock somewhere. Now though, that’s shifted to Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. Each time a shop gets stock, it’ll probably be the bundle with Sony’s latest exclusive. This allows all parties to keep the price high, something consumers aren’t as happy about.
While Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is brilliant, Sony is artificially inflating sales through this bundle and the current situation with a lack of semiconductors around the world. Sony obviously didn’t plan this, but I think that this is the last game that we can say that of. Sony has seen the pattern now. Its exclusive titles sell incredibly well when bundled with the new console. Therefore, it could bundle any new exclusive with PS5 units and forcibly increase the sales figures.
There’s a big reason for Sony to do this as well. The company will make the money it invested in that game back faster if it pushes more people to buy it. By bundling a third-party game with the console, sony makes way less money on paper. This way though, first-party exclusives make back so much more money than they cost, and that’s all the business people at Sony care about. If we see another exclusive title bundled with the PS5 before a third-party one like FIFA 22, you know what’s happening.