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The story
The concurrent player count for MARVEL Tōkon, the new fighting game from Sony and Arc System Works, has plummeted to just 1,300 less than a month after launch. On 5ch, users are voicing concern over whether matches can even be found, with many pointing to the mandatory PSN account requirement and the royalty fees owed to Marvel as culprits. Some posts even invoked Concord, the poster child for gaming flops, as a comparison.
What people said
There's no way matchmaking works with numbers like this
I mean, that one's a solo game, so in the extreme case even single-digit concurrent players wouldn't hurt it
This is a PvP game though 😭
That 4,000 was the weekend bump, so this week it'll probably be 3,000 to 2,000
So I guess it's such a lousy game that tens of thousands of people quit just from the negative buzz
My timeline gets a decent flow of fighting game tweets, including from overseas, but I'm not even seeing people talking about how bad Tōkon is
Ah, so licensing rights and stuff mean they can't pull the plug even with low concurrent numbers?
Wait, this is a one-time purchase — what do you mean by 'service shutdown'?
Saw this in another thread — apparently they have to pay Marvel a royalty per character, so it costs a lot
Babylon's Fall was also a one-time purchase and it still got shut down
Probably because it's run as a live service — fighting games don't put that much load on servers anyway, even Arika manages it
Just like Marathon, this is straight-up garbage
It's a one-time purchase, but you have to stay connected to the server at all times
and on top of that, even on Steam you need a PSN account, so…
The game itself is rough, but the mandatory PSN requirement also played a part in killing it
Yeah, probably about 50/50
Wait, was there ever a physical Steam release…?
If they gave it away for free, maybe…!
Oh wait, I forgot the beta didn't pull in a crowd either lol
Wait, did it actually grow from 2,814?
And Sony's doing its part too, with the 'you can't play without a PSN account!' setup helping drive players away ♥
PS players like, 'I'll just play Street Fighter 6 instead'
Background and Key Points
MARVEL Tōkon is a 3D fighting game built by Arc System Works, the studio behind Guilty Gear and Dragon Ball FighterZ, published by Sony. Since 2024’s Helldivers 2 backlash, Sony has pushed a blanket policy requiring a linked PSN account for PS5 titles, including Steam versions — a friction point that has repeatedly hurt PC sales for Sony-published games. Fighting games are also uniquely dependent on population health: unlike single-player titles, matchmaking quality collapses fast once concurrent numbers drop below a few thousand, because you need enough players online simultaneously at your skill tier and region. A month-old release falling to 1,300 concurrent players is a red flag by that standard.
The thread’s actual disagreement is about where to place blame: some posters split it roughly 50/50 between Arc System Works (citing rough game balance, like an overtuned projectile speed carried over from the pre-release build) and Sony (the mandatory PSN login as a needless barrier to entry). Nobody in the thread settles this — it’s an open argument, not a consensus.
What’s likely to confuse outside readers is the Marvel-royalty point posters raise almost in passing: because Sony reportedly pays Marvel a per-character licensing fee, some assume this locks Sony into keeping servers running regardless of player count, unlike Concord, which Sony could shut down and refund within weeks since it owned that IP outright. That’s speculation in the thread, not a confirmed contract term, and readers shouldn’t take it as established fact.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “Sony’s MARVEL Tōkon Currently at 1,300 Concurrent Players lol.”
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