CD Projekt shares The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 sales data (digital/physical split, platform split, regional split)

bender

What time is it?
The right play for Cyberpunk would have been to release it on PC first, allowing a more polished release, and then port it to PS5/SX a few months or a year later.

It would have preserved their reputation, allowed for a smoother, albeit staggered release, and very likely a much better console version.

They should have waited for PS5/XSX. They also should have also delayed the PC version but I digress.
 
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Atrus

Gold Member
I’ll admit I was surprised consoles bear out PC on Witcher 3, which previous to that was highly PC centric.

I guess reviews, marketing and the more Mature nature helped sales akin to GTA.
 
For Witcher, since it’s sorted by revenue, it makes since for PC to not be higher, the game cost less there for a vast majority of its lifetime.

Same logic for the Switch version being so high. It ported much later and was a lot more expensive on Switch. Even now the MSRP is like $60.
 
I played it on PC at launch and it was fine. Console versions stunk on ice.

It was not fine. There were still tons of bugs


Had been delayed several times already. I don’t think they should have ever released a last-gen version. This was a big mistake.

Probably should have released last gen later or killed it entirely, but it still needed to be delayed again

The executives made a dumb decision trying to get it out the door after multiple delays
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
It was not fine. There were still tons of bugs




Probably should have released last gen later or killed it entirely, but it still needed to be delayed again

The executives made a dumb decision trying to get it out the door after multiple delays
Well, CDPR absolutely needed to ship it for the 2020 holidays. Considering this, getting 3 good versions out was impossible. If they had only pushed back the console versions, this would have given them more time to polish up the PC version. In that scenario, they got one good version out and still meet their 2020 deadline.

Delaying the game to 2022 wasn’t an option for them.

The ideal thing would have been to just delay it entirely and get 3 good versions out, but as said above, this wasn’t possible.
 

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69
It was not fine. There were still tons of bugs

I played like 80 hours at launch on PC. You?

IMG-1906.jpg


It wasn’t perfect but no big open world AAA RPGs are at launch.
 

Edder1

Member
I wonder at what point porting to Xbox becomes pointless, especially going forward when Xbox is becoming more and more irrelevant as a console.
 

Kerotan

Member
PS5 was the most important platform for Witcher 3. CD really fucked up Cyberpunk from that POV. Sony destroyed their sales by pulling it from the store.
 

FrankWza

Member
PS5 was the most important platform for Witcher 3. CD really fucked up Cyberpunk from that POV. Sony destroyed their sales by pulling it from the store.
And they're still caught up in their feelings to the point that they aren't doing a Pro patch. They don't need more money apparently
 

bender

What time is it?
one year...lol, anythingn after 2016 is PC...which is what counts really, the legs. which is still selling. nice try though.

Year one really counts as it's worth almost as much as the next four years combined and the only reason the the four year total eclipsed the initial year's revenue is because of the Switch version being added to the mix. The next four years bolstered by next generation versions didn't match the first year revenue.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
Confirms a lot of what I've thought about PC revenue late in a games life with the heavy discounting you get on Steam versus console gamers not being really as interested in aged games even on sale.

Also confirms what a bad state Xbox is in, how badly CDPR botched things with Cyberpunk and despite the recovery and transmedia never fully recovered from it.

It's very surprising to see this and then see CDPR not lean into PS5 Pro at all and try to recovery the branding of Cyberpunk more for PS5 Pro and PS6.
 

JaxarGT

Neo Member
Kind of horrifying that the consoles did almost 30% of cyberpunk 2020 revenue considering how awful the PS4/Xbo versions were and it being pulled from PSN.

Holy shit yeah I forgot how it was pulled from the PSN store for so long. What a saga.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
Kind of horrifying that the consoles did almost 30% of cyberpunk 2020 revenue considering how awful the PS4/Xbo versions were and it being pulled from PSN.

And that 28% might be after taking away the refunds too.

With few exceptions PC gamers don't really buy new AAA games at full price. Given the PC gaming userbase, it should be massively dwarfing PS5 especially on games where there is no PS4 version.

That Cyberpunk did so well on consoles despite being pulled from PSN is more evidence of that.

Towards the end of this generation, once the PS5 has built up a larger userbase, games are going to be selling significantly better there than their PC counterparts.

A proper cross-gen period without broken games would deliver the same. It would have been interesting to see what happened with CP2077 if the base consoles were playable AND if they had PS5 and XBS versions ready at launch.

Given what Naughty Dog and Sucker Punch were able to do with the PS5 in 2020, I'm stunned at how bad CP2077 runs on a base PS4. It should have at least been 720p30. They were probably too ambitious with getting upwards of 920p on the base consoles. 720p on the base and probably would have been somewhat acceptable without the bugs and crashing.
 
Given what Naughty Dog and Sucker Punch were able to do with the PS5 in 2020, I'm stunned at how bad CP2077 runs on a base PS4. It should have at least been 720p30. They were probably too ambitious with getting upwards of 920p on the base consoles. 720p on the base and probably would have been somewhat acceptable without the bugs and crashing.

It's a CPU limitation. The game runs sorta 30 fps on the PS4 Pro, but you have to remember that got a 40% CPU clock speed boost.

That was after gutting a lot of stuff from the game. Like the Wanted system was removed completely, car traffic was removed to zero, no peds basically.
 
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A.Romero

Member
Well, this doesn't paint a pretty picture, as someone who's team physical. We're fucked.
And that's considering it got pulled from PSN due to poor performance:


Being a title with PC as it's most successful platform and PC being 100% digital would explain some of this.

Still, regretfully physical has it's days counted. I prefer buying physical for console but I don't think I'll be able to do it for much longer.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
It's a CPU limitation. The game runs sorta 30 fps on the PS4 Pro, but you have to remember that got a 40% CPU clock speed boost.

That was after gutting a lot of stuff from the game. Like the Wanted system was removed completely, car traffic was removed to zero, no peds basically.

You have to build the game around the platforms you're building them on...

Even the Pro isn't locked to 30.

I think Cyberpunk should have cost CDPR way more prestige in the AAA technical space than it did.

At this point, I'd put them below several Sony studios who are probably only behind Rockstar.
 
You have to build the game around the platforms you're building them on...

Even the Pro isn't locked to 30.

I think after the patches it was close enough. It wouldn't really be a shock that the game wasn't tested much or at all on the Base consoles, esp given the sorry state of the game at launch in general.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
I think after the patches it was close enough. It wouldn't really be a shock that the game wasn't tested much or at all on the Base consoles, esp given the sorry state of the game at launch in general.

They knew what they were doing. They just felt like they had to get the game out to get that revenue.
 
Still, regretfully physical has it's days counted. I prefer buying physical for console but I don't think I'll be able to do it for much longer.

I actually own it physically. Best Buy liquidated it's inventory at the time by selling it for 10 bucks. Since I was playing on PS5, the performance issues weren't a problem.
 

A.Romero

Member
I actually own it physically. Best Buy liquidated it's inventory at the time by selling it for 10 bucks. Since I was playing on PS5, the performance issues weren't a problem.

I got it digital because I played it on PC but in retrospective I wish I had bought a copy, even if it will be useless eventually because of the lack of patching at some point.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
I actually own it physically. Best Buy liquidated it's inventory at the time by selling it for 10 bucks. Since I was playing on PS5, the performance issues weren't a problem.

Same. I also bought it for 10 dollars. The irony is that I bought the PS5 Pro and traded in my PS5 in the process and have no interest in buying a disc drive, so unless the game ends up upgraded for PS6 and the PS6 comes with a disc drive, I'll probably never play it.
 
And that's considering it got pulled from PSN due to poor performance:


Being a title with PC as it's most successful platform and PC being 100% digital would explain some of this.

Still, regretfully physical has it's days counted. I prefer buying physical for console but I don't think I'll be able to do it for much longer.
I completely forgot about that, mate. Aye, I'll enjoy it while it lasts because it really looks like physical media is coming to an end, no other way about it.
 
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These are spits by revenue.... was the PC version of the game cheaper than it was on console? I vaguely remember there being a discount or something.. maybe I'm wrong.
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
huh......cyberpunk sales is higher than i thought on consoles after the messed they made.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
With few exceptions PC gamers don't really buy new AAA games at full price. Given the PC gaming userbase, it should be massively dwarfing PS5 especially on games where there is no PS4 version.
Still pushing that bullshit narrative. BMW, Wilds, Split Fiction, KCD2, Sparking Zero, STALKER 2, just in the past few months. That’s a lot of "exceptions".

And you’re full of shit too. How’s that claim that Monster Hunter Wilds will have half of its sales from Japan coming along? I like how you claim to be impartial and merely interested in the business side of things when your fanboy agenda is so transparent.
 
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Killjoy-NL

Gold Member
Suprised by the performance on PS, given that The Witcher 1 and 2 were exclusive to Xbox.
Even more so compared to PC.

Cyberpunk makes sense. Game seemed like a complete mess on consoles.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
Still pushing that bullshit narrative. BMW, Wilds, Split Fiction, KCD2, Sparking Zero, STALKER 2, just in the past few months. That’s a lot of "exceptions".

And you’re full of shit too. How’s that claim that Monster Hunter Wilds will have half of its sales from Japan coming along? I like how you claim to be impartial and merely interested in the business side of things when your fanboy agenda is so transparent.

Yeah dude, you're coming close to being put on ignore.

You fundamentally don't pay attention to what people say or at least pick and choose what you listen to.

The last figure reported by Sony for the PS5 was around 75 million units. We know there are at least 140 or so million Steam users active on a monthly basis.

What I've said is that given the size of the PC userbase, PC sales should be dwarfing PS5 sales. They aren't.

What do all of the games you mentioned have in common? Not a single one of these games are on PS4. Hell Stalker 2 isn't even on PS5.

PlayStation last reported 134 million MAU to close out the previous quarter. 45% of potential platform sales are zeroed out if a game isn't released on PS4.

As for Monster Hunter Wilds, I was hyperbolic saying "half" would come from Japan. What I should have said was that Japan was the largest region and the split in Japan was going to be most determinate as to global splits, rather than the US. I should be more precise when I'm talking about sales and will venture to be so in the future.

That being said, it's clear as day who the fanboys are here...
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
They released the sale data from 2015 to 2024 per platform. With basic math you can calculate the lifetime sales of each platform...

How are you calculating the per platform totals if you don't know the annual totals?

It looks like you added up the individual percentages and divided by the number of years... let me tell you, if that's what you did, you really don't know how math works...

Doing that assumes that the total sum in each year is the same, when they clearly aren't.

Let me give you an example.

Let's say I release a game for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.

The game sells 10 million units in each of the first 4 years for a total of 40 million. The PS4 represents 100% of the sales. In year 5 I port the game to PS5 and 100% of the sales go to PS5 but only 1 million units sell. The total number of units sold is 41 million units.

But if I take 100% and divide it by 5, that would give me 20%. 20% would be 8.2 million units sold, but we know that the PS5 version only sold 1 million units.
 
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Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Yeah dude, you're coming close to being put on ignore.
I don’t care.
You fundamentally don't pay attention to what people say or at least pick and choose what you listen to.

The last figure reported by Sony for the PS5 was around 75 million units. We know there are at least 140 or so million Steam users active on a monthly basis.

What I've said is that given the size of the PC userbase, PC sales should be dwarfing PS5 sales. They aren't.
That’s not how it works. People buy systems when the games they want are on them, not the other way around. The increase in AAA games sales isn’t anywhere close to linear with the userbase. Take Elden Ring that sold more on PS5 than on PS4 despite the much smaller user base. PS5 games have been consistently outselling the PS4 version for a long time now.

I also find it funny that PC seems to remain static while the PS5 user base grows in your head. Even if the amount of active PC users were to stagnate, the number of people who can run AAA games will increase as those with shitty 1050s replace them with more capable GPUs that can run modern games.
As for Monster Hunter Wilds, I was hyperbolic saying "half" would come from Japan. What I should have said was that Japan was the largest region and the split in Japan was going to be most determinate as to global splits, rather than the US. I should be more precise when I'm talking about sales and will venture to be so in the future.
That’s not what an hyperbole is. Saying "over half" isn’t an hyperbole. That’s far too precise. The bottom line is, you were completely wrong and massively overestimated Japan’s importance to this game and underestimated China and the US. Japan isn’t the big X factor anymore. The game probably sold well over 10M when it was at a modest 740K physical copies sold in Japan. I don’t even think Japan represents 20% of the total.
That being said, it's clear as day who the fanboys are here...
Yeah, the dude coping about how PS5 is gonna outsell PC in the AAA space when the user base grows and who also claims PC gamers don’t buy new games. Not too long ago, you were also going on about piracy on PC.

This isn’t 2005. Time to get with the program. Tons of games have seen huge success on PC and we even saw publishers such as Sega and Capcom specifically mention their commitment to the platform, yet here you are still saying PC gamers don’t buy AAA titles day 1. Ridiculous.
 
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Braag

Member
How are you calculating the per platform totals if you don't know the annual totals?

It looks like you added up the individual percentages and divided by the number of years... let me tell you, if that's what you did, you really don't know how math works...

Doing that assumes that the total sum in each year is the same, when they clearly aren't.

Let me give you an example.

Let's say I release a game for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.

The game sells 10 million units in each of the first 4 years for a total of 40 million. The PS4 represents 100% of the sales. In year 5 I port the game to PS5 and 100% of the sales go to PS5 but only 1 million units sell. The total number of units sold is 41 million units.

But if I take 100% and divide it by 5, that would give me 20%. 20% would be 8.2 million units sold, but we know that the PS5 version only sold 1 million units.
We don't have data on units sold unfortunately so that's the best we get.
Essentially the data released by CDPR is useless.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
I don’t care.

I don't care if you care...

That’s not how it works. People buy games for systems, not the other way around. The increase in AAA games sales isn’t anywhere close to linear with the userbase. Take Elden Ring that sold more on PS5 than on PS4 despite the much smaller user base. PS5 games have been consistently outselling the PS4 version for a long time now.

Once again, you have comprehension issues. Where did I say that a game can't sell more with a smaller userbase? That wasn't my point at all. PS5 games are outselling PS4 games because not all the remaining PS4 gamers are active purchasers of new games. In fact most of them aren't. Most are playing F2P games and some element will buy annual release titles, but as that number grows for PS5, we'll see an inversion compared to PC despite PC's MUCH larger userbase.

That’s not what an hyperbole is. Saying "over half" isn’t an hyperbole. That’s far too precise. The bottom line is, you were completely wrong and massively overestimated Japan’s importance to this game and underestimated China and the US. Japan isn’t the big X factor anymore. The game probably sold well over 10M when it was at a modest 740K physical copies in Japan. I don’t even think Japan represents 20% of the total.

Look up the definition of hyperbole. You have no idea what the physical digital split is for Monster Hunter in Japan, but you'll pretend as if you do. You're also ignoring that Japan isn't just PS5 but PC and PS5. I would not be surprised based on MH World numbers if the PC + PS5 numbers are closer to 30-35%. Still hyperbole and I shouldn't have said what I said, but it wasn't because my point was wrong, but rather I shouldn't have put myself in a position where I let you muddy the waters.

Yeah, the dude coping about how PS5 is gonna outsell PC in the AAA space when the user base grows and who also claims PC gamers don’t buy new games. Not too long ago, you were also going on about piracy on PC.

This isn’t 2005. Time to get with the program. Tons of games have seen huge success on PC and we even saw publishers such as Sega and Capcom specifically mention their commitment to the platform, yet here you are still saying PC gamers don’t buy AAA titles day 1. Ridiculous.

Look at the 2015 numbers for the Witcher as seen in this very thread. PC gamers will buy games but a sizeable percentage are going to wait for sales. That isn't a hot take and it is born out in the very charts in this thread.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
We don't have data on units sold unfortunately so that's the best we get.
Essentially the data released by CDPR is useless.

LOL, bad math isn't "the best we have".

The data isn't useless at all. Combined with public disclosure, we can ascertain generally what sold and where. The way you did it was just devoid of any sense of mathematics.
 

Braag

Member
LOL, bad math isn't "the best we have".

The data isn't useless at all. Combined with public disclosure, we can ascertain generally what sold and where. The way you did it was just devoid of any sense of mathematics.
So what is the average % sold per platform throughout the years based on the data? You are the professor and I'm but a humble student in your presence. Calculate and enlighten us.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
I don't care if you care...
Then don’t say. No one gives a shit.
Once again, you have comprehension issues. Where did I say that a game can't sell more with a smaller userbase? That wasn't my point at all. PS5 games are outselling PS4 games because not all the remaining PS4 gamers are active purchasers of new games. In fact most of them aren't. Most are playing F2P games and some element will buy annual release titles, but as that number grows for PS5, we'll see an inversion compared to PC despite PC's MUCH larger userbase.
And this is completely incorrect because it assumes the entire PC userbase is addressable when it isn’t. You think those people playing on their shitty 1050s will never upgrade to something modern that can play recent AAA games? Or do you honestly believe the addressable market on PC will stagnate or shrink while the one on PS continues growing?
Look up the definition of hyperbole.
I suggest you do because you used it incorrectly.
You have no idea what the physical digital split is for Monster Hunter in Japan, but you'll pretend as if you do. You're also ignoring that Japan isn't just PS5 but PC and PS5. I would not be surprised based on MH World numbers if the PC + PS5 numbers are closer to 30-35%. Still hyperbole and I shouldn't have said what I said, but it wasn't because my point was wrong, but rather I shouldn't have put myself in a position where I let you muddy the waters.
Hence why I said I doubt it did even 20%. This would assume a 63%-37% split in favor of digital assuming it sold 2M out of 10M, which I don’t think it did.

Look at the 2015 numbers for the Witcher as seen in this very thread. PC gamers will buy games but a sizeable percentage are going to wait for sales. That isn't a hot take and it is born out in the very charts in this thread.
"Look at data from 10 years ago." No wonder you still talk about piracy and think PC gamers don’t buy games when you think numbers from a decade ago are still relevant. News for you: PC gaming has grown massively over the past 10 years.
 
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