Analysts: sales of Cyberpunk 2077 in "digit" are falling much faster than other major new products
Cyberpunk 2077 sold well at the start, but now digital sales of the title are falling rapidly. According to analysts of M Science, in the first quarter of this year (will end on March 31) CD Projekt RED will be able to sell only 500 thousand copies of the game in “digital”.
M Science is confident that Cyberpunk 2077’s digital sales are declining much faster than a project of this level should.
Recall that Cyberpunk 2077 was released on December 10, 2020. Its launch was the largest in the history of digital sales, even despite massive returns from users dissatisfied with the quality of the game. According to SuperData, gamers bought 10.2 million digital copies of the title in December.
But already in January, the situation changed dramatically. M Science analysts have estimated that the January sales of Cyberpunk 2077 amounted to only 4% of the starting ones. And in February, they fell to 1% altogether.
For comparison, analysts looked at how Assassin’s Creed Valhalla or Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War were doing at the time. Note that these two games were also released at the end of 2020. Like Cyberpunk 2077, sales of both titles began to decline the following month after release. That’s just not so sharp. The new part of the Assassin’s Creed series had sales of 35% of the starting ones, and the fresh Call of Duty — 50%.
According to M Science, Cyberpunk 2077 will continue to lose popularity further.
We think that in the March quarter CD Projekt RED will be able to sell only 500 thousand digital copies of Cyberpunk 2077. We rely on the rate of decline in sales that we noticed, taking into account also the studio's comments about the initial sales of the game. Of course, the drop is partly due to the removal of the game from the PlayStation Store. But we see a slowdown in sales growth on those platforms where the game is available.
Senior Analyst at M Science
Nevertheless, analysts admit that the situation may change for the better after the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions. Recall that according to the CD Projekt RED plan, the next release should take place no earlier than the second half of 2021.
By the way, earlier some of the analysts predicted that Cyberpunk 2077 sales would become one of the best in the history of the industry. It was assumed that in the premiere year the game would sell about 30 million copies sold. This is despite the fact that only 10 projects managed to achieve such a result.
