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Elden Rings UK Sales Were 70~85% Digital. PS5 ~50% Digital - Xbox ~85% Digital - Breakdown By Platform Inside

Rockman33

Member
I love game pass but digital was normalised long before game pass was a thing. Even Sony have like 80%+ of their games sold digitally.
That’s not really true at all. Not until 2020 did it cross the 50% mark.

Gamepass came out in 2016 I believe. I’d guess digital was barley above 20% at that time. Just a guess.
 

kittoo

Cretinously credulous
Ur assuming H2 did 3 million week 1. Everything is indicating it fell short of H1 launch numbers. Despite 130 million consoles out. It def has to do with releasing around a saturated ass market.

Destiny
Sifu
Elden ring
GT
Cyberpunk
Horizon 2

Stupid to release 5+ AAA games at once not expecting sales to be taken away from the other. It’s like Nintendo releasing Mario odyssey and then Zelda a week after? That’s stupid.

Dying light 2 too.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
When you consider how big the PS4/5 fan base is compared to Xbox One/Series consoles, I expected much more than a 12% gap in sales.
That gap isn't as big in the UK as it is in many regions.

But it's actually a 40% difference in sales, you need to remove PC to really do the calculation.
 

kingfey

Banned
Well 3rd party games don't have digital codes on Playstation, so you can't get the discount from 3rd party digital retailers, which is partly why you are seeing more traction there for physical.

This is made worse in Europe because their physical discounts are actually fairly good compared to digital. Games are just more expensive there in general as well compared to the US.

I dont think the difference is as stark in the US, where games are just cheaper in general, and people have less of a reason to go physical even if they desire digital. I don't think the difference between physical/digital between PS/Xbox is anywhere close to this ER number we are seeing.
Digital doesnt have the same copies as physical copies. Physical copies is limited to how much they produce, while digital is just a key.
As for sales, digital sales tend to get cheaper after 4-6 month of the release windows. Especially during winter, holiday, spring, and summer sales. Only used copies are cheaper, which goes toward resellers, and not devs.

Sony WW continues to say that it's more like a 60/40 split don't they with digital the one winning? So UK being so high physical is not indicative of the world trend.
It was 60% digital and 40% physical. The lockdown increased the digital purchases. Which brings another key point.
Current situation affects physical copy sales alot. While digital doesnt suffer from this issue, which explains why digital is gaining momentum right now. Then add the game store closure all around the world, which makes physical sales even harder.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Digital doesnt have the same copies as physical copies. Physical copies is limited to how much they produce, while digital is just a key.
As for sales, digital sales tend to get cheaper after 4-6 month of the release windows. Especially during winter, holiday, spring, and summer sales. Only used copies are cheaper, which goes toward resellers, and not devs.


It was 60% digital and 40% physical. The lockdown increased the digital purchases. Which brings another key point.
Current situation affects physical copy sales alot. While digital doesnt suffer from this issue, which explains why digital is gaining momentum right now. Then add the game store closure all around the world, which makes physical sales even harder.
I'm only really addressing why the gap is so much wider on XBox, and in particular in Europe, for digital vs. physical.

Some of your points like "digital being cheaper" don't actually apply in Europe, and in particular, on Playstation. The digital pricing is terrible, there are no "rewards points" and no 3rd party key sellers. Meanwhile there actually are discounts at retailers now, because of competition from online stores and big box retailers undercutting the old "always full price at launch" Gamestop lead pricing.
 
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Hezekiah

Banned
This is in the UK where its Xbox second strongest market. If you take into account the overall sales of the game worldwide, I guess its around 80% PS , Xbox 20%. Japan sales of Elden Rings alone would skew the ratio vastly in favour of PS.

Oh and the userbase argument doesnt work in most cases as you can see or else PC would have the most sales given its user base.
Yeah plus Elden Ring is sandwiched between Horizon and GT7.

I won't pick it up until the end of the year, just have such a large backlog right now.
 

Castef

Banned
The only reason it is interesting is this hypothesis that GP is conditioning users not to buy games. This looks like evidence against it.
Not a single Souls Game is on Game Pass. Why would people wait for an important game such a Elden Ring to get in it?
 

BeardGawd

Banned
You guys really scrap for wins lol
Not at all. I just find it interesting. One sold more total units while the other sold more higher revenue units.
Well they take the 30% cut for digital.

For physical the retailer takes roughly the same cut, + there is a ~$7 or so license fee paid to your Sony/MS/Nintendo, plus of course all the distro costs.

It's a fairly dramatic difference, like the difference between maybe $25 and the outright $42 you get from a $60 digital sale. It's all just estimates out there though and I'd guess it's not exactly the same for every pub either as they may have better/worse distro pipelines/costs.

But you also get paid for every copy shipped not just sold to end users. However you can incurr costs or at least create bad relationships if you way overship your physical copies, and with pre-ordering becoming so prevelant your shipped to sold ration is pretty high.

But both sides.. the console manufacturer, and the publisher, have every reason to have people go digital.. this is even not accounting for the used market on physical effecting them.
Yep. I'm sure they wish it was all digital. Although this does give incentive for retailers to push Playstation more if these ratios keep up.
 

On Demand

Banned
Xbox is basically a digital console at this point. MS doesn’t care about physical media and they let their customers know too with the way physical disc works on Xbox.

I don’t know how people do it. I could never make my entire library digital. Both game and movies.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
The people trying to use this to discredit the UK threads do realize that the game still sold 40% more on PlayStation right?

You realize the retail splits in the UK thread have a split way higher than 40%?

What sane folks are saying is that using the UK retail splits to infer anything makes no sense. Not sure why that’s controversial for you
 

kingfey

Banned
I'm only really addressing why the gap is so much wider on XBox, and in particular in Europe, for digital vs. physical.

Some of your points like "digital being cheaper" don't actually apply in Europe, and in particular, on Playstation. The digital pricing is terrible, there are no "rewards points" and no 3rd party key sellers. Meanwhile there actually are discounts at retailers now, because of competition from online stores and big box retailers undercutting the old "always full price at launch" Gamestop lead pricing.
Is it really bad down there? I guess we the US are lucky to have cheap digital sales because we have too much holidays here.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Xbox is basically a digital console at this point. MS doesn’t care about physical media and they let their customers know too with the way physical disc works on Xbox.

I don’t know how people do it. I could never make my entire library digital. Both game and movies.

The xbox series consoles have Quick Resume, and that’s a solid next gen feature that works best with digital games.

Going with disc means you miss out on some of that seamless experience.
 

On Demand

Banned
When you consider how big the PS4/5 fan base is compared to Xbox One/Series consoles, I expected much more than a 12% gap in sales.

Well this is only U.K. data and we don’t know the either consoles hardware sales.

I think the sales difference from this single region is significant seeing how this is Xbox second biggest market.

World wide sales the sales difference will obviously be much more than just 12%.
 

Hezekiah

Banned
Lets make it clear here to everybody that are using the % with absolute number the wrong way.

If we assume PS and Xbox sales userbase to be around 8.5m and 6m.

Difference in user base: +41.6% in PS favor (6 to 8.5m).
Difference in ER sales: +41.3% in PS favor (41 to 29%).

The ratio in ER sales very close to the ratio in userbases.
A lot of people don't understand percentages. They get misinterpreted all the time on here.

41 - 29 = 12. 12/29 = 41.3 percentage increase between 29% to 41%.
 

On Demand

Banned
The xbox series consoles have Quick Resume, and that’s a solid next gen feature that works best with digital games.

Going with disc means you miss out on some of that seamless experience.

None of that is worth it to me over the ownership of something physical.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Then they should just say that rather than the deceitful way they spun it.

I don't think there's any agenda or intention lol, they're just comparing it with the other really big game that came out last year.
 

Calverz

Member
I got Elden ring digitally on Xbox for £8.


PS5 is struggling for digital copies because of Sonys monopoly on digital sales through their own store. They won’t give out licence keys to other vendors.
This is currently being investigated and until it’s a level playing field, people will be forced to continue to buy physical to get “good deals” even though they are still spending over £50
 
The only reason it is interesting is this hypothesis that GP is conditioning users not to buy games. This looks like evidence against it.
Maybe, but we have no idea at all what percentage of UK XB users have Gamepass + on PlayStation the game is sandwiched between the releases of HFW and GT7, while XB is much more free
 

SLB1904

Banned
Personally, I think both the sales of Elden Ring and HFW would have been even higher if they weren’t released a week apart.
i know right. £130 for 2 games isn't cheap.

The only reason it is interesting is this hypothesis that GP is conditioning users not to buy games. This looks like evidence against it.

is not evidence of anything. this game is probably the most hype a game had in years. ain't nobody waiting for gamepass to play it lol
 
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NickFire

Member
Maybe a large portion of them had just purchased HFW, or saving for GT7 perhaps?
Cyberpunk and Uncharted probably cut into a lot of people's disposable income / playing time too. The market has been so saturated with high quality the last 2 months. ER success is remarkable in this context, but extremely well deserved.
 

lefty1117

Gold Member
nD1P0RQ.jpg
 

Markio128

Member
Cyberpunk and Uncharted probably cut into a lot of people's disposable income / playing time too. The market has been so saturated with high quality the last 2 months. ER success is remarkable in this context, but extremely well deserved.
You’re absolutely right. It’s almost £200 worth of top quality games released in the space of 2 weeks, considering only HFW, Elden Ring and GT7. I sometimes think that common sense went out of fashion.
 

SLB1904

Banned
You’re absolutely right. It’s almost £200 worth of top quality games released in the space of 2 weeks, considering only HFW, Elden Ring and GT7. I sometimes think that common sense went out of fashion.
i paid for sifu, er, hfw and now gt7.
thats fucking crazy, never done anything like that in any of my gaming years.
2022 is the goat already and you still have gow 2 as well. and little devil inside and ... yeah you get. what a year
 

Three

Member
The argument that the much lesser install base on the Xbox accounted for only 10% less sales is pleasantly surprising. The game seems to have similar demand on both eco systems, and doesn't seem to have been a game heavily associated with PS.
No it's not because you're looking at the wrong percentage figure.
You need to do 29%/(29%+41%)*100 sales percentage on xbox. Now for consoles in the UK
5.6M/(5.6M+7.5M)*100 xbox console percentage in UK.

This gives you:

Sales of elden ring:
PS: 59%
Xbox: 41%

Consoles in Uk
PS: 57%
Xbox: 43%

So if anything it sold slightly less than the expected install base on xbox.
 
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TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
I like Souls games but honestly..
giphy.webp

I mean I got it and I've played a fair bit and I'm sure it a another great Souls game, but I'm not seeing anything amazing about it, it's just another Souls game and that's it.
Which isn't a bad thing.
I think the game does deserve good sales but I think this one has been a little overhyped.
 
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NickFire

Member
You’re absolutely right. It’s almost £200 worth of top quality games released in the space of 2 weeks, considering only HFW, Elden Ring and GT7. I sometimes think that common sense went out of fashion.
Not for nothing, but Cyberpunk next gen was only 3 days before HFW. I know it gets a lot of well deserved hate after the disaster of last gen's launch, but it is another banger on next gen IMO. I can easily misplace a few hours at a time when I boot it up.
 

elliot5

Member
No it's not because you're looking at the wrong percentage figure.
You need to do 29%/(29%+41%)*100 sales percentage on xbox. Now for consoles in the UK
5.6M/(5.6M+7.5M)*100 xbox console percentage in UK.

This gives you:

Sales of elden ring:
PS: 59%
Xbox: 41%

Consoles in Uk
PS: 57%
Xbox: 43%

So if anything it sold slightly less than the expected install base on xbox.
Correct calculation for the sales but where are the console numbers coming from? Theyre effectively the same split wise its kind of futile with +-2%
 
i paid for sifu, er, hfw and now gt7.
thats fucking crazy, never done anything like that in any of my gaming years.
2022 is the goat already and you still have gow 2 as well. and little devil inside and ... yeah you get. what a year
HFW ER and GT7 for me... My wallet hates me
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
No it's not because you're looking at the wrong percentage figure.
You need to do 29%/(29%+41%)*100 sales percentage on xbox. Now for consoles in the UK
5.6M/(5.6M+7.5M)*100 xbox console percentage in UK.

This gives you:

Sales of elden ring:
PS: 59%
Xbox: 41%

Consoles in Uk
PS: 57%
Xbox: 43%

So if anything it sold slightly less than the expected install base on xbox.

This is such a weird correlation to make lol, first it's using assumed console sales number, second we're still for some reason ignoring the established 100m vs 50m PS4 and XBO install base, which would account for a decent chunk of the total sales.

And finally, is the assumption that the proportionality has to be 1 : 1, which is a faulty argument when you consider how heavily the Souls game are associated with the PS platforms. Keeping that in mind, the XB (and PC to some extent, but lesser so cause it's usually available cheaper at launch) selling as close to the PS sales as they did.

Poor Xbox can't even sell a decent amount of a game without needing to justify mathematical percentages first lol.
 

Stuart360

Member
No it's not because you're looking at the wrong percentage figure.
You need to do 29%/(29%+41%)*100 sales percentage on xbox. Now for consoles in the UK
5.6M/(5.6M+7.5M)*100 xbox console percentage in UK.

This gives you:

Sales of elden ring:
PS: 59%
Xbox: 41%

Consoles in Uk
PS: 57%
Xbox: 43%

So if anything it sold slightly less than the expected install base on xbox.
So no one bought the game on XB1 and PS4?.
 

NickFire

Member
This is such a weird correlation to make lol, first it's using assumed console sales number, second we're still for some reason ignoring the established 100m vs 50m PS4 and XBO install base, which would account for a decent chunk of the total sales.
The 100+ million PS4's will lead to lots of sales for sure. But how much can you extrapolate from that anymore is a great question. PS5 sales accounted for 32% compared to 9% for PS4 sales. There are close to 100 million more PS4's sold than PS5's. If the PS4 base was highly relevant, wouldn't the sales have been 32% PS4 compared to 9% PS5?
 
I like Souls games but honestly..
giphy.webp

I mean I got it and I've played a fair bit and I'm sure it a another great Souls game, but I'm not seeing anything amazing about it, it's just another Souls game and that's it.
Which isn't a bad thing.
I think the game does deserve good sales but I think this one has been a little overhyped.
How far are you into it? I've played every souls game minus Sekiro and i put it up there iwth BloodBourn as the best.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
The 100+ million PS4's will lead to lots of sales for sure. But how much can you extrapolate from that anymore is a great question. PS5 sales accounted for 32% compared to 9% for PS4 sales. There are close to 100 million more PS4's sold than PS5's. If the PS4 base was highly relevant, wouldn't the sales have been 32% PS4 compared to 9% PS5?

Yeah but taking that 9% away in this case makes the PS5 and Xbox sales neck and neck at 32% and 29% respectively.

It obviously varies case by case, but my original point still stands that everyone jumped the gun way early based on that physical retail only sales topic.

The game's selling pretty competitively on the Xbox. That's the key takeaway.
 

Three

Member
This is such a weird correlation to make lol, first it's using assumed console sales number, second we're still for some reason ignoring the established 100m vs 50m PS4 and XBO install base, which would account for a decent chunk of the total sales.

And finally, is the assumption that the proportionality has to be 1 : 1, which is a faulty argument when you consider how heavily the Souls game are associated with the PS platforms. Keeping that in mind, the XB (and PC to some extent, but lesser so cause it's usually available cheaper at launch) selling as close to the PS sales as they did.

Poor Xbox can't even sell a decent amount of a game without needing to justify mathematical percentages first lol.
Why would we use estimated global install base instead of estimated UK install base to discuss UK sales relative to install base?

What's this got to do with justifying anything or things having to be 1:1?

You said it's suprising with such a huge PS install base it was only 10% off. I said it's actually not that suprising if you use the relevant correct percentage and that it matches up with the install base quite well, it's even slightly higher than the install base.
 
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