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Forums - Gaming Discussion - CDPR reveals Witcher 3 platform split and physical/digital split.

KrspaceT on 25 March 2018
Mystro-Sama said:
More companies need to reveal this info.

Agreed. The only other company that I know of outside of indies that release info like this is Nintendo, and they give actual numbers. Though they are probably easier to map out because you have only one platform. 

Can't exactly break down the console difference in sales of Mario O, now can we?



The Democratic Nintendo fan....is that a paradox? I'm fond of one of the more conservative companies in the industry, but I vote Liberally and view myself that way 90% of the time?

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couchmonkey on 25 March 2018
Ka-pi96 said:
I've long held to the theory that digital sales have much better legs than physical. I've also called people out before for claiming sales of a game to be 30%+ digital first week and the like. Clearly that wasn't the case here (on console at least where physical is actually relevant). The 30%+ digital figures companies give out are for lifetime sales, it makes sense to me that the digital % would start out quite a bit lower than that and build up through a games lifetime and these sales seem to support that theory.

PC having better legs also makes sense to me, although I've always thought that would be more noticeable over the longer term. The majority of yearly sales being on PC within 3 years is a bit of a surprise. My reason for thinking PC would have better legs over the long term has been due to the permanence of the platform other consoles. I wonder if used game sales could potentially explain why PC has taken the yearly sales lead so early?

Used salescould also explain why digital has longer legs.



thismeintiel on 25 March 2018
VAMatt said:
I wonder if the increasing percentage of digital sales has more to do with and overall increase in the percentage of games being purchased digitally, or some other factor.

Something else. It just shows, at least for this game (though I'm sure it's similar for most games), physical sales greatly outnumber digital (which it seems the average for big games is ~28%-30%) in the beginning when there is price parity. However, after a year or two, that's when you start seeing killer deals on Steam and PS4/XBO. It'll be marked down to $5-$10 in a flash sale, while those prices are reserved for BF at retail. 



 

thismeintiel on 25 March 2018
couchmonkey said:
Ka-pi96 said:
I've long held to the theory that digital sales have much better legs than physical. I've also called people out before for claiming sales of a game to be 30%+ digital first week and the like. Clearly that wasn't the case here (on console at least where physical is actually relevant). The 30%+ digital figures companies give out are for lifetime sales, it makes sense to me that the digital % would start out quite a bit lower than that and build up through a games lifetime and these sales seem to support that theory.

PC having better legs also makes sense to me, although I've always thought that would be more noticeable over the longer term. The majority of yearly sales being on PC within 3 years is a bit of a surprise. My reason for thinking PC would have better legs over the long term has been due to the permanence of the platform other consoles. I wonder if used game sales could potentially explain why PC has taken the yearly sales lead so early?

Used salescould also explain why digital has longer legs.

Yea. Good point, as well. 



 

bananaking21 on 25 March 2018
KrspaceT said:
Mystro-Sama said:
More companies need to reveal this info.

Agreed. The only other company that I know of outside of indies that release info like this is Nintendo, and they give actual numbers. Though they are probably easier to map out because you have only one platform. 

Can't exactly break down the console difference in sales of Mario O, now can we?

Ubisoft give software split per platform every quarter



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Lafiel on 25 March 2018
couchmonkey said:
Ka-pi96 said:
I've long held to the theory that digital sales have much better legs than physical. I've also called people out before for claiming sales of a game to be 30%+ digital first week and the like. Clearly that wasn't the case here (on console at least where physical is actually relevant). The 30%+ digital figures companies give out are for lifetime sales, it makes sense to me that the digital % would start out quite a bit lower than that and build up through a games lifetime and these sales seem to support that theory.

PC having better legs also makes sense to me, although I've always thought that would be more noticeable over the longer term. The majority of yearly sales being on PC within 3 years is a bit of a surprise. My reason for thinking PC would have better legs over the long term has been due to the permanence of the platform other consoles. I wonder if used game sales could potentially explain why PC has taken the yearly sales lead so early?

Used salescould also explain why digital has longer legs.

That and shelve space. Brick & mortar retailers will always prioritize new releases which leads to a downward spiral for older games as they get less space which makes them less visible to customers resulting in less sales and hence less shelve space. Only a few evergreen titles manage to escape this downward spiral for several years.



SvennoJ on 25 March 2018
Lafiel said:
couchmonkey said:

Used salescould also explain why digital has longer legs.

That and shelve space. Brick & mortar retailers will always prioritize new releases which leads to a downward spiral for older games as they get less space which makes them less visible to customers resulting in less sales and hence less shelve space. Only a few evergreen titles manage to escape this downward spiral for several years.

At first physical and digital are about the same price. Yet retail hangs on to full price much longer and doesn't discount as much as digital when prices get lowered. So you have the second hand sales taking new sales away, while digital is doing the same and is competing with the second hand sales, both under pricing the new physical copies.

Assuming the height of the bars represent sales numbers, some crude photoshopping makes it look like this combined
As they said before the game came out, the budget wouldn't be possible without launching it on consoles as well. It also holds onto a higher price much longer on consoles so I guess the revenue from consoles is even bigger than the sales split. PC sales and digital pick up with big discounts while physical and consoles bring in the big money early on.

Last edited by SvennoJ - on 25 March 2018

Chazore on 25 March 2018
JRPGfan said:

Hard to say in the long run... but 2015 to end of 2017... so far its PS4 > PC > XB1.
That could well change over time (in the future), because it does look like its now selling more on PC than PS4 (going by 2017 numbers).

2017 started shifting and we're currently in 2018, so long tail wise, it's definitely changing.



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JRPGfan on 25 March 2018
Chazore said:
JRPGfan said:

Hard to say in the long run... but 2015 to end of 2017... so far its PS4 > PC > XB1.
That could well change over time (in the future), because it does look like its now selling more on PC than PS4 (going by 2017 numbers).

2017 started shifting and we're currently in 2018, so long tail wise, it's definitely changing.

Yeah by 2019 PC will probably be the platform its sold most on.



Cerebralbore101 on 25 March 2018

Is digital really outdoing physical though? What about all the used copies that get sold twice? If we were able to count all physical purchases, including secondhand sales, I'm pretty sure we'd wind up with physical being on top. Then we have to remember that a lot of the digital sales are years later at a massive discount. The chart shows that those that wanted the game on release day overwhelmingly chose to get the physical version, and not digital. This also means that those most willing to pay full price went for physical.