This series started really strong but kinda tapered off. Yeah the sequel is much more expensive and was added to PS+ prematurely, hurting sales. But Ragnarok, GT7, and Spider-Man 2 were expensive too, and all 3 sold very well. And Ghost of Yotei is keeping up with Tsushima so far.

Lego Horizon and Call of the Mountain both bombed (Call of the Mountain left PSVR2 charts right after launch and never showed up again, unlike Astro Bot Rescue Mission which charted frequently due to a strong word of mouth). Horizon seems to be the least liked big Playstation IP.

Sony is throwing everything including the kitchen sink to make the series bigger than what it is. Good luck to them, maybe Steel Frontiers will help. I wish they've shown a fraction of this love to many of their dormant IP's but that's just me.

I wouldn't underestimate what adding a premium title like HFW to PlayStation Plus did to its legs. We've seen what adding Call of Duty to GamePass did to the most recent COD release on Xbox.

Based on this updated info, HFW is around the ballpark of 13M - 14M units sold, with its first year sales being around 8.5M before being added to Plus. It should outsell GT7 and GoY when its all said and done. 

Good to see a relatively new IP really take off and become huge.

Bringing the series to a wider audience on PC and to a lesser extent Switch seems to have paid off; I expect the bulk of sales were on PS, but between the two mainline games on PC and the LEGO spinoff on Switch other platforms combined probably add a few million.

I do feel like they have over-milked it a bit though by remastering the first game for PS5 when it was already playable there with better performance than the original. That came across as a bit of a cash grab.

Still, it's an admirable result; hopefully we see PS take on more big ambitious new IPs like this going forwards.

PS+ played a part but it's exaggerated. Can't compare it to CoD which was added to GamePass on day 1. Not to mention GamePass was (and still is) a much bigger service than PS+ Extra/Premium.

As for my Horizon sales guesstimates:

Zero Dawn:  26 million minimum (sold 24.3 million as of April 2023, long before the Remaster came out).

Forbidden West: 12-13 million max.

The rest: 1-2 million max.

I doubt it's going to beat GT7 in the long run, which would crush it if it goes to PC (but it probably doesn't need a PC port to win anyways). Keep in mind that Forbidden West was more frequently bundled with a stock limited PS5 early on. Not saying bundles shouldn't count, but it's an advantage over GT7.

GT7 still often charts in the top 20 (and even in the top 3 PS games on the French charts). Horizon disappeared long ago. GT7 significantly grew over GT Sport whereas Horizon significantly declined in unit sales.

Yeah I feel like Horizon 3 could be a bit of a make or break moment for the series. If that doesn't notably do better than Forbidden West then I can easily see Sony pulling back investment on it. There would still be a Horizon 4 but probably a lot less spin-offs going forward unless either of these multiplayer ones take off in a big way.

I think what's holding Horizon from really popping off is the character of Aloy. She's just not written as well as Nathan Drake or Kratos or what have you. There's nothing really off-putting about her, but she's just kind of generic. Your run-of-the-mill sassy sarcastic girl.

I really dislike this series. Just ultra bland and generic gamelplay and graphics porn for people that love to see as much crap crammed onto screen as possible.

I wasn't aware of HZD selling 24M+ by April 2023. It will probably leg it out to 30M+ at this rate lol. 

With that in mind I do agree that HFW is capped at 13M max ATM. Probably closer to 12M. The bundles they had early in its lifecycle happened during a time where PS5's were scarce. And these bundles also had the cost of the game added to its overall price if I'm remembering right. But I just wouldn't underestimate its legs. It essentially sold 2M+ more units since the last update a few months ago. That's going to be driven mostly by HFW. Nothing from any trackers like Circana, GSD, or the PlayStation Store would've indicated that. 

So I think not having a PC release will work against GT7 in this comparison. 

Thats nice