Analyst: Lost and Damned earned $18 million online, $3 million at retail

by Alexander Sliwinski 

Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) analyst Jesse Divnich's crystal ball predicts brick-and-mortar retail sales of GTA IV's expansion, The Lost and Damned, to be less than $3 million. He believes current global sales from customers who purchased it across Xbox Live to be around $18 million. This latest bit of analyst prognostication comes following Pachter's missive (translated from an Illuminati memo) that GTA's biker expansion could sell upwards of two million units by year's end.

Although the 6-to-1 online vs. retail ratio seems dramatic, is it really surprising when The Lost and Damned was promoted as a DLC pack anyway? In this case, retail was just a middle man, as those who purchased the "game" at their local bodega received a card with a code to download the expansion. All we really know at this point is that the game is selling very well.

that's pretty good, nice marketing

i would have bought that if it were on the ps3

Compared to other DLC (I'm looking at you, Soul Calibur and Street Fighter 4) Lost & Damned is a hell of a deal. It deserves to do well.

But but but making users pay for alt costumes is an amazing idea!

way to go maybe M$ might possibly be able to recoup that $50M between the two episodes

So already $20 million revenue? I would guess DLC generally have longer legs than retail games, so the first episode alone should hit $40-50 million. Add another $25-30 mill for the second episode and MS mite have got most of their $50 million back.

So thats $3 million at retail as well as $18 online. At $20 a piece thats just over a million copies. Seems about right. I think Rockstar kind of missed the boat by not releasing this during the holiday season. I'm sure it will have long legs.

edit:  Hopefully NPD tracks the retail sales.  On another note I wonder if they will have numbers for Halo Wars since it was delayed a week.

Only 30 million more to break even. The next instalment should do it. Wish there were a way we could actually track sales.

Megadude, you really think the Lost & Damned's development costs were 50 million?