Steam also had its best-ever Q3, generating $5.5B (up 12% on last year). That brings the 2026 total to $16.5B so far, a 13% increase from the $14.5B Steam made in the first nine months of 2025. Given the insane release slate for the rest of the year, it’s safe to say Steam’s yearly revenue will blow past $20B for the first time.

Of the top 500 top-grossing games on Steam last month – accounting for about three-quarters of September’s revenue – our estimates show that:

• New 2026 IP accounted for 20.5% of the revenue

• About 79.5% of the revenue came from established IP, including 3.8% from remakes and remasters

• Games released in 2026 drove 33.6% of the revenue, with 2025 releases adding 8.7% and 2024 releases 9.3%

• Free-to-play games accounted for 25.6% of revenue generated by the top 500 (despite making up 16% of the titles), with premium making up the rest.

On the free-to-play side, Counter-Strike 2, Apex Legends, PUBG, and Dota 2 generated almost $168M on Steam combined, nearly 10% of Steam’s entire revenue for the month.

However, a new premium game beat all those (and also makes up a decent chunk of the new-2026-IP revenue). Let’s take a gander at the premium games that made the most on Steam last month, in what was a very busy one.

Three new September releases, and two new IP, take the top three

Looking at September’s top three premium games by revenue on Steam:

• Wardogs, which we covered a couple of weeks ago, generated $86.9M last month after releasing in early access on September 10. The hit PvP shooter has now generated over $100M on Steam via 3.2M copies sold, thanks to its impressive pre-launch, pre-September revenues. While Wardogs was initially outpacing Arc Raiders‘ and Helldivers 2’s Steam revenue, those games’ hype cycles and virality lasted longer. By this point, Helldivers 2 had made $130M (26.5% more than Wardogs) on Steam, while Arc Raiders had made about $125M (21.2% more). But Wardogs is in early access and already has a solid foundation to build on. It’s still bringing in about 250K players a day. Wardogs alone is about a third of September’s new-2026-IP revenue on Steam.

• Onimusha: Way of the Sword made $30.4M on Steam in September (and $33.7M on Steam overall) since its September 4 launch. The Steam version has now sold almost 576K copies, continuing Capcom’s incredible 2026 run on Valve’s platform (and generational run overall). On PlayStation, where the franchise has its roots, Onimusha has sold through (so no unsold retail copies) about 835K, and under 50K on Xbox. However, Onimusha‘s #1 country by Steam players is China, accounting for over a third. So Steam offers Capcom a means to reach a lucrative audience that console can’t. The demo did the trick too, as 30% of players who played it went on to buy the full game.

• The Blood of Dawnwalker, which launched a day before Onimusha, made $26.9M last month on Steam. Thanks to pre-launch sales, Dawnwalker has now generated $30.6M on Steam. While Steam is Dawnwalker‘s top platform by copies sold (over 535K), it’s actually #2 by revenue, as the PS5 version has generated over $40M now. This is down to regional pricing and there being more console players in higher-priced markets. There’s a lot of Polish pride here, too (Poland is Dawnwalker‘s #2 market on Steam and #3 on PlayStation). This is a banging performance for a new single-player IP, and it makes sense given the game’s quality (and the calibre of its ex-CDPR team).

Speaking of which: quick interlude!

A TONNE of people returned to The Witcher 3 yesterday

Before continuing, we just wanted to highlight that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered, a free upgrade that adds an impressive amount of technical, gameplay, and quality-of-life improvements to the 11-year-old banger, has seen some impressive early numbers.

Our platform DAU data shows that the remaster, which launched yesterday and is free for any current Witcher 3 owners, spiked to about 2.4M DAUs across Steam (48.6%), PlayStation (40.4%), and Xbox (11.0%) yesterday. That’s over 10X its average DAU number for this year (which is already impressive to be fair, and a testament to the game’s evergreen legacy).

Perhaps even more impressively, The Witcher 3 sold another 130K copies across those three platforms yesterday, the most it’s sold in a day since The Witcher 3‘s first $3.99 Steam discount price back in summer 2024. It’s currently on sale for $24.99 across all three platforms covered.

The Witcher 3 has sold over 66M copies so far. What a run. Roll on, Songs of the Past DLC.

Anyway, back to the ranking!

A mixed bag rounds out the ranking

As for the rest of September’s ranking for premium games on Steam (by revenue), we’ve got a nice varied list:

• Bodycam, a realistic PvP shooter that simulates footage from body-worn police and military cameras, managed an extra $24.2M last month. The title launched in early access in 2024, but just had a huge “Locked & Loaded” 0.8 update, which added a bunch of depth, progression, and polish, bringing Bodycam more in line with the developers’ original vision. This was obviously the update plenty of folks were waiting for, as September 2026 was Bodycam‘s best month yet, beating even the $16M it generated in its early-access launch month. Bodycam has now passed $77M in revenue via 3.2M copies sold.

• FC 27 generated $20.7M via copies sold on Steam last month. That’s actually a little lower than FC 26 was at the same point (launch-aligned), which makes sense given the intense competition on Steam right now. And FC 27, as always, finds most of its players in the more casual console ecosystem. In fact, it’s already generated over $500M via console copies alone, with $410M on PlayStation and $85M via Xbox. It’s sold 6.5M copies in under two weeks since its early access launch. On console, FC 27 is trending above FC 26, likely a result of the summer’s World Cup fever and growing football (sigh... soccer) fandom in the US. Despite having only just released, FC 27 has sold more than this year’s NBA and Madden games combined. The world’s game, indeed.

• How to Fish continues to reel in friendslop success, with $19.3M generated last month. In total, the $7.99 viral game has now generated over $50M via its now 10.1M copies sold overall. How to Fish launched in late August, but it’s still wading in about 40K-50K copies a day. We’ll no doubt see another friendslop hit or two before the end of the year. There’s also a cohort of players who play multiple friendslop games in a given month: of September’s How to Fish players, about 9% also played Peak in September, while 8% played Gamble with Your Friends.

• Control Resonant, which launched on September 24, generated $12.7M in under a week on Steam. In total, it’s made nearly $15M on Steam via almost 300K copies sold on Valve’s platform. Around 41% of Control Resonant‘s Steam players have played the original Control. While that’s lower than you might expect, Control‘s one-year Epic Games Store exclusivity is contributing. Steam players are absolutely loving this one, as Control Resonant currently has a 90% positive user review score, and over half of players have played for over 10 hours (and 25% over 20 hours!).

Also, you should play Control Resonant. It’s rad. Alright, time to wrap up and join that 20h+ club myself.

So there you have it: a mixed bag of games absolutely smashing it in September. But we’ve got another quarter to go this year, and it’s a big one.

It’s going to be another busy few months, so hit subscribe below to get the Alinea estimates and insights in your inbox when they’re ready!

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Cool links and other stuff

• We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply right here on Substack/email, and we’ll set you up.

• It’s been another busy press week, with IGN covering our Resident Evil data, GameSpot and Push Square covering our Gears insights, and GamesIndustry.biz referencing our indie data.

• We were also featured in this week’s New York Times article on Xbox CEO Asha Sharma.

The last word

Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.

[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

We’ve also been talking a lot about well-known games and franchises, so let’s start with a lesser-known pick that’s tracking well.

Guildrun is on track to be a modest hit among a dedicated, niche community

Guildrun, made by Munich-based indie studio Leyline, is an upcoming PvE autobattler roguelike. As someone obsessed with both of those genres, I loved the demo’s satisfying mix of strategy, synergy, and rolling with whatever build the RNG chucks at you.

It’s very replayable, there’s no queue and timer, and bloody brilliant. I’m not the only one who thinks so. About 548K folks have played Guildrun‘s demo since it launched on July 16, and the main game’s sitting on 437K Steam wishlists.

Obviously, it’s hard to tell a hit from wishlist numbers and demo CCUs, but it’s the Guildrun demo engagement and conversion that’s really putting this one on our radar. Our Steam demo data (the most robust in the industry) shows that:

• Of Guildrun‘s 437K wishlisters, 55% have also played the demo, and 54% played it this month. So the wishlist is as much of a passive bookmark as usual. There’s an actively engaged audience here.

• Almost 50% of Guildrun demo players put in over 5 hours, 30% played for over 10, 14% cleared 20 hours, and 4% went past 50, on a bloody demo. Average playtime is 14.9 hours, median is 6.7, and a little over 20% of the demo players bounced after an hour.

• The demo pulled under 70K new players this month but over 150K players overall, meaning people are returning to a free demo weeks later. That ‘s telling, I reckon.

• Guildrun’s top game by crossover is Slay the Spire 2 (42% of demo players have played it, 19% this month), so it’s fishing in the right pond. I wouldn’t make the rod cost much more than $19.99, though.

Guildrun’s soft spot is China, and it’s a familiar pain point for anyone familiar with our Slay the Spire 2 data. Guildrun demo user reviews sit at 89% positive, with basically every language in the 90s except Simplified Chinese (72%, and 7.4% of reviews) and Traditional Chinese (59%).

When we remove China reviews, the average goes past 91%. Our sentiment analysis shows Chinese players wanted builds that cut the randomness. In general, that audience tends to want broken, streak-friendly builds, and heavy RNG – while fun for other types of players – gets in the way.

Tellingly, China makes up 10% of Guildrun‘s demo players but just 6% of its wishlisters, so China players are trying it and not converting – a sign they’re not vibing with the roll-with-the-punches design.

Still, Guildrun has a fiercely dedicated demo audience, a wishlist pile that’s actively playing, and monthly overlap with the roguelike faithful. All signs point to a modest success in a niche genre. I can’t wait to get my mitts on it.

Now onto some other genres – including some weird ones.

Three Steam games to watch from three VERY different genres

The Launch Calendar section of our platform lets you check out upcoming buzzy Steam releases. We’ve started with wishlists and followers – viewable by month, week, and year – with a lot more to come. Here’s a peek at the monthly overview:

A highlight from October, November, and December:

• Phantom Blade Zero (Oct 28) is sitting on 2.4M Steam wishlists and 110K followers. It’s already sold 386K copies on Steam pre-launch, for $18.5M. That’s a 16%-ish wishlist-to-pre-order conversion before the game is even out (!!!) Putting pre-orders live when that epic 11-minute State of Play hit was a smart move, and the studio (S-Game) says pre-orders “far exceeded expectations.” As we covered here, the wuxia action-RPG is ticking many of the same boxes as Black Myth: Wukong, its most obvious spiritual predecessor as the next big Chinese action game, and it’s going to be huge – albeit not as big as that – in China. It also looks rad.

• Cozy Game Restoration (Nov 5) is the opposite end of the spectrum, and also another example of a demo converting. It’s a chill sim where you fix up retro game cartridges, peeling old stickers, cleaning grime, and getting that PowerWash Simulator feeling of a job well done. It’s tugging the nostalgia strings for those of us who grew up on 80s and 90s games. It has 343K wishlists and 9.5K followers, plus a Next Fest demo played by 110K people, 43% of whom wishlisted (a strong demo-to-wishlist conversion). But the demo had some issues, with a 68% positive user score as per our estimates, mostly due to poor tutorialisation. Crucially, the dev listened, delayed the game, and has another demo coming on October 1 that directly addresses the complaints. The response to that second demo is make-or-break here. It’s an early warning sign that a wishlist count or demo CCU number alone can’t give.

• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV (Dec 3) won’t be on Steam till December, but it’s already sold 90K copies and made $4M pre-launch, on 1.4M wishlists and 91K followers. Last year’s remaster of the original Dawn of War sold over 750K copies, and Warhammer games have been absolutely KILLING it lately, so once the marketing campaign kicks in properly, this one could blow up bigger than people expect.

This year is bonkers for releases, so let’s drop into the weekly view to see what’s around the corner (also for the newsletter!)

Steam games to watch in the next two weeks

Here’s what the next couple of weeks looks like in the Launch Calendar:

It’s rammed. Here’s a few we’ll be covering in upcoming newsletters (subscribe below for the data when it lands!).

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We’ve got two big Xbox games and two movie IPs your dad might’ve liked:

• Modern Warfare 4 (Oct 23) is doing decently on Steam pre-launch, with almost 450K copies sold and $25M in gross revenue before it’s even out. That points to the best Call of Duty launch on Steam since the franchise returned to the platform four years ago, ending Battle.net exclusivity. There’ll be no Game Pass-cannibalised copies on Steam or Xbox this time. But GTA 6 landing under a month after MW4 will likely eat into its retention, especially on console.

• Gears of War: E-Day (Oct 6, or Oct 1 for early-access) has sold 120K copies on Steam for nearly $7M. It’s sold under 20K in the last six weeks despite launching this week, so the pre-launch curve is soft (but it’s increasing a bit). Gears is a far more niche IP than Call of Duty, of course. Launch-aligned, E-Day has already sold more than double what Halo: Campaign Evolved did on Steam, but it’s well behind Wardogs (which was on 567K at this point pre-launch, versus Gears‘ 120K, and roughly triple the revenue). Realistically, in this window, 1M on Steam this year for E-Day is a stretch, and most of the Xbox revenue will be eaten up by Game Pass. That said, some superfans will cough up the extra $30 to play earlier.

• Star Wars: Galactic Racer (Oct 6) is a slick run-based arcade racer that should scratch a nostalgia itch and pull in some new family players. It’s the first proper Star Wars racing game since 2002’s Episode I: Racer, and it’s made by Fuse – a studio of Criterion veterans (Burnout, Need for Speed ), so the pedigree is there. Galactic Racer has almost 800K wishlists and 33K followers, yet under 50K pre-launch copies sold, so wishlist-to-pre-order conversion is running below 6%, roughly a third of Phantom Blade Zero. I’d say the price is high for a game like this on Steam ($59.99). Galactic Racer is out of the impulse-buy area (the now-1.1M-selling Star Wars Zero Company was $49.99). So console will likely have to, ahem, drive this one, and reviews and community reaction will be pivotal.

• Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival (Oct 8) is a first-person action-horror game from Saber, and the demo did well. While the game has sold under 50K on Steam, the demo that launched a month ago has been a winner. The demo got 130K players and a 93% positive score, with reviewers praising the atmosphere, visuals, gore (do NOT watch the trailer on your work machine), and faithfulness to the lore. Horror games, even the non-multiplayer ones, have a habit of surprising, and the horror community is clearly into this. And it’s $39.99.

So yes, while wishlists alone are a pretty bad barometer for sales, they’re a decent one for hype – and something we’ll be building on in our Launch Calendar in the coming months. When you use this data together with our demo data, pre-launch data, and player overlap data, the picture becomes clearer.

And it’s a picture all Alinea users can get access to. So, if you make games and fancy a free trial…

Get free trial!

The last word

Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.

[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

Requiem is also another hit in Capcom’s greatest run of its 46-year history, having sold a record number of games last fiscal year and openly targeting even more this year. Part of that success is Capcom’s strategy around catalogue sales and discounting on Steam.

But PlayStation remains Requiem‘s #1 platform, accounting for 48.1% of the 8.5M players (followed by Steam with 43.4%). Of the more than 4M Requiem copies on PS5, 30.8% (or 1.2M) are physical.

In the movie world, Zach Cregger (Weapons, Barbarian) directed the new Resident Evil reboot. It’s a critical and commercial smash, opening to $108.3M worldwide, the biggest opening in the 24-year history of Resi films and the highest-rated horror film of the year at 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Sony’s own PlayStation Productions co-produced the movie, so Sony had every incentive to turn cinema tickets into game sales.

Cregger’s rendition is only loosely based on the games, though, following a medical courier chaotically traversing the Raccoon City outbreak. But it’s mostly just easter eggs for us game fans. It doesn’t follow any of the game protagonists and takes plenty of lore liberties.

I consider myself a pretty big Resi fan, and I absolutely adored this movie. It really captures the feeling of playing a survival horror game, and it was fun to spot the references. And like Barbarian and Weapons, it’s just a bloody fantastic horror movie with the right mix of dread, grossness, and humour.

So with this in mind, how – if at all – has Cregger’s Resident Evil movie impacted game sales? Let’s start with engagement, daily active users (DAUs).

Engagement went up across the Resident Evil catalogue

In the week after the movie’s release (Sep 18 onward), DAUs increased across every Resident Evil game we track. For example:

• Resident Evil 2‘s remake jumped +48% (from ~78K to ~116K daily players). RE2 is set in Raccoon City during the outbreak, has a huge installed base, and has had some huge discounts (more on that later).

• Resident Evil 4 remake is up +24% (from ~199K to ~247K). The smaller percentage hides the biggest absolute jump, much of which came from $10 fire sales on Steam.

• Resident Evil 3 remake jumped +25% (from ~28K to ~35K). Despite being set in Raccoon City, this remake has been the worst-received of Resident Evil’s recent success run.

• Resident Evil Requiem jumped +20% (from ~118K to ~143K), the newest game getting a natural top-up.

So engagement is up, but what about revenue and copies?

Discounts did most of the work, but the movie has contributed

With transmedia stuff, game discounts always land at the same time as the movie or show, including The Last of Us, Fallout, and Spider-Man. When copies spike, this makes it bloody tough to figure out whether people bought because of the transmedia or the price. It’s mostly the latter, but everyone credits the shiny new movie.

Resident Evil gives us a fun case, though. Capcom started knifing its game prices on Sep 10, eight days before the film hit cinemas. This gives us a “discount, no movie” window (Sep 10 to 17) and a “discount plus movie” window (Sep 19 to 24) at the same price. You can see an example of these price drops on Steam in the platform screenshot below:

So, if we hold the price constant across those two windows (and take prior discounts’ impact into account), whatever’s left over is the movie. As the price cut predates the film, any lift in that first window is baseline discount behaviour, so we’re measuring the movie against Resi’s own discount, not against full price.

First, here’s what happened to copies, revenue, and price on each platform in the week after release versus the two weeks before:

Almost all the copy movement was on PlayStation. RE2 nearly doubled on PS5 while doing just +16% on Steam, and RE4 jumped +77% on PS5 versus a flat 0% on Steam. Those healthy-looking Steam revenue lines are interesting too, as Steam flipped its prices back to full on Sep 21, booking more dollars on fewer copies.

Now the disentangling. Before the film was in cinemas, the discount on its own was doing the lifting. On PS5, dropping the price roughly doubled daily copies (RE2 about 1.9x from $39.99 to $7.99, RE4 about 1.9x from $39.99 to $9.99, Requiem about 1.8x from $69.99 to $48.99). That is the big lever, and Capcom pulled it first.

When we filter out the price, the movie’s contribution alone looks like this:

RE2 and RE4 picked up another 50-65% in PS5 copies even after you strip the discount out, which makes sense: they have a mix of nostalgia, quality, and the exact Raccoon City setting the film runs around in. On Steam, the same movie effect is a much milder +11% to +14%.

But every one of those movie-driven copies sold for pocket change. RE2 shifted at about $8 to $9, RE4 at roughly $10 to $13. So yes, RE2‘s PS5 revenue jumped 80% and RE4‘s 84%, but off a firesale base.

I’ll be candid (crazy, I know!): this is slightly-boosted bargain-bin volume, not a demand surge at full price. The movie nudged a chunk of folks toward games that were already 75-80% off.

Requiem is the newest Resi game and the only one selling anywhere near full price, and the movie barely changed things. PS5 is Requiem‘s number-one platform, and during a record-breaking $108M movie weekend, PS5 Requiem revenue went down 4% (from about $284K to $271K a day).

So it sold more copies but for less money, because the only thing that properly shifted Requiem was its discount, and a discount by definition lowers what you make per sale. The Steam side crept up +14% in dollars, but only because the price went back to $70.

Capcom is a company that’s turned catalogue discounting into an art form, squeezing its back catalogue for hundreds of millions with perfectly-timed sales. Capcom systematically lowers entry barriers over time to capture every tier of consumer willingness-to-pay (and loosens buyers’ wallets for upcoming games.

It doesn’t need a film to convert to full-price purchases, the discount engine already does that job. The movie is just free top-of-funnel warmth stacked on top of a machine that was already humming.

So yeah, the engagement halo is there for sure, and lots of folks came back to play, but the revenue story is a discounting one. The movie’s contribution is small, low-value, and concentrated in games that were already doing catalogue goodness in the bargain bin.

Yes, Capcom earned a bit more in that window, but it did so mostly by selling cheap copies of old games, not by turning a blockbuster opening weekend into full-price Resident Evil sales. Again, there’s so much potential in transmedia. But we need to go a bit further here, and the story isn’t quite over yet.

What’s going on here?

Engagement across the catalogue jumped (people reinstalling and replaying games they already own), while new sales barely moved once we account for discounts. So Cregger’s movie reactivated the existing fanbase more than acquiring a new one.

I reckon there’s a few reasons for this:

• In Cregger’s movie, there’s no character or story to chase back into a game, despite the movie having plenty of easter eggs for fans. Cregger deliberately crafted an original story around a new lead (to great effect), so there’s nowhere obvious for a curious newcomer to land.

• The film audience already is the games audience. I spent about a year in cross-entertainment consumer insights before crawling back to games, and I remember the horror-film crowd and the horror-game crowd being about as overlapping as two circles get. So the film mostly preached to the converted.

• Cregger is hot right now. After proving himself with Barbarian and last year’s Weapons ($270M worldwide), Cregger is a draw in his own right.

Amazon’s Fallout similarly nailed the world and tone, but that world is more of a unique one and funnelled viewers into a deep catalogue of Fallout they could jump right into.

HBO’s The Last of Us (the first season, anyway) sent people to the games because it was a faithful, beat-for-beat retelling, and fans wanted to see the next chapter. The Super Mario Bros. Movie and the Spider-Man films work the same way, but accelerate for kids. The common thread is a named protagonist you can go and be.

Resident Evil borrowed the world and the vibe but didn’t have a similar onramp. It’s my fave film of the year so far and a brilliant advert for the brand, just not a storefront for any particular game.

So the movie helps Resi keep culturally warm heading into whatever’s next: next year’s Resident Evil Veronica, the remake of 2000’s Code: Veronica and the first full-blown Resi remake since RE4 in 2023. It’s already sitting on almost 2M wishlists on Steam alone.

The synergy potential is juicy, too.. Veronica stars Claire Redfield, a face casual fans will recognise. And if it follows the original timeline, Veronica takes place three months after the Raccoon City incident, the event the film is built around.

So there’s a narrative bridge between the movie and the next game, which is more than this reboot offered any existing title. Get the streaming release timed around Veronica‘s launch, put a recognisable character at the centre of both, and Capcom (and Sony) might finally build the on-ramp this transmedia experience – and every bloody other one – was missing.

It’ll happen eventually, surely.

Cool links and other stuff

• It’s been another busy press week! Our Star Wars Zero Company data was covered by Eurogamer, IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot, and a bunch of others.

• We also chatted to Kotaku about Xbox’s recent layoffs and studio restructures.

• We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply right here on Substack/email, and we’ll set you up.

The last word

Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.

[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

Quality-wise, and in my humble opinion, Zero Company is one of the best pieces of Star Wars media in ages, barring Andor and perhaps Jedi Survivor. Zero Company landed an 86 on Metacritic, the highest score of a Star Wars game in 22 years (since Knights of the Old Republic II – banger – in 2004), sitting above Jedi Survivor, Fallen Order, and Outlaws.

Zero Company was developed by Bit Reactor, a team made up of Firaxis veterans, including co-founder Greg Foertsch, who worked on franchises like XCOM and Civilization. For Zero Company, Bit Reactor got support from Respawn and publishing from EA. In other words: XCOM people made an XCOM-style Star Wars game. It’s rad, but it’s niche.

Around $50M in revenue for Zero Company so far

Zero Company has made about $50M since launching on August 27, respectable for this genre and during such a crowded period (even with the Star Wars brand attached).

While console makes up 30.1% of the copies sold (19.9% for PS5 and 10.2% for Xbox), regional pricing differences mean console accounts for 40.1% of the revenue (26.7% on PS5 and 13.3% on Xbox). Console players pay more per copy, so – relatively speaking – they bring more revenue.

One thing limiting Zero Company’s sales, as with many Star Wars games, is that it’s only really popular in the West. Of Zero Company’s players, 90% are in North America or Europe, with under 5% in Asia.

On Steam, the Chinese user reviews sit at 57% positive (versus an 82% global average), with many pointing to the lack of VO and localisation options. Star Wars has never had the pull in Asia that it has in the West, of course. But skipping proper localisation compounds that.

Given Bit Reactor’s history in the genre, it’s no surprise that a chunk of Zero Company players have engaged with XCOM in the past.

• On Steam, 28% of Zero Company players had previously played XCOM 2

• And 6% played XCOM: Enemy Unknown on Steam.

• On PlayStation and Xbox, 32% had previously played XCOM 2

Star Wars fans showed up in full … force, too. On Steam, 32% played Star Wars: The Old Republic, 24% played Battlefront 2, and 24% played Fallen Order.

On console, the Star Wars fandom is doing more of the heavy lifting, relatively speaking, as the XCOM franchise – and turn-based strategy games in general – are simply less popular there. According to our estimates:

• 63% of Zero Company players on PlayStation have also played Jedi Fallen Order (85% on Xbox)

• 55% have played Jedi Survivor (68% on Xbox)

• 40% played Star Wars Outlaws (45% on Xbox). The Xbox shares run higher thanks to EA Play access via Game Pass Ultimate and PC.

Despite making something this rad, most of the team behind Zero Company was sadly furloughed in the weeks before launch. Reportedly, the studio had run out of most of its cash before its debut even shipped (Bit Reactor says the call was its own, not EA’s or Disney’s).

Either way, much of the team that built this bloody GREAT game, the best-reviewed Star Wars one in more than two decades, was sitting at home unpaid at launch. That absolutely sucks.

I sincerely hope the game makes enough to bring the team back on full pay. They’ve made something fantastic here, and they deserve to see it through.

2026 games based on non-game IP are closing in on $1B in revenue this year

There’ve been quite a few games this year based on non-game IP, and together they’ve made over $900M in revenue, as per our estimates.

The top 20 this year is made up of all kinds of IP, everything from 007, Marvel, and LEGO Batman to Jay and Silent Bob and Starship Troopers. The top five are as follows (OK, top six, because the bottom was so tight):

• 007 First Light has generated $309.8M, with $200.6M via PS5 (64.6%), $70.0M via Steam (22.8%), and $39.2M via Xbox (12.6%). First Light recently passed 4.5M copies sold, making it one of the most successful new games of the year, shifting 2.8M copies on PS5 alone. Of those playing First Light on PS5 this month (about 88K folks), 11.3% have also played Wolverine this month, while 2% played this year’s Lego Batman. Those are 007‘s top games by unique-player overlap this month. Speaking of which…

• Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight has now batarang-ed 2.3M copies sold and passed $165M in gross revenue. PlayStation alone accounts for $100M of that, about 60%. On PlayStation, the kid-friendly audience is here in full force: 78% of Lego Batman’s players have played Fortnite, 76% have played GTA 5 (lol, which 12-year-old isn’t playing?), 78% have played Spider-Man, 70% Spider-Man 2, 68% Miles Morales, and 64% Minecraft. Our data also shows Lego Batman offered a free trial for PlayStation Plus Premium members a few months back. Over 100K folks tried it, and 3.1% converted to buyers.

• Wolverine has now generated almost $150M on PS5 since launching exactly a week ago. We covered Wolverine here, so check that out for more. A few people were upset that we compared Wolverine‘s launch to Death Stranding 2 last week. But we also compared it to every PlayStation Studios game from the past three years and every new PS5 game this year. Plus, Death Stranding 2 was the closest PS Studios comparison point ($129M on PS5 versus Wolverine‘s then-$130M), and Kojima and PlayStation had just divorced. So yeah, sticking to our claws on that one.

• Halloween: The Game has now made about $65M via 1.5M copies sold since launching two weeks ago. It’s an asymmetrical 1-vs-4 survival horror game, so slashed from the same cloth as Dead by Daylight, as well as IllFonic’s own 2017 Friday the 13th game. There’s also a standalone six-mission story mode that lets players relive the events of the 1978 Halloween film through the eyes (and mask) of Michael Myers. Its success is a testament to horror fandom, how well horror concepts translate to games, and the overlap between horror fans and gamers. Next up, Hellraiser.

• Star Wars Zero Company, which … yeah, scroll up. Or swipe up if you’re on mobile or have claws (or have a lightsabre).

• Marvel Tokon has generated almost $50M via its 750K copies sold across PlayStation (about 82%) and Steam (about 18%). While Tokon peaked at around 300K DAUs during launch, its cross-platform DAU number has since dropped below 40K. Weekly copies sold have fallen drastically too, at under 15K last week. That said, $50M and 750K copies in a niche genre is still a decent result. While the PS5 version fared well, the PC version’s problems (technical, account, and DRM) have severely limited Tōkon’s momentum.

Not all non-game IP (and genre adaptations) is equal; let’s act like it

The success of the Batman: Arkham games, Marvel’s Spider-Man games, and the silly success of Hogwarts Legacy makes it tempting to assume every quality transmedia project will be a monster. It won’t.

Those are outliers, and they shouldn’t set the baseline. There’s only room for a finite number of those mega games, so treating these insane hits as the expectation is how you end up disappointed by a game that sold a million copies.

007 First Light alone accounts for over a third of the $900M+ that non-game-IP generated this year ($309.8M), and the top three take the vast majority. But the more realistic (and, I’d argue, more interesting) opportunity for many non-game IP is the middle. So that’s those experiences like Zero Company, Marvel Tokon, and the imminent Star Wars: Galactic Racer.

These aren’t billion-dollar makers like the very singular Spider-Man games, nowhere near, but they don’t need to be. $50M for a turn-based tactics game or team-based fighting game in a stacked release window is a decent result, especially if it ties to a larger brand goal.

These so-called transmedia games can help new studios secure projects, hand creatively bankrupt film and TV rights-holders a rev-share lifeline, and add quality to brands some had written off (something to get the fandom pumped about). Zero Company‘s story is better than every recent Star Wars thing not named Andor, and that counts for something for a brand that has had miss after miss, quality-wise.

So no, games based on non-game IP are not all billion-dollar makers, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just as film and TV have their more niche media prestige things alongside the tentpoles (Lanterns next to Superman, The Penguin next to Batman), games will have their AA and more niche tiers too.

The money’s real, the brand equity’s about, and the appetite is there ($900M and counting this year). It seems like we just need to recalibrate what success looks like, projections- wise (and also budgets-wise, to be fair).

What I’m saying here is that not all non-game IP – and how they’re adapted – is equal. Blockbusters designed for broad-market scale and focused AA/genre titles are beasts, make no mistake. It’d be banging if every transmedia thing were a Hogwarts Legacy, don’t get me wrong.

But in some cases, these things can be high-margin mid-tier releases that also help de-risk development portfolios while keeping legacy IP culturally active. Of course, it’d be abso-bloody-lutely great if a TV/movie release in a given IP could directly hit around a game in that IP (and vice-versa).

But production timelines are so nebulous – especially in gaming – that it’s just too bloody hard to execute. I’m sure someone will get there in the end though, and it’ll probably be Nintendo.

Cool links and other stuff

• We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply right here on Substack/email, and we’ll set you up.

• It’s been another busy press week. Our Wolverine newsletter from last week was picked up by IGN, Eurogamer, Kotaku, Wccftech, and a bunch of others.

• Our Head of Business Development, the awesome Tobias Sjögren, is at DICE Europe RIGHT NOW! So if you’re about, shoot Tobias an email at ts@alineaanalytics.no!

The last word

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[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

Wolverine’s early success means it just passed Death Stranding 2‘s lifetime PS5 copies sold and revenues ($129M and 1.8M copies). And Wolverine is already the top-performing new PlayStation Studios game on PS5 this year, leapfrogging:

• MLB The Show ($99M and 1.5M copies sold on PS5)

• Marathon ($60M and 1.8M copies sold across all platforms)

• Saros ($40M, 510K sold on PS5)

• Marvel Tōkon ($49M and 740K sold across all platforms)

Wolverine‘s top market, by a landslide, is the US, accounting for 53% of the player base, followed by the UK (7%), France (5%), and Canada (4%). Logan is Canadian, after all.

In terms of pricing, Wolverine costs $70 in the US but the equivalent of $93.62 in the UK (+33.8% on the US price), $91.84 in Euro countries (+31.2%), and $64.30 (-7.2%) in Canada. Hometown mates’ rates.

So yes, Wolverine has sold well so far. But you’d never guess from the DiScOuRsE.

Wolverine has been a sales success so far, despite some negativity

If you’ve been following any enthusiast game circles, first of all: I hope you’re okay – it’s grim out there. But also, you’ll have seen plenty of people absolutely blasting Wolverine over its handholding, linearity, and move away from Insomniac’s typical colourful visual identity.

While I agree with many of these criticisms of Wolverine, as does much of the press (as seen in its 77 Metacritic score, Insomniac’s lowest non-DLC score in over a decade), most of the folks chatting shite online haven’t played Wolverine. Most of the viral criticism came before the street date.

I’m enjoying some things about the game too, mostly the characters and the combat animations (Liam McIntyre’s Logan is a highlight for me). But yes, candidly, Wolverine doesn’t do much to move the genre forward, and it feels a little disjointed in parts.

You can really see that Insomniac struggled with the design and development of Wolverine. Some aspects feel like hangovers of an older, open-world-focused build that’s been repurposed, while other segments feel hollow and almost random design-wise.

But this makes sense given how many high-profile leads left during development. It reminds me a bit of the whole Uncharted 4 debacle, where Amy Hennig and her game director left Naughty Dog mid-project, the game reportedly had some open-world ideas, then Druckmann and Straley came in to salvage the project. The 2023 Insomniac leak pretty plainly listed Wolverine’s open-world ambitions.

The difference is Naughty Dog pulled it together into a masterpiece that sold 2.7M in week one (on a 40M PS4 install base). Wolverine probably won’t manage that (and on a 95M installed base), but Wolverine‘s audience is likely a more casual one.

Obviously, social media algorithms reward and amplify outrage – manufactured and real – creating a cycle of negativity that isn’t representative of the situation (‘’woke flopped this game!!!’’)

The situation is that Wolverine is now the #6 top-grossing PS5 game of the year, despite only being on the market for a few days:

And when we launch-align how many copies these other games sold on PlayStation after three days, Wolverine is selling quicker. After three days, via sold-through copies:

• NBA 2K27 generated $127M on PS5, 2.4% less than Wolverine

• Resident Evil Requiem generated $98M, 24.7% less

• 007 First Light ($67M), 48.8% less

• AC Black Flag Resynced generated $66M, 49.5% less

• Crimson Desert, another 77-Metacritic game, generated $59M, 54.8% less

And when we look at the top PlayStation Studios games from the past three years by revenue (the games we covered here), Wolverine now sits at #7, having passed Death Stranding 2.

Again, launch-aligned, Wolverine has actually sold better than all of these games except Spider-Man 2 ($250M in three days, almost double Wolverine). As for the others’ revenue three days after launch:

• Ghost of Yōtei made $121.9M, 6.3% less than Wolverine

• Death Stranding 2 made $51.7M, 60.3% less

• Astro Bot made $34.6M, 73.3% less

• Stellar Blade made $32.7M, 74.9% less

• Rise of the Ronin made $25.7M, 80.3% less

• Helldivers 2 made $18.9M, 85.5% less

Of course, many of these other games didn’t have a brand as big as Wolverine, and some had longer tails (for many reasons, including a GOTY win and Steam virality). And Wolverine‘s tail has, of course, been limited somewhat by the tepid media reaction and the social-media blasting.

That said, Wolverine is the type of game that resonates more with casual audiences outside of our circles. Like the Spider-Man games, it’ll likely see lifts at the holidays (it’s mature, sure, but it’ll still be on plenty of Christmas lists, let’s be honest), when physical typically shifts more – for obvious reasons.

And it’ll get a halo effect from the MCU’s imminent move into the X-Men, which already kicked off in the latest Spider-Man movie (Brand New Day introduced Jean Grey and the MCU’s first mutant villain), with Avengers: Doomsday coming on December 18 to kick off the mutant saga.

Oh, and I can see a bunch of the GTA 6 crowd who upgrade to a PS5 picking this one up too, once they’re all GTA-d out.

Who’s playing Wolverine?

Many of the folks buying Wolverine are not the people fighting about it (as ever), and the overlap data makes that pretty plain.Wolverine‘s buyers so far are, above everything else, superhero-game diehards.

About 82% have played the original Insomniac Spider-Man, 70% Spider-Man 2, and 67% Miles Morales. That’s more than even Fortnite (65%). Batman turns up via the DC side via Arkham Knight (45%) and the recent Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight (15%), Marvel Rivals shows heavy crossover (43%), and there’s a long tail of more niche games.

There’s plenty of crossover with the underperforming Suicide Squad, Gotham Knights, and Guardians of the Galaxy (banger!), plus DC Universe Online, Midnight Suns, and this year’s Marvel Tōkon. If a superhero game exists, Wolverine‘s audience has probably given it a go.

There’s also a cohort who buy all the new linear releases, shown by high-ish shares for Black Flag Resynced (17%), Crimson Desert (14%), and Resident Evil Requiem (21%). The PlayStation first-party faithful showed up too, with strong crossover for Ghost of Yōtei and Astro Bot, and even around 8% for this year’s Saros and Marvel Tōkon.

But a more relevant signal is what Wolverine‘s launch-window buyers have actually been playing this month (yes we have that data!). The top 10 is as follows:

1. Fortnite: 16.30%)

2. Marvel Rivals: 10.57%)

3. Spider-Man 2: 9.45%)

4. GTA 5: 9.18%)

5. Roblox: 8.69%)

6. NBA 2K27: 8.59%)

7. FC 26: 8.38%)

8. Onimusha: Way of the Sword: 6.81%)

9. Halloween: The Game: 5.46%)

10. The Blood of the Dawnwalker: 3.49%)

There’s a big chunk of mainstream here, with Fortnite, Roblox, NBA, GTA, FC all seeing plenty of MAU overlap. They’re a mainstream, casual, often family crowd – folks who have no bloody idea there’s discourse to be furious about, let alone a low Metacritic average.

There’s also the superhero faithful (Rivals at #2, Spidey at #3) and the buy-everything sickos (Onimusha, Halloween, and Dawnwalker all launched this month), so you’ve got the profile of a game that sells on brand and vibes, not on review scores.

An ever … yellow seller?

So yes, Wolverine has sold well, but its commercial long tail is limited by its mixed media and streamer reception. Unlike Spider-Man, which reviewed insanely well and has stayed evergreen for years, this one’s tail will be shorter and lumpier, but still there.

Wolverine will have secondary volume bumps driven by MCU X-Men marketing beats, holiday gifting, and new PS5 owners looking for high-budget graphics showcases (I’m looking at you, upgrading GTA 6 crowd).

But make no mistake, Wolverine will keep moving. The backlash was fast and hard, but that discourse will sail clean over the heads of the millions of more passive, mainstream players who make up the bulk of this audience. Those folks’ll buy Wolverine for the brand, get it for Christmas, and never once open Reddit to find out they were supposed to be angry.

So yeah, Wolverine will keep selling, just not at Spider-Man heights. Spidey’s been evergreen. Wolverine will be more ever-yellow. I’ll see myself out.

Cool links and other stuff

• We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply right here on Substack/email, and we’ll set you up.

• It’s been another busy press week, with IGN and Eurogamer covering our Wardogs data, as well as plenty of folks covering our Death Standing 2 numbers (IGN, GameSpot, Polygon, Insider Gaming)

• Our Head of Business Development, the awesome Tobias Sjögren, is heading to DICE Europe! He’ll be giving a VERY insightful talk on the future of the industry, so if you’re about, shoot Tobias an email at ts@alineaanalytics.no!

The last word

Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.

[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

This is an outstanding performance for a studio launching a shooter in 2026, especially given that Bulkhead was facing financial turmoil not even a year ago. We bet Team17 are chuffed they picked this one up.

And the $70M in revenue means that it’s currently already the #7 new 2026 Steam game in terms of revenue. It’s also generated more revenue than Marathon has generated across all platforms to date.

I don’t think anybody would have made that prediction at the start of the year. It’s another reminder that, when it comes to live-service games, community trumps budget and pedigree.

Wardogs is a PVP tactical shooter that drops 100 players onto a massive map, split across three factions of 33. It borrows a lot from the old Arma 3 “King of the Hill” mod.

Wardogs’ success didn’t really catch us or our clients off guard, mind you. Our pre-launch estimates had Wardogs at 500K copies by August 30 and crossing 1M on September 8, two days before it even launched into early access (pre-orders were doing the heavy lifting).

We flagged it as one to watch in our gamescom wishlist coverage a couple of weeks back, and the data was screaming before that.

The kinds of players enjoying Wardogs

Our “also played” metric (basically which of Wardogs‘ players have ever played Game X) is topped by the usual Steam shooter royalty of Counter-Strike 2 at 86.6%, PUBG at 65.7%, Apex Legends at 58.2%, Rainbow Six Siege at 57.1%, Battlefield 6 at 48.4%, and Call of Duty at 46.1%.

It’s useful to know that these players are also into shooters, but it’s skewed, as half of bloody Steam has played CS2 at this point, and all of the above games are free to play (or have f2p modes). When we go further down the list there’s a lot of crossover for friendslop, with 35% of Wardogs players having played R.E.P.O, with similar shares for PEAK, Phasmophobia, and Meccha Chameleon.

Another, perhaps more interesting signal here is overlap, which measures the share of unique players two games share. This reads a bit more like what you expect, with squad-based military, sandbox, and PvE stuff galore:

Arma, Gray Zone, Hell Let Loose, Squad, and Insurgency underline the sandbox-tactical crowd, the players who want systems and chaos and teamplay rather than a three-minute deathmatch. The Arma 3 lineage that inspired Wardogs (and also PUBG!) is also there at the top. Note too that Arc Raiders shows 9.3% for overlap.

And while looking at what all Wardogs’ players have ever played on Steam can only tell us so much, looking at what they’ve been playing this month is a little more relevant for today. Alongside CS2 (26.8% of Wardogs players played it this month), Battlefield 6 (10.2%), and Bodycam (10.1%), there’s also How to Fish, a friendslop fishing game, at 8.8%.

Social and chaos wins again

That brings us to one of the reasons Wardogs is doing so well. ‘’Wardogs is closer to Meccha Chameleon than it is to Call of Duty,’’ said Bulkhead’s CEO – Joe Brammer – in a recent interview with The Game Business.

‘’When we were designing Wardogs, it was about the social aspects. If you look at men 18 to 40-years-old, there’s a lot of lonely, bored, or underappreciated men who miss their mates.’’

While the whole interview is pretty spicy and well worth a read, the above bit really stuck with me, and my time with Wardogs was defined by the emergent social stuff – similar to what we saw with Arc Raiders almost a year ago now.

Wardogs’ cash economy helps set it apart there. Players start with in-game cash and have to buy their own guns, gear, vehicles, and helicopters, but you lose it all when you die.

Players more involved with transport, reviving, and supplying teammates also get cash, so there’s an actual incentive to play support instead of kill-chasing, turning this one into a PvE-like experience for some players (it’s how it felt to me, to be honest).

Players end up charging each other for helicopter taxis, tipping for revives, and bribing their way back into the fight, which makes it as much a social game as a shooter. It can get super chaotic and can scratch that emergent social itch.

The wishlisters are converting well post-launch

As per our estimates, Wardogs entered early access with about 1.8M Steam wishlists (up from the 1.6M we estimated a couple of weeks ago). On Steam, your typical AAA game converts something like 5% of wishlisters to buyers at launch.

Given Wardogs’ friendly $40 launch price and the community Bulkhead had built, I expected Wardogs to blow past that, and it did – despite some technical hiccups at launch.

Wardogs hits the modern pricing sweet spot, sitting below the friction point of a $70 AAA release while capturing that chunky volume of players priced out of premium titles.

I’ve gotta give the company comms a quick shout here. I’ve had my eye on Wardogs for a bit, and Bulkhead has been extremely communicative and direct on socials and in video content, including the almost 400K-strong Discord, often engaging with fans and streamers.

Seven days in, and Wardogs has converted 11% of its wishlisters into buyers. About 57% of those wishlists were added in the last month, with roughly 15% from one-to-three months ago and another 15% from three-to-six months ago.

Wardogs, like Arc Raiders, had a late, hot hype cycle, not a slow burn. And as we know, fresh wishlists convert far better than stale ones. Older wishlists suffer from intent decay, more likely to turn into passive bookmarks.

You can see it in the month-by-month breakdown in our platform:

The August cohort, by far the biggest, also converts the hardest at 11.85%. The beta and the pre-launch marketing built a pile of recent, intent-heavy wishlisters that cashed in immediately. Fair play

The user reviews are a launch problem, not a game problem

Now for the not-so-positive bit. Wardogs is currently at a 74% positive Steam user score. However, this more tepid overall score needs a bit of a closer look. Demand for Wardogs was so heavy that the servers couldn’t queue matches, and Bulkhead had to take the game offline to fix it.

While Wardogs was offline, a wave of angry reviews dragged the Steam score to “Mixed.” Adding insult to injury here, a group of streamers were skipping the login queues while paying players waited.

Bulkhead’s response, delivered via the in-game server announcements and captured by streamer TheBurntPeanut, was to openly admit “we are dick heads.” I actually appreciate this directness.

Every bloody shooter prioritises streamers, and it’s nice to see a company owning a decision, instead of ignoring it or trying to sugarcoat the reasoning. They also made a video titled ‘‘10 reasons NOT to buy Wardogs’’:

Our review sentiment analysis found that many of the negative reviews mentioned the queue system failures, denied-access failures, and streamer priority. There was also a last-minute anti-cheat switch (from EAC to Elytra) that killed the promised Linux and Proton support, which some reviewers mentioned.

This is very much reflected in our user-review scores by playtime:

• Under 1h (10% of reviews): 42% positive

• 1-5h (37% of reviews): 64% positive

• 5-10h (17% of reviews): 86% positive

• 10-25h (23% of reviews): 89% positive

• 25-50h (10% of reviews): 89% positive

• 50-100h (1.5% of reviews): 88% positive

The people who reviewed with under five hours played account for nearly half of all reviews, and they’re the more angry ones (42% and 64% positive). When you get past five hours, positivity jumps to 86% and stays in the high 80s all the way up.

In other words, almost none of the negativity is about the game and its design. As mentioned, most of the vocal complaints were about queues, authentication errors – a rough first hour or so that led to plenty of bad reviews and refunds.

This shows that getting it right can very much matter in early access (reviews carry over), but once players actually get into Wardogs and play, they love it.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but there’s a geographic layer too. As of yesterday, the average Wardogs review sat around 74% positive overall, but when we strip out the Chinese reviews (about 8% of the total, and only 38% positive), it climbs to roughly 78%.

As you can see above, Simplified Chinese is the outlier. English reviews are at 79% positive, German at 78%, and Brazilian Portuguese at 81%, and most European languages in the high 70s. But Chinese players are seemingly furious – largely about the total absence of mainland server infrastructure and the queue failure, as per our sentiment review.

Bulkhead already increased capacity in Asia for its 0.11 patch, which – in true Bulkhead fashion – is extremely community-focused across the board. Positive reviews are already on the up since our review analysis yesterday.

As always, China players tend to be more vocal in their Steam reviews due to an absence of other avenues for feedback, but it’s very much worth Bulkhead winning this audience over if it wants to play the long game.

On that note…

What’s next for Wardogs?

Wardogs isn’t hitting console until 2028, so the first question is retention. DAUs are still climbing and the team is hard at work fixing the launch issues, but PvP live-service is a zero-sum fight for attention. Call of Duty is around the corner, and GTA not far behind that (not on Steam, but still).

So Wardogs‘ growth story is far from over. It’s got some maintenance hills to climb and a strong roadmap to deliver on before it can dream of reaching the heights of, say, an Arc Raiders.

But make no mistake: even if it never sold another copy, Wardogs is already a huge success. It’s a $40 shooter aimed at a slightly unfashionable audience that stuck to its guns and turned out bloody great.

You can’t really replicate what Bulkhead pulled off here, but they knew exactly who the game was for, priced it fairly, built the community before launch (and actually talked to them), and to cut the PR nonsense, be authentic (to a fault at times), and make something cool.

And the community focus is continuing. Bulkhead is actively pushing incremental updates and patch notes focused heavily on reactive quality-of-life feedback.

Excited to see where the team goes next. Fair play.

Free trial of the Alinea Platform?

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The last word

Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.

[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

As always, it’s been a busy news week for the industry. And we’ve still got tomorrow and the Wolverine discourse to go, so let’s get into it.

Kojima partners with Xbox after being dropped by PlayStation

Sony has decided to part ways with Hideo Kojima Productions regarding publishing Physint, an espionage game that seemed to be the spiritual successor to Metal Gear – the IP that put Kojima on the map as one of the few well-known auteurs in game-making.

Xbox has swooped in for the PR win, springing off Sony’s PR miss – adding Physint to its slate alongside OD, Kojima’s upcoming horror game (which looks a lot like PT). Also, Xbox jumped in with its announcement of an official disc-to-digital conversion feature – a far more effective transition than Sony’s blunt “discs are gone in 2028” line. This approach clearly offers zero off-ramp for physical-first players. More on that later.

Sony’s decision to end the Physint partnership was quite abrupt, too, with the team reportedly told in mid-June that Physint was being cancelled.

On X, Kojima said the team “spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner,” before landing on Xbox – a partner he says shares his vision for the future, and one he’s teaming up with again. We can read between the lines a bit there.

Some things worth noting, first:

• Kojima understandably has a chip on his shoulder after what happened with Konami. He and many folks in the team have been burned by a publisher before.

• Kojima loves plastering his name on his projects, and he’s struggled to take criticism in the past.

• PlayStation genuinely helped him in the Kojima and the studio in the aftermath of the Konami fallout – Guerrilla handed over its Decima engine for Death Stranding and provided plenty of dev support.

• We obviously don’t know the full story, either – maybe milestones were missed, maybe Kojima was difficult to work with, maybe any number of things. But that information isn’t public, and as it stands, this doesn’t look great for PlayStation among core gamers. Especially right now.

From a strictly financial perspective, though, I can understand Sony’s position. In a vacuum, anyway. PR and optics still matter. More on that later.

Death Stranding 2 has sold 2.5M copies

Our estimates show that Death Stranding 2, which launched on PS5 in June 2025 and on PC in March this year, just crossed 2.5M copies sold. It sold 1.8M on PlayStation and 700K on Steam. Across those platforms, DS2 has generated $170M.

On PlayStation, about 1M of those DS2 copies were sold by the first two months (722K in June 2025 and 381K in July 2025). This – of course – is the Kojima PlayStation core. In the months after, DS2 struggled to sell over 100K, and shifted under 30K in August, with price reductions to $40 doing little to move the needle.

Death Stranding 2 has made about $129M on PlayStation, with 65% of that coming in the first two months. On Steam, 550K copies sold in the first two months (80% of its Steam total). It’s had two discounts, which again did very little.

Meanwhile, the original Death Stranding has sold about 5M copies at this point in its lifecycle – though it did have some deep discounts down to $20 in that window. To date, Death Stranding 1 has generated about $243M, with 71% on PlayStation, 25% on Steam, and 4% on Xbox.

In other words, in the decade since Death Stranding was announced at E3 2016, the two Death Stranding games have generated about $413M in revenue for Sony across platforms – with Death Stranding 2 returning less than the first (so far).

Ballpark math: word on the street is that the first Death Stranding cost about $100M to make, and the second somewhere in the $150M–$200M ballpark (longer dev cycle, COVID, and all that). Depending on marketing overhead and the opportunity cost of pulling those Guerrilla developers onto DS1, the franchise has almost certainly broken even – but not by much.

That said, Death Stranding has been a real success in China via Steam (DS1 has 27% of its Steam user base in China, while DS2 has 44%). Also, Stellar Blade, another second-party PS game, has a 46% China Steam audience.

So by moving away from Steam, PlayStation loses this Trojan horse into China. It would prefer to lock Chinese players into its own ecosystem – but PlayStation barely has an official foothold in China, so Steam was its way in.

So while an estimated return on investment of 18% to 38% does amount to several tens of millions in margin, that’s not really a lot for a company like PlayStation – not for that kind of budget. And margins are the name of the game now.

Some key misses – and wins – have made PlayStation’s lineup more cautious

Over the past few years, scares like Concord (cancelled, $300M+ down the drain) and softer sales from the likes of Marathon (1.8M sold), Saros ($40M), Marvel Tokon (725K, $49M), and Lego Horizon Adventures (under 250K across Steam and PS5, $11M) seem to be making PlayStation more wary about its projects.

Today, Sony lifted the press embargo on Wolverine, its big tentpole game from one of its premier studios. It’s had a lukewarm critical reception (by PlayStation prestige and Insomniac standards) – currently 78 on Metacritic, same as the Days Gone Remaster. It’ll sell well all the same, but still…

Guerilla recently went back to the drawing board for the Horizon live-service game, and even the latest Naughty Dog game has been delayed several times and is reportedly a while away from completion.

While Sony has had a few misses since the end of 2022, it’s also had some hits:

• Ghost of Yotei (5.3M sold, $400M in gross revenue)

• Astro Bot (4.5M, $275M revenue, and a GOTY win)

• Stellar Blade (5.3M, $309M in revenue), but it won’t be publishing Stellar Blade 2

• The BIG one: Spider-Man 2 ($1.3 billion across platforms)

As for PS Studios titles from the past three years that made over $125M on PS5, there are seven as per our estimates. We’ve also broken out the physical splits, because a lot of the reporting there – including ours tbf – has zoomed in on the copies-sold split.

The disc decision was largely about margins, control, and killing the secondhand market. So let’s look at what actually matters to PlayStation here, revenue via discs:

Clearly, physical is still a huge chunk of the revenue for these games. And it’s all more concentrated on the kinds of games PlayStation is built on.

The prestige single-player games skew physical, with Astro Bot at 47%, Stellar Blade at 43%, DS2 at 42%, and Yotei at 38%. Helldivers 2, more live-service and online is only at 8% (although, Sony basically didn’t market the game pre-launch and printed a limited disc run, not expecting a success).

But still, physical revenue is huge in the prestige single-player games Sony is getting more cautious about. A disc dollar is worth less to Sony than a digital one, as there’s the retailer cut, manufacturing and distribution. A consideration.

Helldivers’ incredible performance on PS5 – almost 23M sold, $800M in revenue, and still 1M monthly players on PS – is a big part of why Sony keeps gunning for another live-service hit (preferably first-party, not second-party) to give it annual recurring revenue for when a hit-driven prestige period gets rough.

Although live-service is pretty much zero-sum when it comes to PvP, so winning players can be difficult. Still, PlayStation wants these revenues. It sees how much third-party publishers rake in through FC, Fortnite, and Roblox, and on those it only takes its store cut. That’s 30%; 100% would be nicer, despite the budgetary price of admission (see: Concord…).

Sony wants the PS6 and handheld to go well

On the death of the disc: while it makes sense for PlayStation to take this hit now, rather than at the launch of the PS6, the backlash among a lot of core players – those high-ARPU folks – has been bloody intense. Which is ironic, given the decision was made to maximise ARPU in the first place.

And while we don’t know the full story behind why Physint was dropped, the timing is terrible for PR: Wolverine is literally out this week, and the backlash to the death of physical has been louder than Sony would have expected.

I’ve seen people say PlayStation will lose players over these decisions. It’ll certainly lose some – but it’s playing the long game. It wants to set the bar now, ahead of the PS6, so the backlash doesn’t bleed into that generation – most importantly because of the rumoured handheld component of it all.

Giving PlayStation players another avenue to play – i.e., on the go – gives them another touchpoint to spend. Like all entertainment and social media companies, gaming is fighting for attention share. The attention economy is completely oversaturated with subscriptions, feed-based video, and distractions galore.

Time means money – and Valve has seen Steam Deck owners’ purchases on Steam rise once they get the device. I know I’m in that group.

That device will also be digital-only, so I understand why PlayStation is ripping the band-aid off now. But these things cascade – so the PR miss of Xbox scoring off Sony’s stumbles could have been avoided, I reckon.

A classic returns with Ocarina of Time on Switch 2

Millennials worldwide shed a happy tear during this week’s Zelda Nintendo Direct, as Nintendo showed off some early-game footage of the Ocarina of Time remake (played by none other than Aonuma himself), and it looks gorgeous.

There’s so much nostalgia here. It’s essentially a 1:1 remake of the seminal 1998 classic – which remains the #1 top-scoring game on Metacritic, by the way – with some stunning visual upgrades (I like ‘em, anyway!), quality-of-life improvements, and a jump button (!!!).

We covered why remakes are such a popular strategy right now in the past, but the gist is that they’re less risky (there’s a primed fanbase and a design guideline already built in), and Ocarina of Time’s legendary status has an air of mystery around it.

The project will also help Nintendo train its future leaders – a key strategy in Japan. It’s also part of why FromSoftware and Capcom have been so successful. One benefit of the Japanese development scene is the institutional knowledge, as developers are way less likely to get fired after shipping compared to the US…

And there’s a tonne of millennials who played the original Ocarina of Time and now have kids who are about 10. A lot of those kids have played Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Their parents will want to play OoT again for the nostalgia – but they’ll also want their kids to check it out.

While Ocarina of Time is fantastic (it still holds up), and one of the most revered games of all time for a certain age of gamer, it ‘only’ sold about 15M copies across the N64 and the 3DS remake. Meanwhile, Breath of the Wild has sold about 34M copies, and Tears of the Kingdom 23M.

So there are plenty of folks who played the Switch-era Zeldas but never touched the original OoT. Plenty of those kids are also a prime audience for the Legend of Zelda movie, and Nintendo benefits from having the OoT remake around during that film’s launch. While there are Switch 2 editions of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, plenty of the film’s audience will already own those games – at least on the original Switch.

In fact, the OoT reveal seemed geared towards those unfamiliar with OoT, going out of its way to stress that the jump button is a big deal, and that it’s a different, more linear kind of game than BotW and TotK.

But if the movie ties into OoT’s story – which I think it will, more than the lighter story notes in the Switch Zeldas anyways – Ocarina of Time would be the ultimate companion. The ‘’trouble’’ is, it’s only on Switch 2, so it should boost some Switch 2 sales even after OoT lands.

Of course, hordes of millennials will also buy Switch 2s simply to replay this childhood classic. However, it’s launching two weeks before GTA, another favourite of millennials. Although, given Ocarina of Time‘s prestige, the high number of kids on Steam, the popularity of the Zelda brand in general, and the number of PC owners who also have a Switch (but are too smug to buy a console), OoT can still compete here.

Everybody else has cleared the hell out of the way of GTA’s blast radius, so the OoT Remake might be one of the only games that could withstand GTA. The sheer force of Zelda’s legacy gives it a unique market resilience.

And if the movie does half as well as the Mario ones, OoT will help spark Switch 2 sales in 2027 as well. That matters too, because Pokémon – a franchise at its absolute peak – is right around the corner, and it’ll be a huge cash influx for Nintendo, plus a system seller for the many Pokémon sickos (generations’ worth) out there right now.

So yeah, Ocarina of Time is going to be huge for Switch 2, it’s a nice precursor to 2027’s Pokémon, and it sets up an eventual 3D Mario and Smash further down the line.

And that’s the end of the first Rhys’s Pieces! Let me know if there are any other topics or Alinea data deep-dives you want us to cover. Oh – and chocolate and peanut butter is an abomination. Especially American chocolate. Butyric acid, no thanks!

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The last word

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[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

The Blood of Dawnwalker is doing well, especially in its home market

And a lot of them are SELLING. The Blood of Dawnwalker, for example, has passed 1M copies, as confirmed by Poland-based Rebel Wolves.

Polish players showed up for this one in full force. On Steam, where The Blood of Dawnwalker has sold over 410K copies as per our estimates, Poland accounts for 11% of players, making it the game’s #2 market by players.

It also did well on GOG, the Polish-based DRM-free games site. As we always say, local players show up for local games. And publisher Bandai Namco is likely VERY happy with this one.

As you might expect, The Blood of Dawnwalker‘s top premium game by crossover is The Witcher 3 (much of the core team is Witcher alumni). About 58% of The Blood of Dawnwalker‘s Steam players have also played The Witcher 3.

Of Dawnwalker‘s Steam players, 13% have played Mortal Shell 2 (more on that in a bit), while 9% have played Onimusha: Way of the Sword. There’s that hardcore cohort that buys everything at launch for you.

Speaking of demons and Onimusha...

Onimusha does well in China on Steam

Onimusha: Way of the Sword has also passed 1M copies shipped, as per Capcom. In terms of copies sold through to consumers (so no unsold retail copies), our estimates have Onimusha closing in on 900K across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox.

Way of the Sword actually marks the first new title in the series in over two decades. Capcom made sure the word got out, with plenty of pre-launch marketing, including a demo (2M players, as per our estimates) and hands-ons at events.

Our events database – part of our platform – shows Onimusha was part of 16 different events. You can see the impact of those events on Steam wishlist deltas below:

While most of Onimusha‘s sold-through copies came from PS5 (32% of them physical), it managed almost 400K copies on Steam alone, worth about $23M in revenue. About 42% of Onimusha: Way of the Sword‘s Steam copies came from China, its #1 market by far (the US is #2 with 15%).

Around 40% of Onimusha‘s Steam players played the demo first. And on the other side, 25% of everyone who played the demo went on to buy the full game on Steam. And 37% of those demo players were based in China. Great demos work very well in general, but even more so in China.

Beyond quality (it’s bloody awesome!), part of Onimusha’s success in China is down to it having a full Simplified Chinese voiceover – as well as the game’s regional pricing, which you can see in our platform below:

Of all countries, China has the cheapest launch price (about $44.40 USD), compared to $69.99 in the US (+54.8% on the China price), £59.99 in the UK (+82.8%), and – what I paid – €69.99 across the EU. Why’d I move here again!?

A proven great action game, at a good price, and with a Chinese dub = success in China. We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again as more publishers catch on.

Capcom has generated over $617M on Steam already this year

Anyway, Capcom is on a generational run, and Steam is at the heart of it. The publisher has pulled in a staggering $617M in gross revenue on Steam this year – about 4% of all revenue generated on Steam so far this year. Of that $617M on Steam:

• 61.6% comes from the Resident Evil IP, Capcom’s cash cow.

• 32.6% comes from Resident Evil Requiem and its DLC alone (over $200M)

• 49.1% comes from catalogue (games that launched before 2026)

• 9.8% comes from Pragmata ($60.5M and counting on Steam)

And with the massive launch of Onimusha, that’s another feather in Capcom’s already impressive Steam cap. Capcom recently reaffirmed that it’s “working to further maximise corporate value by leveraging its rich library of content.”

Just make a new Dino Crisis already...

And finally, before we get to the PlayStation Plus list: Mortal Shell 2, whose launch we covered here, is well on its way to 1M, having just hit 814K copies sold (51% on Steam, 40% on PS5, the rest on Xbox). Discount soon!? It’s generated $37M across those platforms – great for such a small team.

The top PS Plus games so far this year

PlayStation Plus has had a diverse year for attracting new players to games:

• FC 26 took the top spot, with 7.8M new players via its PS+ inclusion. It was free to claim for PlayStation Plus Essential subscribers between May 6 and June 17, during which about 5M players accessed it through their subscription. Many claimed FC 26 during the window but only played later – including over 1M players between the end of the window and the World Cup final.

• Spider-Man 2 swings in at #2 with 4.3M, having been added to PlayStation Plus Extra’s catalogue on Feb 18. There was a huge spike of new players when it landed on PS+, then it settled to about 100K a week. Though, the recent Spider-Man movie gave it a boost (just like its copies sold). To date, Spider-Man 2 has generated about $1.3 billion across platforms. All eyes are on Wolverine‘s release next week.

  

• Grounded, an Xbox port, pulled in 3.2M new players via PlayStation Plus, thanks to monthly PS+ Essential inclusion between June 3 and July 8. Most seem to have been curious – rather than committed – players. About 42% of Grounded‘s PlayStation players have played for under an hour, and about 70% under five hours. Still, it’s sold over 850K copies on PlayStation to date, generating over $25M. If I was a betting man, I’d say the PS+ deal was likely a precursor to a Grounded 2 PS5 release. Though, whether that still happens under the current administration looks shaky.

• Big Walk, one of the rare games to actually launch straight onto PS+ as a free monthly title, got 2.8M PlayStation Plus players. That cannibalised sales on PlayStation (a little over 10K copies and under $200K in revenue). But the PlayStation leg of the co-op-only game was likely meant as marketing (and server-filler) for the Steam version. Network effects, and all that. On Steam, Big Walk has sold 1.8M copies and generated $23M. Bangin’ for a 30-ish-person dev team.

• Undisputed managed 2.8M players via its PlayStation Plus Essential addition between Feb 4 and March 4. This boxing game was more one for the ball-and-gun crowd. In February, when Undisputed was on PS+, its top games by crossover were Fortnite (played by 31% of Undisputed players that month), NBA 2K26 (30%), GTA 5 (26%), Roblox (24%), and FC 26 (24%). The team is hard at work on a sequel, and they have a strong base to springboard off.

• GTA 5 pulled in another 2.5M PS+ players this year, thanks to its ongoing presence on the Extra tier (re-added for the third time last November). As you’d expect, the period after the GTA 6 extended gameplay reveal on August 27 enjoyed a small spike of new players via PlayStation Plus.

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Cool links and other stuff

• Last week’s newsletter on Steam revenues was picked up by loads of the press, including GameSpot, Eurogamer, and GamesRadar

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The last word

Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.

[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

And the first eight months of this year have already leapfrogged 2023’s total. This year will almost certainly end well above $20 billion for the first time.

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In perhaps less positive news, Steam has had 19K new releases this year, already approaching 2025’s number and surpassing 2024’s… And we’ve got the whole gen-AI slop wave imminent.

But that’s a story for another time.

What are 2026’s top new games on Steam by revenue so far?

By all counts, 2026 has been a bloody fantastic year for new games on Steam, with plenty more bangers to come. You can see our estimates for the top new 2026 games by revenue on Steam below:

In the past, we’ve written about each of these games ad nauseam. We won’t do it again, so you can catch an overview in this post we wrote about two months ago, and the links below have our launch deep dives on each game:

• Forza Horizon 6

• Crimson Desert

• Resident Evil Requiem

• Slay the Spire 2

• Subnautica 2

• Meccha Chameleon

But yeah, in total, these six games make up a little under $1B of 2026’s Steam gross revenues so far, accounting for about 6.6%.

The top 100 of new 2026 games by gross revenues this year is about $2.4B, or about 15.9% of 2026’s Steam overall revenues so far. Of the new-game top 100, 63% were actually new IP, but 52.5% of the revenue ($1.25B) came from established IP.

But it’s worth noting Crimson Desert, with its $203M, accounts for about 18% of all new-IP revenue in the top 100. When we take Crimson out of the analysis, the 62 new-IP games make up only about 39%. So there are a lot of mid-market new IP games in that list.

Speaking of mid-market…

Steam’s “mid-market” is mostly a bunch of older blockbusters in a trench coat

Last month, Joost van Dreunen (one of my personal heroes and a friend of Alinea’s) published a cracking piece – as he always does – Revenge of Steam’s mid-market. If you haven’t given it a read, do so. It’s a very sharp look at shifting PC economics this year.

The argument, in short: growth on the world’s biggest PC storefront has stopped flowing to the blockbusters and started flowing to the middle.

Joost is absolutely right that catalogue is making up a bigger chunk of the release calendar. But there’s one part of the piece that I’d like to add to. The post treats the entire 101-1000 ranked Steam games by revenues as mid-market.

While plenty of mid-market games are indeed on that list, many of the games are behemoths of years gone by sliding down the charts years after launch. It was the first thing that sprung to mind reading the fantastic piece, and a few commenters also caught this.

We checked out the Alinea estimates for the top 1,000 Steam games by gross revenue in 2026, alongside each title’s first release date and its lifetime gross revenue to date, then zoomed in on the 900 games ranked 101 to 1,000. A few things jumped out:

• They’re mid-market, relatively speaking: Mid-market is a fair description of these games when looking at 2026 revenues in a vacuum. The median title has pulled in about $4M in 2026, from $19.9M at rank 101 to $1.9M at the bottom. Sounds pretty mid-market to me too

• But the majority are older games: Of the 900, 83% launched before 2026, two-thirds are two years old or more, and just 17% are 2026 games. There’s a lot of catalogue stuff here. Games that have made $50M+ in total since launch account for 51% of the list’s 2026 revenue. So it’s mostly old catalogue, not a rising new middle.

• There are older blockbusters galore: About a third of the games have earned over $50M in their lifetime, 22.3% over $75M, 140 over $100M, and 5.2% over $200M. And this list just covers Steam. Many of the games have generated just as much revenue on other platforms.

• There are still plenty of mid-tier games in the list: There’s a pretty big minority of what I’d call mid-market games in the list, though, including Mortal Shell II (BANGER), Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, and The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin

But when you look at some of the other games in the list, the number of blockbusters is difficult to overlook:

And these games aren’t cherry-picked. Games like Skyrim, Battlefield 2042, The Elder Scrolls Online, DOOM Eternal, Assassin’s Creed Origins, Devil May Cry 5, Total War: Warhammer II, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Metro Exodus, and many other iconic titles show up as well.

So what’s all this mean?

The thesis – that the top 10 is shrinking while the middle grows – only works if the middle is made of new mid-sized games. But our estimates show that isn’t quite the case. And where a game ranks on Steam today doesn’t really tell you what kind of game it is.

A game grossing $4M on Steam in 2026 can seem mid-market now, but if it was built on a $100M budget years ago – generating $200M+ lifetime – it’s apples-to-oranges with a scrappy AA team on a $5M budget. They just happen to be right next to each other on the 2026 chart.

While there are plenty of mid-sized and indie heavy hitters (especially on Steam), the market is still largely a hit-driven one. It’s just that many are blockbusters of years gone by sold at a discount (one of Steam’s best value propositions, honestly).

None of this is a knock on Joost –just a bit more colour to an excellent piece (and the kinds of pieces the industry needs more of).

The last word

Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.

[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

Let’s have a look at the games at the event that brought in the most new Steam wishlists between August 23 and 30. One quick thing before we start, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but wishlists are NOT a barometer for launch sales (they’re bookmarks, not baskets is what we always say over here at Alinea).

With that aside, wishlists are a nice gauge of hype, so let’s dive in.

Witche(r)s and Warlocks take the top two spots

The biggest game of the event (by new wishlists, anyways) wasn’t a game at all. It was an expansion. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s upcoming expansion, Songs of the Past, nabbed 451K Steam wishlists by the end of the weekend.

It’s a big example of something we bang on about constantly: proven IP with built-in fandom is the most powerful force in this market. But said IP can also ripple into other external success stories (more on that later!). Anyway, Songs of the Past debuted at Opening Night Live, and it’s the first Witcher 3 expansion in over a decade, landing next year after a full Witcher 3 remaster (free for existing owners!) arrives next month.

The Witcher 3 has sold around 66M copies, and I’ll be one of those owners jumping back in to refresh myself on the core game (like there isn’t enough to play!), then play the expansion next year. This is all part of CDPR’s plan. The studio is clearly whetting everyone’s appetite for The Witcher 4 in 2028 via a classic bridge strategy.

Releasing a free 4K remaster next month – followed by a proper expansion in 2027 – keeps IP top-of-mind across a huge gap between content (games-wise, anyway). It kind of echoes Capcom’s evergreen catalogue strategy. And outsourcing co-development to Fool’s Theory (a studio led by trusted Witcher 3 veterans) keeps CDPR’s internal headcount focused on The Witcher 4.

#2 by wishlists between Aug 23 and 30 went to another giant IP: Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons, published by Wizards of the Coast and developed by Invoke Studios (a team of ex-Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and Splinter Cell devs). It’s due to launch in 2027, and it looks brilliant so far.

It’s a dark-fantasy open world with third-person spell-slinging. It’s a very Witcher-ish aesthetic. As you might expect, 48% of Warlock’s Steam wishlisters have played Baldur’s Gate 3, and 46% have played The Witcher 3. One to watch. For sure!

Mash-ups: Anime GTA (!?) and a city-builder for kids (and adults)

Ananta took #3 with 302K new wishlists. It’s an open-world game that looks like GTA and Persona had a baby. It was published by NetEase, developed by Naked Rain, and got a trailer at Opening Night Live. I got hands-on at the show, and it wears its influences openly; there’s literal web-slinging (very Spider-Man) and a LOAD of mini-games (Like a Dragon). It’s free-to-play and out in January.

For Ananta, Naked Rain is taking the free-to-play, cosmetics-only route. That’s certainly a choice for a single-player open-world game. Without gacha mechanics driving high ARPU, Ananta is betting purely on top-of-funnel reach and long-term retention. This puts pressure on skin appeal when there’s no multiplayer lobby to flex in (although, co-op is reportedly coming later).

Then there’s Lego Skylines (273K wishlists between Aug 23 and 30), which does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a cosy Lego twist on the city-builder genre, as shallow or as deep as you fancy (five min quick sesh or ten-hour no-lifer session; latter for me). There’s some family-friendly stuff in there like couch co-op, which is only really viable on console.

Iceflake Studios, which Paradox acquired back in 2020 is developing this one. So Paradox is probably looking for a family-friendly onramp to its rad Cities: Skylines games. The overlap there is plain, with 33% of Lego Skylines wishlisters having played Cities: Skylines and 16% Skylines II.

There’s no doubt plenty of parents here (and uncles, ahem) planning to indoctrinate the next gen of city-builders. I’ll definitely be playing with my youngest nephew. This one could be big and educational. I’m very curious to see more.

Mature IP, new and old, rounds out the list

As for the rest of the list of gamescom games by new wishlists between Aug 23 and 30:

• Heroes of Might & Magic III Remake got 189K new wishlists. It remakes the iconic 1999 turn-based-strategy classic in full 3D and 4K. It follows this year’s Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era (~1.8M copies sold, as per our estimates), and around a quarter of the III Remake wishlisters have played Olden Era, including 7% of them this month.

• Wardogs – a $40 PvP shooter – added another 146K to an already massive pile (nearly 1.6M total). It’s published by Team17 and made by Bulkhead. It plays somewhere between the tactical squad stuff of … Squad and the all-out-chaos battlefield of … Battlefield. It’s up to 100 players, and it’s out in about 10 days. It’s already pre-sold over 500K copies on Steam ($16.6M), boosted by a pre-order-only beta. It sold another 70K copies during gamescom, too.

• Afterworld managed 121K new wishlists. It’s a Paradox-made post-apocalyptic grand-strategy game, and it was announced at the show. It’s a departure from Paradox’s usual historical stuff, and the studio’s first new setting in over a decade. The Paradox purists are into it, with over half its wishlisters having played Hearts of Iron IV (19% this month) and 41% Crusader Kings III (17% this month).

• Metro 2039 got 110K during the show, tunnelling its total past 1.3M. Nearly 40% of wishlisters have played 2020’s Metro Exodus, the previous mainline title in the series. The Metro novels are Russian, dev 4A Games is Ukrainian, and it’s set in Moscow, so it’s unsurprising that – after the US (17.3% of wishlisters) – the next two countries are Russia (12.7%) and Ukraine (10.0%).

• The Blood of the Dawnwalker drew in (the blood of) 108K new wishlisters, now totalling an impressive 1.7M (at a $70 price point, though). It’s an open-world dark-fantasy action-RPG set in 14th-century Europe (with vampires!), made by some former Witcher devs at Rebel Wolves. Again, it shows. Over half of Blood of the Dawnwalker’s wishlisters have played The Witcher 3, and its #2 market is Poland, home of Rebel Wolves. That’s that hometown-hero effect we keep banging on about again!

And Blood of the Dawnwalker plays very well, by the way. While it looks like a Witcher clone on the surface, it actually brings a lot to the table mechanics-wise. I love the whole time-as-a-currency spin on RPG gameplay. It gives the game a different, refreshing pace.

Essentially, you start Blood of the Dawnwalker with a pool of 480 action points spread across 30 days and 30 nights. As for how the game performs, we’ll be posting some numbers next week, so hit subscribe below to get that in your inbox when it’s ready.

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The Witcher’s legacy ripples

Make no mistake: on a high level, this was The Witcher‘s gamescom. The #1 game by wishlisters was a Witcher 3 DLC. Warlock is clearly Witcher-inspired – as is Blood of the Dawnwalker, which was made by ex-Witcher devs. There was a lot of other cool stuff on the floor that we’ll no doubt be covering in subsequent newsletters, though!

As always, wishlists went through the roof for sequels, remakes, DLC, and licensed IP. As always, though, these wishlists will likely convert to about 5% to 10% of launch-day buyers, with the probable exception of The Witcher DLC – the exception that proves the rule.

Either way, we’ve got a nice, diverse list here – one that is very Witcher-y, Paradox-y, and – if you’re a fan of great games on Steam – a bloody good list. We even got a bunch of new IP to get excited for.

Great gamescom! Even if we are still processing that unfathomable number of mini Kölsch beers!

One more thing: GTA 6 broke the internet (again)

Move aside, Spider-Man and The Odyssey (I love you both, really). But the decade’s defining entertainment zeitgeist is round the corner. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that Rockstar dropped an extended look at GTA 6 last week.

It was INSANE, the most impressed I’ve ever been by a showcase like this. You can see the budget seeping through every second of the extended look, and this level of game is unobtainable for any other publisher. Everyone’s going nuts, and rightly so.

GTA 6 is out in holiday 2026, and it’ll be the biggest entertainment release ever, full stop. For those without a PS5 or Xbox Series console, a $500-$900 console is a big ask in this economy, but GTA will pull a lot of last-generation-console fence sitters over the current-gen fence either way:

• The autumn timing puts GTA 6 on (digital) shelves for the holidays, meaning a PS5 or Xbox (let’s be honest, mostly the former) will be on many a Christmas and Hanukkah list. Demand will outweigh the struggling supply, though, and PS5 Pros are already sold out and being sold at a markup via scalpers. Every console that isn’t on a shelf is a sale deferred or lost, and worse, it hands scalpers the margin.

• GTA has cultural clout that reaches everyone. It’s been a mainstream fixture since 2001’s GTA III and its clout has only grown exponentially since then. There’s a touchpoint for every generation alive. The FOMO-word-of-mouth double punch does the rest.

• It’ll reactivate the lockdown cohort, the millions who picked up gaming in 2020-21 and churned. GTA 6 will bring them back. Remember when College Football 25 brought a bunch of US gamers to current-gen consoles? GTA will do that globally.

• Once they’re back (or upgraded), and all GTA’d out, the fresh current-gen-console folks will check out the rest of the current-gen catalogue they missed. GTA Online, if not free to play, will also lead to a boost for PS+ and Xbox Game Pass, another boost for the ecosystem players.

• Even some of the smug PCMR 60FPS crew won’t be able to resist their FOMO and will bite the bullet on a console to play this one early (then double dip). The consoles cost the same as a decent stick of RAM these days anyway lmao…

Don’t get me wrong, though. GTA 6 is no silver bullet for the mature console market, but it does prime the current gen for a couple of strong swan-song years. And it’ll also give the consoles more users from which to maximise ARPU.

‘’We are in the latter half of the lifetime cycle of [the PS5],’’ said Sony President and CEO Hiroki Totoki in a Wall Street Journal interview. ‘’That means we do not need to aggressively sell the console today; rather than that, we are focusing on the current revenue from the current user base.’’

The biggest, best premium games always arrive late in a console cycle, so getting more players aboard now, ahead of that content storm (the new current-gen-only Call of Duty included), is a clear win for the platforms.

On the Netflix thing, though: let’s all chill out a bit, like. Half my LinkedIn feed was going bonkers treating the reveal debuting on Netflix like it’s the future of entertainment. It wasn’t. It was a six-hour head start, and Netflix left that detail out of the “first-of-its-kind partnership” press release. The extended look hit Netflix at 3pm ET on 27 August, then went up on YouTube and Rockstar’s site for everyone six hours later. And it was all over social immediately, anyways.

This reveal was going to reach an untold number of people whether it debuted on Netflix, YouTube, a Times Square screen, or a group chat. The last trailer did nearly half a billion views in a day with no gatekeeper at all. Netflix just stood next to that audience for six hours, borrowing it. It’s was a tidy deal for Netflix, sure. But every outlet on earth was breaking the thing down frame by frame by the evening anyway.

Anyway. I’m hype. And we’ll be covering some GTA numbers on the newsletter soon. So hit subscribe below to get that in your inbox when it’s ready!

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[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

But because we’re busy in Cologne, we’re doing one newsletter this week. To make up for it, here are a few quick hits for you.

How to Fish, Modern Warfare 4, and Helldivers 2

It’s fish, CoD, and (hell)diving. Sorry, had to! Anyway:

• How to Fish, a new friendslop phenomenon, has hit 1.9M copies sold. It’s a wacky fishing-sim spin on low-fi co-op, and it’ll certainly pass 2M copies sold very soon. It hits all the right friendslop gates, being cheap ($4.95 with a 38%-off launch discount), mental, and bloody fun. It’s closing on $8M in revenue. Landfall Games (Content Warning, half of Peak) helped out the devs, Dazed Games, financially here. 53% of How to Fish players have also played Peak, while 27% played Content Warning. SyNeRgY, baby.

  

• Modern Warfare 4 is approaching 400K pre-launch copies on Steam (nearly $21M) after its pre-order beta weekend. Steam has never been CoD’s main home, even within PC. Last year’s Black Ops 7 had sold a bit over 200K on Steam at launch, and MW4 has doubled that with two months to go. Sadly, the beta reaction has been mixed. Reviewers enjoyed the gunplay, visuals, and progression in the beta, but traversal, spawn points, and time-to-kill were polarising. Also, something I haven’t heard many folks talk about is that MW4 is the first CoD to skip the PS4/Xbox One generation entirely. That and GTA will for sure nudge the last-gen holdouts, with PlayStation being the big winner there.

• A couple of weeks ago, Sony announced that Helldivers 2 hit 22.9M registered players as of 9 August. Our estimate that day was 22.3M, a 2.6% margin of error. Today, our estimates have players split at 65.0% Steam, 27.3% PS5, and 7.7% Xbox. And since Helldivers 2 hit PS Plus Extra less than two weeks ago, it’s added nearly 800K new players via the service. Lifetime gross revenue is now approaching $800M across platforms. As a result of the PS Plus addition, Helldivers 2 is having its best engagement month since a little after the Xbox Series edition’s launch and related updates, bringing in 5.5M MAUs across platforms in August so far (versus 5.9M in September last year).

Mortal Shell 2 has generated $23M so far

Mortal Shell 2 is the latest soulslike to hit the market, and it’s doing nicely so far. Since launching on 20 August, Mortal Shell 2 has sold through (no unsold retail copies!) 510K copies, with 57.6% on Steam, 33.8% on PS5, and 8.6% on Xbox. About 10% of the PS5 copies were physical.

In terms of revenue, Mortal Shell 2 has generated $23M. As usual, the revenue platform split differs to copies:

• Steam’s at 57.6% for copies but 51.8% of revenue

• PS5 is 33.8% of copies but 38.5% for rev. So on a per-copy basis, a Steam sale is worth around $41 in gross revenue, and a PS5 about $51.

• Meanwhile, Xbox is at 8.6% for copies and 9.7% for revs.

The difference between console and Steam is regional pricing, with Steam’s volume leaning more on cheaper-priced regions (more on that in a bit), but console serves a higher share of higher-priced Western markets.

I spent about 10 hours on Mortal Shell 2 over the weekend, and – in my humble opinion – it’s the best non-FromSoftware soulslike, currently beating even the excellent Lies of P. Obviously, recency bias is a thing, and I’ve still got most of the game ahead of me. But consider me impressed.

Mortal Shell 2 nails the soulslike genre staples. It’s hard as hell, grim, grotesque, and atmospheric, and the story unfolds very weirdly and wonderfully. It also has its own identity; no stamina meter, a rewarding parry system, and the returning shell system that lets you swap between playstyles. It’s very versatile and very fun.

Most people agree, but not everyone. More on that in a wee bit.

The demo sold a lot of folks on Mortal Shell 2

Dev Cold Symmetry and publisher Playstack knew they were onto a winner here, as they put out a meaty pre-launch demo. Their confidence paid off. Nearly a million people played the demo, as per our estimates, with roughly 600K playing the earlier Steam version, 225K on PS5, and 90K on Xbox.

Across platforms, about a third of Mortal Shell 2’s player base (full game) played the demo first. That’s some nice conversion. On Steam, about 14% played the demo this month, too. Getting in that last-minute purchase homework. Speaking of Steam, only about 9% of Mortal Shell 2’s Steam players had played the original Mortal Shell.

In other words, the demo did a better job of pushing buyers on Steam over the line at launch than the original. That said, the Steam version of the OG Mortal Shell had some ludicrous discounts (including a $1 one that helped sell 200K copies in a week last year). Either way, a sequel to a cult 2020 title attracting a Steam audience that’s 91% newcomers is awesome to see. And there are about 350K price-sensitive Steam wishlisters waiting to bite the bullet when a fitting-enough discount lands.

Console tells a slightly different, expected story. On PlayStation, 44% of Mortal Shell 2 players had played the original (59% on Xbox), far higher than Steam’s 9%. This is mostly due to subscriptions, including Mortal Shell’s PS Plus Essential monthly back in December 2021, two further stints on PS Plus Extra, and a couple of runs on Game Pass.

On Steam, the Mortal Shell 2 audience shows the hometown-hero effect we’re always banging on about. Russia is the game’s #3 market, behind the US and China, at over 8% of the Steam playerbase. While Cold Symmetry is a global team, its co-founders include well-known Russian devs Dmitry Parkin and Vitaly Bulgarov. Also, Mortal Shell 2 is appropriately priced in Russia at 2,299₽ – about $27.61 USD, which is 45% below the (already reasonable) $49.99 US price.

Mortal Shell 2 impressed critics, but Steam user reviews vary heavily by region

Critics enjoyed this one as well, with Mortal Shell sitting at a lovely 83 on Metacritic. And while the global Steam user score looks mixed at first glance (76% positive), there’s a familiar pattern happening.

Simplified Chinese reviews, accounting for 19.7% of the Steam user reviews, are at 51% positive, dragging the average down. When we took the traditional and simplified Chinese-language reviews out of our analysis, the positive score jumped from 76% to 82%.

Our sentiment analysis shows that the Chinese reviewers were most frustrated by the difficulty, enemy scaling, and enemy-density stacking. There’s a noticeable East-West divide in how reviewers are looking at Mortal Shell 2. While there might be something to say for difficulty tuning, I’ll leave that can of worms closed for now. GIT GUD.

Nonetheless, a 510K opening, strong reviews outside that divide, the word-of-mouth a genre darling like this one deserves, and smart discounting should give Mortal Shell 2 legs. A hell of an achievement for a small team.

Alright, time to squeeze in a couple more hours before I’m off to Cologne.

The last word

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[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

The developer and publisher is Beijing-based S-Game, but Sony’s been heavily involved, too, reportedly via PlayStation’s China Hero Project, which gives small- and mid-sized developers resources to make it globally.

Phantom Blade Zero launches on PS5 and Steam on October 29. If the Steam pre-release numbers are anything to go by, which they often are – see our pre-launch posts this year about Crimson Desert and Black Flag Resynced – Phantom Blade Zero is on track to hit it big time – if it sticks the landing.

Since its Steam pre-order button appeared a week ago, Phantom Blade Zero has sold 300K copies on Steam and generated $14.5M in revenue, with 10 bloody weeks left until it releases.

Phantom Blade Zero also just passed 1.6M Steam wishlists, comfortably the most of any game coming out this year. Our estimates showed it had some big wishlist jumps after its Game Awards trailer, its inclusion in the June State of Play, and – of course – its rad dedicated State of Play deep dive a couple of days ago.

PlayStation is pushing this one hard, with a dedicated 20-minute State of Play deep dive, write-ups on the PlayStation Blog, and some PlayStation-peripheral features that are usually reserved for first-party games, like haptics, adaptive triggers, and 3D audio.

In other words, Phantom Blade Zero is getting the full first-party marketing treatment, and for good reason (more on that later!)

China is obviously going to show up for Phantom Blade Zero, and Steam is vital

Let’s get the obvious comparison out of the way. This one is ticking a lot of the same boxes as Black Myth: Wukong. Phantom Blade Zero looks big-budget, bloody awesome looking, and is a culturally rooted Chinese action game that’s resonating with folks across the East and West alike.

I had a chat with China gaming consultant Daniel Camilo earlier, and he reckons hype in China is high right now. In Dan’s words (can I call you Dan? I’m calling you Dan...), it’s “nowhere near what it was like for Black Myth: Wukong, but considerably higher than what we saw before the launch of Wuchang.”

His boots-on-the-ground read is that Wukong was a once-in-a-generation cultural movement that basically everyone in China was exposed to, whereas Phantom Blade Zero is “much more a ‘gamers’ thing’, but in a big way.” Obviously, that could snowball, though.

For example, there’s a wave of local brands already announcing branding partnerships and licensing deals around Phantom Blade Zero, mostly merchandise and accessories for now, but Dan expects that to expand to food-and-drink stuff (usually a tell of a big Chinese game launch) likely to follow at release.

Phantom Blade Zero also – unlike most Western games without a local partner – has the official go-ahead to launch in China:

‘’Phantom Blade Zero has a publishing license for Mainland China and will release in the country simultaneously with the rest of the world, so that will allow S Game and all its partners to visibly boost the marketing beyond what most games who don’t have a license usually do in China,’’ Daniel told me.

‘’We’ll see a lot more IRL [in-real-life] offline promotional activities and exposure, and not just the usual online marketing blitz other premium games launch to here, generally.’’

Phantom Blade Zero leans hard into the home-market appeal (there’s that hometown hero effect we’ve covered here a bunch). Phantom Blade Zero’s action is heavily based around authentic Chinese martial arts (with Hong Kong action legend Donnie Yen being a mo-cap performer and consultant – as well as consulting from Shaolin and other traditional schools).

There’s also a bunch of cool Chinese cultural heritage in the game, including lion dances, Beijing opera, nuo masks, imperial ceremony, ink-wash art, and all that neat stuff. It’s a game that clearly will evoke a similar kind of national pride that Black Myth Wukong did.

Our estimates show that of Phantom Blade Zero’s 1.6M wishlists:

• 29% are in China

• 17% in the US

• And 5% from Japan

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but wishlists for AAA and AA are just bookmarks for discounts and don’t show purchase intent at launch. Still, the geographic breakdown is a decent proxy for interest – and China is, indeed, damn interested.

Of course, it’s ticking all the right boxes for landing well in China. Phantom Blade Zero has a Chinese dub, and is regionally priced well for China and surrounding countries. It costs $60 in the US, but the equivalent of:

• $39.84 in China (-33.6% of the U.S. price)

• $41.81 in Hong Kong (-30.3%)

• $43.25 in Taiwan (-27.9%)

• And it’s also cheaper in a lot of emerging markets (but for some reason, it’s the equivalent of $80.90 in Poland…)

How Phantom Blade Zero is tracking on Steam compared to Black Myth and Wuchang

Looking at our launch-aligned Steam copies sold estimates, we can see that Phantom Blade Zero had sold around 286K copies 70 days before launch (yesterday). It’s about 6.4x more than what Wuchang: Fallen Feathers had sold on Steam 70 days before its launch (45Kish), and about 73% of Black Myth: Wukong’s frankly mental 393Kish.

So yeah, Wukong’s curve was steeper. Its pre-order button was activated late, but it accelerated faster and overtook Phantom Blade Zero in the last few days of the above window, and it went on to be a generational phenomenon (17M copies on Steam, over half in China, as per our estimates).

While Phantom Blade Zero isn’t currently tracking to be the next Wukong, it’s well ahead of Wuchang – not confusing at all, I know! But tracking in the same ballpark as Black Myth: Wukong is hell of a position to be in.

That brings us on to our next point, and it’s an obvious one some of us in-the-weeds data types can forget.

Phantom Blade Zero needs to actually be good, obviously

Wuchang is the cautionary tale here. It had strong initial interest and seemed poised to capture some of that Black Myth-like glory, then quality and optimisation problems capped it. So S-Game obviously knows the stakes of dropping the ball, having already delayed Phantom Blade Zero by 50 days (from September 9 to October 29 ) for polish and to avoid a chunky post-launch patch.

There are risks, though. I’d say the minimum specs on PC are a touch aggressive for China and could cap some adoption. The minimum requirement of a GTX 1660 cuts off a chunky cohort of Steam users still on 1060s, 1650s, and even mobile 2060 laptops.

We’ve been looking at a lot of China Steam user reviews lately, and a combo of soft image clarity and low framerates is a classic trigger for those pesky ‘’bad optimisation!’’ bombs.

Chinese players who can’t express their frustration on forums and Discord servers due to the Great Firewall will instead voice their concerns via user reviews. While Steam shows local reviews to players, much of Phantom Blade Zero’s true success rides on China. So this might be a bit of an issue.

A smaller, but vocally loud friction point on console is the ‘’no disc, no buy’’ movement. It’s a minor issue relative to the Steam optismisation, but one worth mentioning all the same.

Why is PlayStation all over this?

We nerds who have been reading all of Sony’s financials have noticed that the messaging has moved away from China and PC and towards other stuff. Yet, backing a game like Phantom Blade Zero, reportedly a part of the China Hero Project and made by a Beijing dev, is a way for PlayStation to keep one foot in the Steam and therefore China market (for single-player, anyways) without taking away from its core value proposition (the box, the ecosystem).

Beyond maximising revenue per user, China is a growth vector in today’s AAA and AA games ecosystem. So Sony is sort of having it both ways here, depending on its agreement with S-Game.

But in the end, Phantom Blade Zero is very much on track to be a massive hit. If it’s as amazing as it looks (important!), it’ll be a sense of national pride in China. And in the West, it’ll be associated with PlayStation.

As for me, I can’t wait to sink my teeth into this one. Hit subscribe below to see how it tracks at launch!

Cool links and other stuff

• We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply right here on Substack/email, and we’ll set you up.

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Can almost taste that Kölsch already!

The last word

Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.

[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

Since last year, new Call of Duty games are now off Game Pass day and date, the new one is launching on Switch 2 (the first time in 13 years!), and this year is a good comp in that Modern Warfare 4 isn’t in direct competition with Battlefield 6 and the surprise-ish hit Arc Raiders.

Non-coincidentally, Activision has also just dropped two iconic Black Ops ports on PlayStation to remind everyone how much they loved old CoD, and to great effect.

The signals are positive so far when we look at Steam. Modern Warfare 4 – which comes out on October 23, has already shifted 105K copies on Steam for $5.9M in revenue, as per our estimates.

Our wishlist estimates have Modern Warfare 4 at just 61K Steam wishlists. But the Steam page has been live for wishlisting and pre-purchase since the 28 May reveal. AAA wishliters practically never buy at launch, instead bookmarking to wait for a discount. Anyone eager has pre-ordered, so – simply put – wishlist count doesn’t matter a whole lot here.

That said, China is the biggest wishlist country for MW4 on Steam (about a fifth of the 61K). Steam is where Chinese players buy their AAA and AA games. Xbox hasn’t exactly been shy about its plans to conquer the East as well.

Before he became Xbox’s Chief Strategy Officer, Mathew Ball’s yearly reports – which handily aggregate a bunch of data and insights from financials and third-party data providers – often emphasised China as a growth vector for the industry.

And Xbox boss Asha Sharma said it herself in a recent memo to staff: “We will build long-term plans for our biggest franchises across film, television, consumer products, sponsorship, live experiences, and form new partnerships globally, including China”

The looming shadow, of course, is GTA 6 (out weeks after MW4). Our overlap shows that of everyone who’s played Call of Duty on Steam this month, about 6% have also played GTA 5 (10% on the consoles). GTA 6 is certainly going to steal some attention from CoD this November (and December, and January, and whenever the online launches...)

But still, the numbers and sentiment around MW4 are looking decent so far – or at least an improvement on last year. The imminent beta will likely boost those numbers, if it sticks the landing. We’ll get to that in a bit, but first let’s have a gander at how Xbox is looking to increase margins for CoD – beyond removing it from the Game Pass premium-sales-cannibalisation machine.

Nudging players away from physical more indirectly

In an official Call of Duty blog post, ironically subtitled with the game’s slogan of “Warfare Without Limits,” Xbox reveals there are – in fact – what seem to be limits. To play MW4’s campaign a week early, players have to digitally pre-order the Standard Digital or Vault edition. Multiplayer and everything else unlock on the October 23 launch, though.

This is a bit of behavioural nudging that’s actually a targeted strike on secondary-market cannibalisation. And it’s something CoD has done in the past even before Xbox acquired Activision.

There’s a little but real share of players who buy Call of Duty mainly for the campaign. CoD campaigns, while often superb (in my opinion, anyway), tend to be short. If you’re only there for the campaign and buy the disc, you might trade it in – recouping some money and potentially blocking a sale for Xbox, or pass it on to a mate when you’re done.

If the campaign is as good as I’m hearing, FOMO will push a lot of players to pull the trigger (pun not intended, promise!) onto the version they can’t trade in. It’s a similar squeeze Sony is bear-hugging with the move away from discs in 2028, but more precise and less direct.

It’s not just campaign stuff, though. Physical MW4 players also forgo other digital pre-order bonuses (online cosmetics, operator packs, and stuff). They’re really going in hard on the FOMO stuff, too:

• There’s a uniquely numbered cosmetic that is artificially scarce for the first 100K players who unlock it.

• A 10% “loyalty discount” on the Vault edition that’s exclusive to returning players who buy digitally (it’s not available if you upgrade later and pushes the faithful to the priciest edition at the earliest moment.

• A deployment bonus for the DMZ open-world extraction shooter mode that could be classed as pay-to-win – and might be a slippery slope.

At the end of the day, the message for fans is buy the digital expensive edition, and buy it now! It’s all part of the increase-ARPU-from-superfans push we’re continuing to see across the industry, as margins become evermore important in a mature market that’s no longer growing.

Those who pre-order Modern Warfare 4 digitally also get earlier access to the beta (they can access on August 21, a week before everybody else. The beta will have core 6v6 multiplayer, a single-player mission (not usual for a beta), and a whole bunch of other stuff you can see below:

As is usual (and smart), beta rewards will carry into the full game for retention and to avoid an annoying first-time use experience in the main game.

Of course, fellow Xbox first-party title Gears of War E-Day also had a beta recently, and it led to E-Day briefly hopping over Modern Warfare 4 in terms of copies sold. That suggests big things from the CoD beta – especially if it sticky grenades the landing (okay, that pun was intentional, obviously…)

Gears E-Day won a skirmish, but CoD will obvs still win the modern warfare

For the past couple of months, Modern Warfare 4 and E-Day have been shifting pre-order copies sold on Steam, and MW4 was comfortably leading for a while, until E-Day had its first beta, which ran between August 6 and 10 exclusively for those who pre-ordered (on Steam, anyway – we covered that beta for Xbox here).

As you can see above, the effect the beta had on Steam copies sold was quick:

• Before and during the beta, E-Day sold over 12K copies a day (versus MW4’s steadier 1.5K-ish)

• E-Day then overtook MW4 on August 7 it overtook Modern Warfare 4 outright for about eight days.

• But E-Day’s sales halted as soon as the beta ended, at just 2.3K more copies sold across the following week – even though there was an open beta last weekend (that beta attracted another 400K players on Xbox by the way, bringing the total across the betas to 1.6M)

The takeaway here, I reckon, is that the E-Day beta was a sugar rush for those probably already wanting to buy it eventually. It just pulled those purchase forward. And the momentum ended as soon as the pre-order-only beta did.

Meanwhile Modern Warfare 4 quickened its steady climb, thanks to a first-look trailer on 14 August (revealing that campaign mission in the beta) as well as increasing hype for its preorder-only beta.

MW4 retook the lead on 16 August and detonated, adding 6K+ copies in one day on 17 August. Now that MW4’s marketing cycle is kicking off in earnest, its sales across platforms will only continue to grow.

MW4’s early beta for digital pre-orders will no doubt drive sales on Steam. Hit subscribe below to see the impact, as well as some beta stats across console, next week.

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• We recently helped out our friends at the Cyprus Game Makers Association with a report about Cyrpus’ games market. You can download that for free here.

• We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply right here on Substack/email, and we’ll set you up.

• We’re heading to gamescom! Fancy a chat about games, want to hear what Alinea’s been up to, or anything else games-related? Give us a shout, and we’ll sort a coffee or a Kölsch.

The last word

Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.

[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

Despite not being a fighting-game guy, I gave this one a shot over a mate’s house. I found it awesome – easy to learn, hard to master (or so I hear), with a proper story mode and lush visuals. It treats the IP pretty well, too.

The lower Steam share tracks, with many fighting games skewing to console due to easier-to-access couch multiplayer. Marvel Tokon’s Steam launch, though, was marred by performance issues, bugs, intrusive DRM, and no Linux support (so no proper Steam Deck compatibility).

The Steam review score is pretty telling, at under 50% positive as I write this. It’s just 19% positive among those who played under an hour, suggesting a wave of bounce-and-refund players.

Arc has been patching hard, and many issues are already fixed, but first impressions are sticky. Tokon might have sold closer to 1M if the Steam stuff hadn’t been such an issue. Word of mouth was cut short.

Who’s playing Marvel Tokon?

Our estimates show that roughly 75% of Marvel Tokon players live in North America, with the majority, of course, in the US. This helps explain why the PS5 physical share at 15.1% – lower than usual for a new PlayStation game. US players skew more digital than most regions, and this is a heavily American audience. Captain America, indeed.

You can see some of our overview data in the Alinea platform screenshot below:

The PS5 audience overlap (the shared unique players between Tokon and other games) shows the hardcore fighting-game core tapped in. The entire top 10 by crossover is fighting games, with Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (8% crossover), Invincible VS (8%), and DNF Duel (7%) leading the way.

Directional overlap with the mainstream is strong on PS5, as well:

• 52% of PS5 Tokon players have played Dragon Ball FighterZ (another Arc-made, IP-driven fighter),

• 49% Street Fighter 5

• 41% Mortal Kombat 1

• 39% Street Fighter 6

• 35% Tekken 7

• And 25% apiece for Guilty Gear Strive (also Arc) and Riot’s 2XKO.

Marvel fandom too, of course

Marvel fandom is helping push copies on this one. On PS5, 60% of Tokon’s PS5 players have played Spider-Man: Miles Morales, 57% Spider-Man 2, and 53% Marvel Rivals.

Those numbers are higher than even the biggest fighting-game overlap (Dragon Ball FighterZ at 52%). As we covered earlier this week, Spider-Man in particular is very front of mind right now, thanks to the new movie. And Spidey is featured prominently on the artwork and trailers.

Relatively speaking, fighting games are a pretty niche genre (Smash, Dragon Ball Z, and flagship franchises like Street Fighter, Tekken, and Mortal Kombat aside…). Even Riot couldn’t crack it, laying off around 80 people, roughly half the 2XKO team, in February due to soft player momentum. Despite being free-to-play, 2XKO has pulled in just 1M players on PS5.

Meanwhile, Tokon is a paid, single-genre fighter that has done 485K in a week. One difference there (in addition to Riot fandom being mostly all PC) is the IP. Marvel is doing some lifting a niche genre can’t do on its own. That’s the bet PlayStation, Arc, and Marvel made, and – Steam wobbles aside – so far, so decent.

And I have a feeling this game will shift a few more copies for kiddos as we close in on the holiday season. Also, 43% of Marvel Tokon’s PS5 players played the open beta (55% on Steam), even through the PSN outages. Fans turned up to try it, and a healthy chunk converted into buyers. Yes, our platform now tracks demo and beta data across PlayStation, Steam, and Xbox!

Speaking of betas…

1.2M Xbox players emerged for Gears of War: E-Day’s first beta, and engagement was chunky

Gears of War: E-Day ran its first beta from 6 to 10 August, open to Game Pass Ultimate members, PC Game Pass members, and anyone who pre-ordered. On Xbox (console and PC), 1.2M players gave it a go, with almost 700K sinking their lancers in on Friday.

The audience is who you’d expect, the existing Gears faithful:

• Nearly 90% of beta players have previously played Gears 5.

• 55% did their homework for the prequel with last year’s Gears of War: Reloaded.

• 24.1% played 10+ hours, 12.7% 15+ hours, and 6.5% clocked 20+ hours.

This was a four-ish day beta, so the 6.5% putting in 20+ hours were playing four to five hours every single day of it (on average, more on the weekend, obviously). Some of this was driven by beta rewards that carry over to the full game (mainly an ‘’Epic’’ character skin at level 20, and ‘’Rare’’ weapon set for stuff in the PvE Horde Siege mode).

I jumped in myself and had an absolute blast. The new PvE mode is rad, the faster movement feels great (jumping in Gears feels wild), and the PvP is as bloody brilliant (and bloody and brilliant) as ever.

My one gripe, as always, for PvP Gears is the roll-wall bounce-Gnasher meta. I’ve never loved the series drifting shotgun-first, and I’d dearly love a no-shotgun mode – or at least one where we don’t spawn in with an OP shotgun. I digress.

On Steam, pre-order copies roughly doubled off the back of the beta, from around 50K before it to 100K after. Fence-sitters and later-buyers bit the bullet to get in, probably nudged by the strong word of mouth.

Obviously, 100K Steam pre-orders with a month and a half still to go is a healthy leading indicator for launch. Missing PS5 might come back to bite Xbox on this one, though. It’s on Steam anyway, after all.

Anyway, the Gears E-Day open beta kicks off today and runs until 17 August, so we’ll have more beta numbers next week. Hit subscribe below to get them in your inbox for free:

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Cool links and other stuff

• Our friends at IGN, Eurogamer, and Giant Bomb covered our Halo-focused newsletter from earlier this week.

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[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

Like most (though no longer all…) Xbox first-party games, Halo launched straight into Game Pass, with 2.1M players jumping in via a subscription across console and PC, and under 600K forking out the extra $20 for the premium pass to play up to five days early. Cannibalised sales.

Needless to say, that’s a soft performance for a remake of one of the most iconic console shooters – nay, one of the most iconic shooters full stop.

Why did Campaign Evolved sell so softly on Steam?

Steam is easiest to work out. Halo: The Master Chief Collection, a compilation of the core Halo games with online multiplayer included, is on Steam for $40, cheaper than Campaign Evolved’s $50 for the campaign only (plus a few bonus missions and a visual polish).

MCC has regularly dipped to $10, though not for almost four months now, probably a deliberate move to prop up Campaign Evolved’s slim value prop. No dice.

Campaign Evolved sold just 232K copies on Steam for $9.3M. And the audience data shows who forked out. About 80% of Steam buyers had already played The Master Chief Collection on Steam, 64% Halo Infinite, and 16% Halo Wars.

Our Steam review-sentiment analysis found that:

• The price is too high for a port like this one, and the Halo brand – candidly – has lost a lot of cache (I loved Halo Infinite, for the record, and feel that a bit of revisionist history has happened there).

• The value prop is too low (no competitive multiplayer, and the bonus missions were unpolished).

• A lot of Steam users already own MCC (8.5M copies sold on Steam, as per our estimates), which offers bang for your buck.

On the positive side, players enjoyed Campaign Evolved’s visual overhaul (I agree that the lighting, textures, and character models modernise the OG), and agree the core campaign and level design hold up, with sensible quality-of-life tweaks.

Campaign Evolved is good, make no mistake. But good doesn’t cut it in today’s market, especially priced against a cheaper, meatier offering.

The first Halo on PlayStation didn’t make a splash

Campaign Evolved sold 544K-ish copies on PlayStation for $32M, a bit under the Xbox (console and Windows) number, despite PS5’s bigger install base. The higher price was a factor here as mentioned, but also the Xbox faithful were more primed for this than PlayStation owners were.

That said, plenty of PS5 players jumped in for novelty and a nostalgia hit. It makes sense, as plenty of Xbox 360 owners in the West went to PS4 after the horrific Xbox One launch. There’s a cohort of PlayStation players, 32-to-40-year-olds, who grew up on Halo and never forgot it.

You can see them clearly in the PlayStation audience overlap – the shared number of unique players between Campaign Evolved and other games. The top 10 is milenial and gen X fodder, that late-PS2, Xbox 360, and early-PS4 era:

1. Gears of War Reloaded (7.1% overlap)

2. Doom: The Dark Ages (5.2%)

3. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced (4.3%)

4. Borderlands 4 (4.3%)

5. Oblivion Remastered (4.2%)

6. Starfield (4.1%)

7. Pragmata (4.0%)

8. Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection (3.7%)

9. Marathon (3.6%)

10. Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater (3.5%).

So yeah, shooters, remakes, and legacy-leaning titles galore. This resonated with older, nostalgia-driven crowd rather than pulling in a fresh PlayStation audience.

The awkward Black Ops comp

Meanwhile, two 1080p ports, not even remakes, of the Black Ops games have now sold a combined 12M-plus on PS5 (Black Ops 2 at 8.9M, Black Ops 1 at 3.3M).

So two 15-year-old CoD ports outsold a remake of the iconic Halo 1 on PS5 by more than 16-to-1, at a lower price, and with worse graphics. And the difference is a key one: PvP

At the time of writing, just 21.7% of Black Ops 2 players on PS5 have even started the campaign, while 14.1% have finished the first mission and 8.2% the third.

PlayStation players bought BO2 for the multiplayer, then, for the nostalgia of those lobbies, the killstreaks, and reminiscing about a different, less predatory era of online shenanigans.

This is a contrast to Campaign Evolved, which is campaign-only (co-op too, to be fair), but no competitive multiplayer. Except for CoD, Halo is arguably the most multiplayer-defining console franchise ever. Split-screen Halo and LAN parties are a foundational memory for exactly the 30-something demographic this remake was chasing.

A Master Chief Collection release on PS5, multiplayer and all, would certainly have done far better than this campaign-only remake did. At the very least, if the rumoured Halo 2 remake ships with online multiplayer, it’ll sell a great deal more, assuming it comes to PlayStation at all.

Anyway, from cautionary tale to a happier one…

The new Spider-Man film gave Spider-Man 2 on PS5 and Steam a massive lift

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has sold another 335K copies since Spider-Man: Brand New Day hit cinemas on 30 July, generating $12M across PS5 and Steam in under two weeks. About 20% of the film-window PS5 copies were physical, and another 300K-plus players jumped in for the first time via PlayStation Plus.

This carries on the trend we flagged with The Odyssey reviving Assassin’s Creed Odyssey recently, except this time the IP actually matches the film exactly.

In total, Spidey 2 has slung its way to 18.3M copies sold (92%+ on PS5) and over $1.2 billion (!!!) since launching nearly three years ago. This past weekend it topped 1M daily active users for the first time since launch week, roughly 2.6x its pre-film daily engagement.

Some clever discounting helped, but the film did the heavy lifting. On PS5, Spider-Man 2 had the same $29.39 sale price during a February promotion and during this film window. The February sale moved 6.3Kish copies a day. The film window is moving 15K a day at that identical price, 2.4x on average, peaking at 4.5x on the biggest day.

As you can see in the Alinea platform screenshot below, Steam is similar. At $40.19, the film period helped the game drive 2.3x what the same $40.19 discount managed back in June.

This is one of the clearest transmedia halo (lol) effects we’ve ever measured, and it’s still a largely untapped. Right now these lifts happen mostly by accident, as Brand New Day landed almost three years after the game.

If a platform holder or publisher deliberately aligned a major game and a film to land in proximity, the SyNeRgIeS would be nuts.

The catch, of course, is that game (and film) development cycles are unpredictable. Syncing two multi-year, multi-hundred-million-dollar productions to swing in together is a logistical nightmare.

But for the handful of companies making both films and games in the same IP, the console platform holders, WB, and the like, surely one of these has to line up eventually.

Sony and Nintendo are best placed there. I’d kill to see that impact measured on a launch that was actually planned.

Cool links and other stuff

• We actually did a Twitter and LinkedIn post about Spidey’s success yesterday, and it’s already been picked up by the lovely folks at IGN, GameSpot, and Eurogamer

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The last word

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[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

Two 15-year-old Call of Duty ports went nuclear

BO1 and BO2 were ports, not remakes (BIG difference). Rather than a from-the-ground up overhaul in terms of visuals and gameplay, they’re just straight 1080p ports of the 2010 and 2012 classics.

They also cost $40 a pop ($20 for PS Plus subscribers until 6 August). Sony never made the PS3 originals backwards-compatible, so PlayStation players couldn’t go back without digging out PS3s.

That pent-up demand detonated. As per our estimates, Black Ops 2 sold 8.2M copies on PlayStation (93% on PS5, 7% on PS4) for about $325M, while Black Ops 1 sold 3.0M (94% via PS5) for $110M. Combined, that’s $435M on PlayStation in under a month.

Sony’s 30% platform cut there is roughly $130M for doing basically nothing but hosting two back-compat ports, with the rest flowing to Xbox (who owns CoD). Basically zero marketing or ongoing development costs are eating into that check.

That single month of catalogue CoD sales on a rival platform effectively funds a massive slice of Xbox’s quarterly first-party operational overhead. And the combined $435M is already nearly as much as Forza Horizon 6 has made via base game sales all year.

The timing was clever, too. Activision dropped these into a chill summer window, well ahead of Modern Warfare 4 in late October and GTA 6 in November, so the ports didn’t get buried. It’s also a nice way to build momentum for the wider CoD slate, as a low-effort, low-risk, high-reward catalogue mining.

And if two old ports can print nearly half a billion on a rival’s platform in weeks, keeping mainline Call of Duty on PlayStation is clearly essential to Microsoft’s own ARPU and MAU targets. It’s a flashing neon sign that a proper Black Ops reboot would do absolute gangbusters too, arguably outperforming the Modern Warfare reboots, given the nostalgia this port wave just exposed.

Who’s playing the Black Ops ports on PlayStation?

Us 30-to-40-year-olds who lived in the Black Ops lobbies back in the day, mostly. Looking at the top 10 for what Black Ops 2 port players also played on PlayStation in July, three clusters dominated:

• Sports: 24% of PlayStation’s BO2 players also played FC 26 and 13% NBA 2K26. This is the annual-franchise crowd, players trained on yearly repurchase and comfortable spending.

• Shooters and other CoD: 23% also played the Black Ops 1 port, 19% mainline Call of Duty app, and 10% Rainbow Six Siege. No surprises there. CoD players playing CoD, and the two ports feeding each other (buy one, buy the other).

• Family and evergreen stuff: Fortnite, Roblox, GTA V, and Minecraft all show up in the top 10 (as you can see in the Alinea platform screenshot below) These are the mainstream, always-online mega-games nearly everyone touches.

So yeah, BO2’s port sold to the demographic you’d expect, thirty-somethings with disposable income and a soft spot for the golden age of Call of Duty, plus the broad, social, always-on PlayStation crowd.

Speaking of nostalgia and golden ages…

Black Flag Resynced smashed it on PS5

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced sold through an impressive 1.6M copies on PS5 in July. It’s worth noting that we estimate sold through (no unsold retail copies), but Ubisoft reports sold in (including unsold retail copies). This is often the case with publishers, so chill out, Twitter people.

Black Flag Resynced has since ticked up to 1.7M total on PS5 (over a quarter physical copies too), generating $109M on the platform, more than Steam and Xbox combined. As we covered at launch, this remake has been a much-needed win for Ubisoft, and PlayStation is its engine (or sail, I guess).

It was a nostalgic month all around for the Black Flag Resynced players, as 17% also played the Black Ops 2 port, and 8% played Black Ops 1’s port last month. The same crowd that grew up on 2012-era gaming reached for a 2013-era remake and 2010/2012 era ports in the same month.

This player base (now mostly aged 28 to 40ish) commands peak disposable income but increasingly limited time. So they’re far less likely to gamble $70 and 80 hours on an unproven new IP, making a $20 to $40 nostalgic comfort pick the ultimate low-friction impulse buy.

Green galore: Sports, evergreens, and… Halo round out the list

As for the rest of July’s PlayStation top sellers:

• FC 26 is still riding the World Cup wave, selling 1.3M copies in July for almost $50M via base copies alone. That’s real football handled (and we won’t get too much into it again!), but American football showed up too.

• College Football 27 launching to 1.1M copies ($86M), a whopping 97% of it from the US. Notably, it’s selling a touch slower than College Football 26, and about three times slower than College Football 25. Though, 25 was the series’ return after more than a decade away, so it caught a one-off wave of pent-up demand that can’t be replicated.

• GTA and Minecraft, the evergreen twins keep on trucking, with GTA V moving 846K copies on PlayStation in July and Minecraft mining 501K. There’s always a fresh cohort of kiddos ageing into Minecraft, and, well, into GTA too (teens, too, of course). These two barely need a reason to sell, practically being utilities at this point.

• Palworld pulled in almost 500K new PlayStation players off the back of its excellent 1.0 update. It also got about 1.3M MAUs on PS5 last month, so plenty of those early-access buyers also returned.

• Halo: Campaign Evolved, the ground-up graphical remake of Halo: Combat Evolved had a notably slow start on PlayStation, which stings even more next to the success of two effort-light CoD ports. Halo sold 351K copies on PS5 in July and 452K on PlayStation to date (almost $28M). $60 was WAY too much for this one.

And for comparison, Halo has sold through 212K on Steam and around 900K on Xbox (console and PC). One can’t help wondering what could have been if Halo had kept the trajectory it had around Halo 3 and Reach. A remake of the game that started it all landing this softly on a new platform makes me pretty sad, as a Halo fan.

July’s PS5 chart, then, is clearly all about nostalgia and the catalogue. A proven, beloved old game, dropped at the right moment and, just as importantly, at the right price, can out-earn almost anything new and buy a bit of breathing room in the slate. CoD got it. Halo didn’t. Fifty dollars for what’s essentially a graphical touch-up of a 2001 game was always going to be a hard sell, and players clearly weren’t having it.

Despite this being a PlayStation chart, there’s ironically some important data and lessons for Xbox’s strategy here.

Come say hi at gamescom!

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See you in Cologne!

The last word

Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.

[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

Lots to cover this week, so let’s dive in!

The variation in PlayStation physical splits is pretty wild

Now that Sony has confirmed it’s taking physical discs behind the shed in 2028, its physical splits are worth a proper look. Sony knew a vocal minority of superfans would be mad, but they did it anyway for a simple reason. Margin.

While I’m no fan of this decision as a consumer, the data explains the boardroom math. Here are our estimates for the physical share of copies sold across ten high-profile PlayStation titles over the past couple of years:

The range is enormous, running from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth at 48.0% physical down to Black Myth: Wukong at 10.8%. That spread reveals a lot about who still gives a shite about discs:

The top of the list is collector territory, the prestige single-player epics (FF7 Rebirth, Astro Bot, Spider-Man 2, Expedition 33) that we older heads want sitting on our shelves.

Then, the bottom belongs to digital natives like Black Myth: Wukong (a PC-first title with a massive China audience used to digital downloads) and Madden 26 (an annual live-service game nobody keeps a box for). Most recent annual sports games land at a similar physical share.

Third-party publishers are obviously chuffed behind the scenes because of the underlying unit economics. On a standard $70 first-party game, a disc sale nets Sony roughly $45 after retail’s cut and manufacturing. A digital sale keeps effectively the full $70, yielding a 54% jump per copy.

Sony’s internal numbers clearly show that any unit sales lost by killing the disc drive will be far smaller than that 54% margin uplift. For third-party games, the gap is smaller but still significant: ~$35 on a disc versus ~$49 digital (a ~40% uplift). $80 base prices widen that absolute cash gap on every single converted sale.

Extrapolating this across a full catalogue shows why Sony pulled the trigger. Sony wants Steam-style catalogue margins, so they are cutting an increasingly small, low-margin retail channel to force everyone into a storefront they fully control, pocketing the retail cut on every transaction.

FF7 Rebirth at 48% physical means nearly half its buyers ran through the lowest-margin channel. Push even a chunk of those buyers to digital, and per-copy revenue on that group jumps by half.

But I reckon it’s a bit short-sighted, and that might even be by design.

This is more of a stopgap than a strategy

This is short-term margin harvesting during a rough period. It’s PlayStation buying time. The bet is that today’s cost squeeze is a phase and not a permanent state. Hopefully, the component crisis eases once the AI-datacentre gold rush stops devouring the world’s memory and storage supply, hardware gets cheaper to make again, and the macro picture (interest rates, cost-of-living pressure on discretionary spend) softens.

Going disc-less keeps revenue-per-player growing through that, propping up the numbers while the underlying economics are ugly, so that when conditions do normalise, PlayStation comes out the other side with margins intact and the business still showing growth. It’s a bridge across the bad years. The risk, of course, is that the bridge doesn’t reach anywhere better.

And another important bridge will also get burned in the process.

Budget-conscious and younger players enter the console ecosystem through cheap pre-owned discs, then get locked in by buying digital DLC, subscribing to PS Plus, and building a friend list they won’t walk away from.

Killing physical media boards up one of the cheapest doorways into PlayStation. In a gen where consoles cost $700+ and games hit $80, kicking down the cheap ladder accelerates audience split. Outside of the sports games, casuals and youngsters will drift off to mobile, PC, and free-to-play even faster.

Squeezing every buyer onto high-margin digital channels is what platform holders do when underlying console economics are under pressure. Component inflation, ballooning AAA budgets, flat install bases, and post-pandemic readjustment are part of this.

So no discs will shore up revenue per player today, but the funnel feeding the platform tomorrow shrinks.

If console hardware costs ever drop, this looks short-sighted. If they don’t, it looks like managed decline. Either way, it’s a lever pulled under heavy pressure. And it’s a new base line in a world where the number needs to keep going up.

Speaking of which…

FC 27 is going even more Ultimate-er

EA has added a $150 Ultimate Plus edition for FC 27 on top of the Standard and Ultimate editions. It’s a telling case study in where premium SKUs are heading.

Traditional collector’s editions used to sell physical stuff: statues, steelbooks, art books, and physical merchandise with real production costs. Ultimate Plus at $150 is almost entirely in-game economy fuel: five seasons of Premium Passes (versus one on the Ultimate edition), 10,000 FC Points across five monthly drops, a Hall of FUT player pick, and a stack of head-start boosts.

Collector’s editions have morphed from physical merch upsells into pure digital ARPU extraction and FOMO weaponisers. GTA 6 executed a softer version: an accessible $80 base to protect the top of the funnel, paired with a pricier edition to milk die-hard pre-orders.

With FC 27 Ultimate Plus, EA is selling time and FOMO. Ultimate Plus grants up to seven days of early access (from 18 September, versus the 25 September global launch), which hardcore FUT players view as a non-negotiable competitive edge.

Early spenders take time off work (I’ve got a nasty cold!), build squads, and corner the transfer market before the general population logs in. EA doubled down on that pressure by locking Ultimate Plus behind a strict pre-order window (23 July to 31 August). Miss that window, and you cannot buy it or upgrade into it. Nintendo has

Artificial scarcity converts hesitation into an immediate $150 purchase. For a big-spending FUT player operating in that live economy, paying $150 to start ahead of everyone is an easy yes. Streamers give it a megaphone, pressuring younger players to bug their parents for the upgrade.

Nintendo has dabbled with this kind of scarcity in the past, too. I actually made an incredibly awkward YouTube video about this during the pandemic. Enjoy, thumbnail ‘n all:

Anyway … EA is deeply console-first with its sports titles, but the console install base is flat. Add expensive hardware and a $55B leveraged buyout to service, and EA cannot rely on growing unit volume. When you can’t grow the audience, you’ve gotta grow revenue per player instead.

This permanently resets the pricing floor. Once a $150 tier normalises, it becomes the baseline to build on. The FC 26 progression paywall backlash showed that EA will push until players revolt, walk it back slightly, and then re-establish the new boundary next cycle. Ultimate Plus WILL make money this year. The question is what FC 28 looks like now that $150 is the benchmark and NuMbEr MuSt gO uP.

Ultimate Plus PLUS when?

Christopher Nolan just gave Assassin’s Creed Odyssey its best engagement week in years

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey hit cinemas on 17 July, and the cultural spillover into games was immediate. Players naturally connected the film’s classical Greek setting to Ubisoft’s 2018 Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

Combined daily active users (DAUs) across Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation sat around 122K on 17 July. By 27 July, ten days after the film opened, they hit 233K. That’s a 90% surge in engagement (+110K daily players), at 1.8x the game’s pre-film July baseline.

Looking at the platform split:

• Steam picked up 26%.

• PlayStation nearly doubled (+94% to 114K DAUs).

• Xbox exploded (+134% from 36K to 84K DAUs, a 2.5x jump over its baseline).

Subscriptions drove this spike on console, as per our estimates. Because AC Odyssey is on both Game Pass and PS Plus, many curious moviegoers faced zero financial friction to start playing. Lapsed fans jumped straight back in, while new players found a 60+ hour Greek epic waiting inside a subscription they already pay for.

Software sales moved modestly at around 400K copies year-to-date, but the real here is pure player engagement. The film didn’t make millions buy an eight-year-old game, but it got a massive cohort playing it again. That data gives Ubisoft great ammunition for an eventual AC Odyssey Resynced.

Credit to Ubisoft for leaning into the momentum. They ran timed social campaigns alongside Nolan’s release and resurfaced Discovery Tour (the guided, combat-free educational mode), positioning it as an interactive companion piece for anyone falling down a history rabbit hole after leaving the cinema.

Well played, Ubisoft, congrats, Nolan, and unlucky, anti-woke brigade.

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The last word

Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.

[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

Chuck on the rose-tinted glasses and let’s jump in.

Resident Evil 4 is the top current-gen remake across Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam

The top-selling remake since 10 November 2020 is 2023’s Resident Evil 4 remake, which has sold a monstrous 16.8M copies across PlayStation (7.4M, 46.9%), Steam (6.8M, 42.9%), and Xbox (1.6M, 10.1%). Almost 4M of those were sold this year.

Resi 4 is a ground-up remake of the 2005 classic, and comfortably one of the best horror games ever made, in my humble (grumble?) opinion. It’s also among the most successful single-player horror games in history, generating $560M in gross revenue for Capcom so far across the three platforms, split 53.1% PlayStation, 34.1% Steam, and 12.8% Xbox.

As ever, Steam brings in less revenue per copy, thanks to a higher volume of sales in lower-priced regions and heavy discounting. China, Brazil, and Russia sit in the top five territories for Resi 4 on Steam, where players are especially responsive to price cuts.

Steam’s share of total Resident Evil 4 revenue has grown from 28.0% in launch week to 34.1% today. There’s that Capcom catalogue flywheel again – a game earning a bigger slice of its lifetime revenue years after release, at the low end of the price curve (in markets consoles barely reach).

Resident Evil 4 is arguably the ideal remake candidate, with the 2005 original is a classic that pretty much every critic list ranks among the greatest games ever. This game’s influence cannot be overstated, impacting third-person game design forever.

Resi 4 was also three console generations old and visually dated, making it a sweet spot for remakes. It’s revered enough to guarantee demand and old enough that the remake feels new. And Resi 2’s fantastic 2019 remake also showed that Capcom was up to the task.

Ark: Survival Ascended continues to … ascend

Ark: Survival Ascended, the late-2023 remake of 2015’s Ark: Survival Evolved, has sold 7M copies overall, the bulk on Steam (3.9M), then PlayStation (2.1M) and Xbox (1.0M).

It also hit PlayStation Plus (adding 2.4M players) and Xbox Game Pass (adding 3.8M players) in 2024, less than a year after release. Those subscription inclusions, paired with free-weekend promotions, pushed total player counts past 13M across the three platforms.

Survival Ascended has generated nearly $230M in gross revenue to date and still pulls roughly 1.4M monthly active users (mostly on Steam, despite the ongoing console-subscription availability).

On Steam, nearly 75% of Survival Ascended players have previously played the original Survival Evolved. Nostalgia clearly dragged veterans back, but the remake also captured a nice chunk of newbies.

There’s a slightly different lesson here than Resi 4’s. Survival Ascended’s survival-sandbox remake sells on being the definitive version of a game people sunk hours into less than a decade before.

Horror classics and legendary RPGs round out the list

Here’s how the rest of the top current-gen remakes and remasters stack up:

• The Last of Us Part 1: Naughty Dog’s remake of its 2013 original (which already saw a PS4 remaster in 2014) has sold 6.3M copies, split across PS5 (55.4%) and Steam (44.6%). This is topical, given reports that Sony is dialling back single-player day-and-date PC releases, as it sharpens its focus on margins. That said, TLOU Part 1 was the title’s first-ever PC release, whereas the PS4 remaster had been cheap and available on PlayStation for years (including via PS Plus), softening its console pickup. Still, if I were Sony, I’d add remakes to the roster of PC releases, as it’s trying to up margins.

• Oblivion Remastered, Bethesda’s shadow-dropped remaster from last year, has moved 4.5M paid copies (2.8M on Steam, 1.2M on PlayStation, and about 500K on Xbox). Oblivion launched day-and-date on Game Pass, where another 4.1M players accessed it across Xbox consoles and PC. These numbers position the just-announced Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters for big runs, especially if Bethesda can time them to future seasons of the Amazon show (no easy feat given always-shifting dev timelines…)

• 2023’s Dead Space, a remake of EA’s 2008 sci-fi horror classic, has sold 4.3M copies. Steam leads at 2.8M, then PS5 at 1.4M and Xbox at ~150K. Xbox’s low share is due to its EA Play inclusion (bundled into Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass), plus the fact the 2008 Xbox 360 original has been on Game Pass for nearly a decade with back-compat enhancements (Auto HDR, faster loads).

• Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, the second entry in Square Enix’s remake trilogy has sold 4.2M copies: PS5 leads with 2.9M (launched Feb 2024), Steam 1.1M (Jan 2025), Xbox under 75K (launched last month). The final instalment, Final Fantasy VII: Revelation, will launch simultaneously across PS5, Xbox, PC, and Switch 2. Square Enix is finally adopting Capcom’s multiplatform, wide-as-possible strategy. It’s a smart move. Their days of long PS5 exclusivity windows (leaving money on the table) are clearly over.

• Silent Hill 2, Konami’s return to form and remake of the PS2 classic, has sold through (through, folks) 3.2M copies, grossing $170M. About 57.2% of those revenues are on PlayStation, 37% on Steam, and 5.8% on Xbox (which launched a year after the initial window). Silent Hill 2 is one of the most critically revered horror games ever, and there was a lot of doubt surrounding the remake. Not anymore.Candidly, the remake has done more for the Silent Hill brand than a decade of false starts. On Steam, Konami too is mimicking Capcom’s long-tail discounting, pulling steady catalogue revenue after dropping to a record-low $28 last week.

Check the Alinea Platform screenshot below to see just how much impact the discounts have made so far (the line is price, and the area chart is a delta of weekly copies sold):

As for the pattern for these successes: they’re adored, aged, and available everywhere (took me longer than I’d like to admit to come up with that…)

NOT-SMALL READ: Why remakes are everywhere now

Remakes have always existed (I’m old enough to revere Super Mario Bros. Deluxe and Link’s Awakening DX on Game Boy Color), but remakes have gone from the occasional nostalgia play to a pillar of nearly every AAA publisher’s strategy in the space of a few years. The way I see it, it's a direct response to the AAA market's woes.

A few separate pressures all landed at once. We had a pandemic boom where everyone was stuck indoors buying games and hardware, and the industry foolishly mistook a bubble for a new baseline (and candidly, many of those forecasters have since historically revised those numbers, obscuring that fact).

Anyway, studios staffed up, budgets ballooned, acquisition sprees happened, and a lot of folks assumed the number would just keep going up. Then interest rates rose, money stopped being free, the cost-of-living crisis hit, and that growth went to shite.

Now we’ve got an industry carrying a bloated cost base under pressure to make its money back. Sadly, the two go-to levers for the powers that be are “efficiency” (read: cutting staff) and charging more. We’ve seen a brutal amount of both. Remakes do come into this, I promise…

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On the software side, the AAA arms race did its own splash damage. AAA games now cost hundreds of millions and the better part of a decade to make. If something costs $150M-plus to make, you can bet your arse that the budget gatekeepers at publishers get risk-averse by necessity.

They chase every way to raise revenue per player (ARPU and lifetime value), which is how you end up with $80 base prices, day-one DLC, and battle passes stacked onto premium games. Very high-profile failures only compound this.

Where remakes come into it

This is where the remake earns its place. I promised we’d get there. A brand-new IP is a six-to-eight-year gamble with no guaranteed audience, the riskiest bet on the board at the worst possible time to be making those bets. A high-fidelity remake is different, with a proven design blueprint, a built-in fanbase, and a much shorter, cheaper production cycle. So the budget gatekeepers aren’t gambling on whether people want the thing – the demand’s proven. AKA, less risk.

Of course, remaking the same games over and over would be nuts. The smarter publishers out there will use that reliable remake pipeline to de-risk the rest of the slate, like what Capcom is doing. It made weirdo banger Pragmata possible.

A near-guaranteed hit like a beloved horror remake throws off dependable revenue and keeps an IP warm and culturally present between mainline entries, buying a publisher the breathing room to make the innovative, swing-for-the-fences bets on the side. All the while, the catalogue keeps printing money.

This only works if the company is lean and smart, though. The remake model won’t rescue a bloated cost base. A remake’s whole advantage is efficiency (lower cost, lower risk, faster turnaround), and that advantage evaporates if it’s run through the same over-staffed, over-budgeted machine that got publishers into trouble in the first place.

Capcom wrote the playbook, really, but look about and it’s now the industry default. PlayStation is leaning harder on remakes and back-catalogue revenue, Xbox is reframing itself around proven IP and catalogue value, Square Enix is remaking FF7 three times over and taking it multiplatform, Ubisoft waved the Black Flag when it needed a sure thing, and Konami is back in the game thanks to its awesome remakes and remasters.

The specifics differ, but a proven asset rebuilt for a modern audience is the closest thing to a guaranteed win the industry has right now. So expect a lot more of them, because the pressures that got us here aren’t easing any time soon, innit.

Dino Crisis remake when?

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Obviously that makes Palworld one of the biggest new gaming IPs ever. It launched in early access on January 19 2024 on PC and Xbox (Game Pass day and date). It came to PS5 in September of that year.

A calculated 30% launch discount for the 1.0 release (its lowest price point to date) gave Palworld a strong secondary sales surge across Steam (starting June 25th) and PlayStation (starting July 16th). This push also helped Palworld reach a monumental $700M in gross revenue from direct software sales alone.

Steam is Palworld‘s top platform by far

Breaking down post-1.0 performance across platforms:

• On Steam, Palworld sold nearly 1.5M additional copies since its 1.0 launch ($25M in gross revenue).

• On PlayStation, the game moved roughly 300K additional copies post-1.0 (about $7M in revenue).

• On Xbox, copies since 1.0 reached a little under 70K copies (about $1M in revenue).

PlayStation and Xbox yield higher gross revenue per copy sold due to geographic distribution. Steam commands a much higher market share in territories like China, where regional pricing scales the base price down ($11 in China versus $21 in the US).

Speaking of which, the US and China represent the two largest markets for Palworld on Steam (which accounts for 27.1M of its total unit sales), holding an equal share of roughly 27% each as per our estimates. Our review sentiment analysis surrounding 1.0 release showed some regional contrasts between Chinese and English user bases:

• English-language reviewers framed buying the game as an explicit statement against – in their words – Nintendo’s anti-competitive business practices, actively celebrating the resolution of Nintendo’s legal challenges against Pocketpair.

• On the negative side, English reviews highlighted AMD GPU performance issues and missing FSR support as 1.0 oversights.

• Chinese-language reviewers focused heavily on core mechanics, praising the integration of creature collection with survival crafting in the new 1.0 biomes.

• Chinese users celebrated the sheer volume of collectables and playable hours, seeing it as evidence of long-term developer commitment.

• Chinese players voiced stronger complaints about 1.0’s balance adjustments (pal-breeding nerfs, workflow changes) affecting their established playstyles compared to the global average.

• But this was not enough to dampen the positive reviews, as Simplified Chinese reviews are at 92% positive, just a bit lower than the global average.

The 1.0 launch also brought loads of players back into the fold, pushing daily active users (DAUs) to an average of 3.7M over last weekend.

Monthly active users (MAUs) are currently pacing to cross 10M this month across PC and console, as well.

User reviewers love Palworld

When Palworld launched into early access in early 2024, hot takes wrote it off as a gimmick (”Pokémon with guns”). In reality, the game has carved out an enduring identity of its own.

While there’s no denying that certain character models borrow heavily from Pokémon classic creature-design tropes (much like Pokémon borrowed from 80s Dragon Quest designs, just sayin’), Pocketpair has largely silenced critics by continuously delivering something bloody awesome.

To many players, Palworld satisfies the open-world monster-catching fantasy that 90s kids grew up wanting, while its survival systems add systemic depth. Our 1.0 sentiment analysis indicates that despite minor optimisation bugs, player response remains overwhelmingly positive.

Steam reviewers frequently highlight how the loop of monster catching, base building, and resource automation creates a sticky progression structure that sustains engagement well past the 100-hour mark.

This is reflected in our playtime distribution estimates:

• 20% of Steam owners (roughly 5.2M players) have logged over 100 hours in Palworld, while 0.7% (nearly 200K users) have logged over 500 hours.

• The playtime curve on PS5 closely mirrors Steam’s profile. Xbox, however, displays a fundamentally different engagement profile due to the “try-and-ditch” dynamics of Game Pass.

• Nearly 50% of Xbox players dropped the game under the 5-hour mark (compared to 12% on Steam and 23% on PlayStation), and only 8% crossed 100 hours of playtime.

Why do players love Palworld so much? And what’s next for the IP?

Key highlights from Steam 1.0 user reviews include:

• Substantial content expansion: The addition of 72 new Pals, an expanded tech tree, new biomes, dungeons, and raid bosses provided deep replayability for an already chunky game.

• Open-world agency: Players praised the non-linear progression, customisable world settings, and the absence of forced linear gating.

• Cross-platform co-op: Another positive was the multiplayer functionality across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. I can vouch for this one, as I’ve been playing with some mates on other platforms.

• Fair pricing strategy: Pocketpair maintained its sub-$30 price point from early access through 1.0 – and even discounted. This is a clear high value-to-cost ratio during an era of $70 to $80 AAA games.

Looking ahead, Pocketpair is expanding the IP with Palworld: Palfarm, a cozy farming and multiplayer simulation in the vein of Stardew Valley.

Our platform overlap metrics show that Stardew Valley ranks as Palworld’s #3 game in terms of shared unique players. Targeting this exact audience with a lower-priced spin-off is a smart ecosystem play.

So yes, Palworld is bloody massive – and the IP is on track to grow even further, especially on Steam. That brings us to the next question, a question I’ve had about five times this week…

BIG READ: Is console gaming doomed?

While “doomed” is hyperbole (sorry!), the console sector is undeniably facing an existential crisis. Unlike the software-glut crash of the 80s, today’s crisis is an economic and margin crisis rather than an audience one.

The traditional console playbook went a little something like this:

• Building bespoke hardware

• Subsidising it heavily at launch

• Then making margins back on software royalties

Today, that model is structurally broken and also impossible. After all, component cost inflation shows no signs of abating, driven largely by a fickle, misguided, greed-driven generative AI bubble crowding out global DRAM and storage fabrication capacity.

The market’s choked because hardware is either too old or too expensive for average consumers looking to upgrade. Recent hardware price hikes across console platform holders, alongside the sticker shock of Valve’s new Steam Machine, say it all.

The traditional box business model is smacking its head against the ceiling, so console makers are now all about increasing ARPU (average revenue per user, for the non-consulting-brain-addled folks in the audience). Oh, and LiFeTiMe vAlUe. That’s exactly what PlayStation is doing by phasing out physical discs, and what Asha Sharma is hinting at by going on about profitability margins.

Microsoft explicitly noted that memory and storage component costs scaled by more than 2.5x, forcing them to increase hardware retail prices and eliminate their 2TB SKU entirely.

If the baseline buy-in for next-generation hardware approaches a $1,000 digital-only box, mass-market growth is effectively dead on arrival. High-priced, drive-less hardware introduces a nuts barrier to entry.

Casual consumers will simply opt out of newer hardware, redirecting their time and wallet share toward mobile, PC, or existing hardware. Cross-generation games on the previous platforms will keep monetising those more casual players anyway – the folks buying the sports games, CoD, and all that.

There will be a lot more of them entering the PS5 generation soon, thanks to GTA 6. PlayStation in particular is probably happy about that. But the PS6 is another question – and one for another newsletter. I reckon that native PlayStation Portal can help bridge the gap, though. But that’s a question for another newsletter, too.

What impact will Steam Machines (and Steam OS boxes) and Nex Playground have?

Console won’t be affected much by these kinds of devices. Valve’s Steam Machine is primarily an ecosystem retention tool designed to lock existing Steam users deeper into the platform by transitioning their libraries to the couch; it operates under the exact same hardware cost constraints mentioned earlier.

The Steam Machine’s real strategic value is acting as a Trojan horse to seed SteamOS to third-party PC OEMs (I just watched The Odyssey, alright?).

Similarly, devices like the Nex Playground sit firmly in the casual toy and novelty vertical. While the Nex Playground may peel away a sliver of Nintendo’s family demographic, its threat to core, high-ARPU PlayStation or Xbox install bases is damn low (as things stand anyway).

An 8-to-10-year console lifecycle is the new operational reality. The standard 6-to-7-year console generation is a relic of an era when silicon fabrication costs dropped predictably every two years and graphical jumps were transformative. The jump from NES to SNES, or PS1 to PS2, was mind-boggling; modern visual jumps yield diminishing returns to the casual eye.

Sony establishing a physical disc cutoff for January 2028 serves as a public admission that PlayStation 6 hardware isn’t landing anytime soon, as well. With supply and component constraints projected to hold firm until at least 2029, rushing out next-gen machines right now would be financial suicide for platform holders.

They can’t afford to fabricate a massive leap in technological specs while hardware costs are peaking. Instead, the industry will rely on cross-generation software and extended mid-generation refreshes like the PS5 Pro until component manufacturing comes back down to earth (if indeed it ever does).

Console is transitioning away from being a ubiquitous, mass-market household appliance and becoming a premium lifestyle tier for dedicated, core enthusiasts.

Moving forward, the target audience for consoles will be of higher-income core gamers who value a frictionless, optimised, plug-and-play living room experience and are entirely unfazed by paying four figures for a machine.

Meanwhile, younger, casual mass audiences have shifted toward PC, mobile, and massive UGC ecosystems like Roblox and Fortnite. They have zero interest in paying a steep upfront hardware tax just to access digital spaces where their friends hang out for free, or for a very low price.

A positive to all this is that Gen Z developers hitting the workforce are building natively for their own demographic’s habits; even if that might be bad news for more traditional folks like you and me.

Yes, I see the demographic data of the readers, and we old.

Will the next console generation be the last?

The core challenge facing platform holders is navigating the intense friction between creative ambition, hardware premiums, and spreadsheet realities. Platform holders are trapped trying to serve two completely conflicting masters, maintaining their identity as premium first-party hardware providers while funding $250M+ exclusive titles that require massive multiplatform reach to break even.

For better or worse, the spreadsheet always wins in the end. That’s why Xbox is shifting its centre of gravity toward PC and mobile, and why first-party exclusivity is being dismantled on a “case-by-case” basis (walking away from huge external player bases makes zero economic sense for a struggling platform).

While the next console generation won’t be the last generation of hardware devices plugged into our televisions, it’ll likely be the last generation of proprietary, closed-box silicon fabricated at a loss by traditional platform holders.

So no, console isn’t doomed, but bloody hell is it in for a tough period. And platform holders (by financial necessity) are going to bleed us superfans dry to sustain the model. Console whales.

At the end of the day, modern games already look bloody fantastic, and current-gen platforms still have plenty of headroom. Developers will continue to ship brilliant, well-optimised games on existing hardware, keeping most players happy without forcing a mandatory $1,000 upgrade.

While baseline hardware prices are steep, accessible entry points still exist if you look for them. You can still grab a digital PS5 for around $400 during promotional sales windows.

To offset these hardware friction points, console manufacturers are actively exploring alternative pricing strategies (cellphone-like payment plans, for example) and in-game and on-platform advertising.

While I’m not personally a fan of ads and debt collectors creeping into the premium console experience, given the macroeconomic realities facing platform holders right now, that’s one of the directions the console tide is heading.

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[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]

Dear Passengers is the kind of goofy, physics-based, co-op chaos that’s helped the so-called “friendslop” genre thrive over the past couple of years. Propelled by a bonkers announcement trailer, Dear Passengers is already racking up millions of views across TikTok and X.

Dear Passengers hasn’t leveraged any paid marketing, creators, nor ads. This isn’t mobile over here (more on that later). It’s all been organic hype, translating into a massive milestone. Dear Passengers has flown past 1M wishlists on Steam.

Now, if you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you might ask: “Aren’t you always banging on about how wishlists are a vanity metric that rarely converts?” That’s absolutely true for traditional AA and AAA games. But when a game targets the ultra-low-price bracket, it’s a different conversation.

Cheap games convert Steam wishlisters well

To understand how these 1M+ wishlists will translate into day-one sales, let’s look at our estimates for wishlist-to-buyer conversion rates for successful ‘’friendslop’’ titles:

• R.E.P.O. was sitting on about 163K wishlists at launch. It converted a massive 38% of them into buyers by day 7, climbing to 64% by day 30. It launched at an accessible $7.99 before bumping its price up a bit after gaining viral momentum.

• Meccha Chameleon entered the market with 378K pre-launch wishlists, as per our estimates. It converted 21% within a week, reaching 38% by day 30. It utilised a similar step-up pricing strategy, launching at $4.99 and moving to $5.99 within seven days.

• RV There Yet? had 271K launch wishlists, converting 34% by day 7 and hitting 40% at Day 30. It started at $6.99 and adjusted to $7.99 a week later. Seeing a pattern?

Cheap games convert wishlisters very well. It’s pretty obvious when you say it out loud, but when you look at premium, higher-priced releases, the contrast is stark.

Below is a freebie from our recent client-exclusive newsletter showing how premium 2026 titles convert their lists:

The data speaks for itself, but I’ll speak a bit too:

• For a $70 flagship like Resident Evil Requiem (6% D7 conversion) or Forza Horizon 6 (3% D7 conversion), a wishlist is merely the starting point of a long, calculated deliberation that usually ends in “I’ll wait for a discount.”

• For a $7 game, a wishlist is an impulse buy waiting to happen. The financial friction is basically bloody zero – even in this economy.

• For Dear Passengers, capitalising on this means launching with a deliberate pricing strategy. Coming in hot at an introductory $5.99 or $6.99 before stepping the price up a week later is the proven playbook.

• Pushing the base price above $10 out of the gate could severely blunt its launch velocity, especially since our platform metrics show that price-sensitive territories like Brazil and Russia account for some of Dear Passengers’ largest wishlist cohorts behind the US.

Dear Passengers wishlisters are no strangers to buying ‘’friendslop’’

The audience primed to buy Dear Passengers isn’t a hypothetical one. These Steam players are active spenders in the genre. Our wishlister-to-player crossover estimates tell us quite a bit about Dear Passengers wishliters:

Nearly half of all Dear Passengers wishlisters already own R.E.P.O. (48%) and PEAK (47%), while over a third (37%) have played Meccha Chameleon. A quarter are actively playing Meccha this month.

Clearly, then, plenty of folks in the wishlist cohort are ready to add these kinds of games to their baskets, engaged co-op players hunting for their next group hangout.

As for why ‘’friendslop’’ commands such high player numbers, Nick Kaman – studio head and art director of Aggro Crab (one half of the Peak development team) – summarised part of it nicely in a press interview:

“There’s a real desire to connect and hang out in online worlds, and friendslop games put that at the front and centre of the experience,’’ Kaman told GamesRadar last year. ‘’These are games that emphasise teamwork and communication, as opposed to just testing your individual skill in a group setting.”

But as we said earlier, price is a massive factor, too. Convincing three mates to drop $70 – or even $40 – to try a new game is an uphill battle, especially during a cost-of-living crisis.

Talk your mates into spending $6 (the price of a decent coffee – not that those exist here in the Netherlands) to scream at each other in a crumbling plane for an evening is an incredibly easy sell, though.

When that frictionless entry point meets algorithmic social media syndication, the revenues can be pretty astronomical, as shown in this post from our CEO.

These games are generating premium returns on micro-budget development timelines.

From mobile and UGC to Steam

How Dear Passengers came to be highlights a bit of a structural shift in indie development. It’s made by Flexus Games out of Ukraine, a studio of roughly 70 developers who spent years cutthroat-competing in the mobile market (mostly under publisher Casual Azur Games).

The mobile games Flexus made under Casual Azur have enjoyed millions upon millions of downloads, but mobile user-acquisition (UA) costs have turned into an absolute margin-destroying nightmare (due to platform privacy shifts and all that). So savvy mobile devs looking to make it without a publisher are eyeing up Steam.

I can see many more smaller mobile devs taking their existing asset libraries, retrofitting them into chaotic PC physics sandboxes (where possible), and letting organic TikTok and X algorithms act as their new, completely free UA engine.

UGC platforms like Roblox and UEFN are also shaking up traditional dev pipelines. To that end, Dear Passengers is remarkably similar to games (or are we still calling them eXpErIeNcEs) like Land or Die.

We saw this exact rapid-iteration cycle internally at a dev with Meccha Chameleon, which was rapidly prototyped in UEFN, community-tested, and exported directly to a highly lucrative Steam launch (now nearing $80M in gross revenue).

But it’s all too good to be true, right?

Is this ‘’friendslop’’ stuff all just a fad?

I don’t reckon so.

Publishers like Polden Publishing and Panic Stations (legends) are moving fast to institutionalise this trend, actively building out entire portfolios of high-energy, chaotic co-op simulations.

We’re currently in a classic gold-rush moment, though. Because these games are quick to prototype and relatively cheap to produce, the market will inevitably see an influx of low-effort clones, and plenty of late-arriving developers will go home empty-handed. We’ve seen it all before on Roblox and mobile.

I’m also waiting for the other shoe to drop: a predatory, free-to-play iteration of this formula that hooks players with a $0 price point and aggressively monetises cosmetics within the friend groups. I digress.

But as a structural genre, friendslop seems poised to be evergreen to me. Much like the roguelike boom before it, the systemic variety of themes you can apply to chaotic, physics-based teamwork still has a lot of potential. Social play is timeless.

Dear Passengers has the right theme, an incredibly hot wishlist funnel, and perfect market timing for a late-summer breakout. If Flexus nails the impulse-pricing window, they’re cleared for a proper takeoff.

We’ll be tracking the launch data, regional pricing skews, and initial week-one conversion rates as soon as the game drops later this year. Hit subscribe below to get that delivered straight to your inbox when the time comes.

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Cool links and other stuff

• We just got back from Develop in Brighton, but we’re already a little over a month away from gamescom! So if you’re going and fancy a chat, let us know!

• Speaking of Develop, thanks to all of you who came up to us with kind words about the newsletter. It truly means a lot (that’s enough soppy shite for now, though).

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The last word

Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover.

[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]