Resident Evil Requiem offered simply 8.6% of its copies on Xbox, new gross sales evaluation signifies.
Information revealed at the moment by Alinea Analytics revealed the eye-opening cut up in platform gross sales for this yr’s good Resident Evil recreation, providing yet one more glimpse into Xbox’s struggles in opposition to its rival, Sony’s dominant PlayStation 5.
Requiem continues to be promoting sooner than some other recreation in Capcom’s survival horror sequence up to now and has now handed $500 million in whole income, with 8.5 million copies shifted throughout PC, PS5, and Xbox Collection X/S. However solely 8.6% of that 8.5 million (round 731,000 copies) had been offered for Xbox consoles.
Examine that to the whopping 48.1% of copies offered on PS5 (round 4.01 million) and the comparatively related 43.4% of copies offered by way of Steam (round 3.69 million) and it is clear how far behind Xbox is right here.
On the one hand, this is not an enormous shock. PS5 has offered effectively this console era, with 95.3 million models shipped as of June. Six years into its lifecycle and with {hardware} costs on the rise, gross sales momentum has notably slowed. However the machine is assured to get a shot within the arm this fall when GTA 6 arrives, and PS5 is solely plastered everywhere in the recreation’s advertising and marketing.
Xbox Collection X/S, on the opposite hand, has actually struggled. Microsoft stopped reporting gross sales figures years in the past, although its present pair of consoles are believed to have offered just a little over 35 million models so far — a determine that is worryingly beneath the unpopular Xbox One, which shifted 58 million models over the last console era.
At this time’s knowledge on Resident Evil Requiem gross sales comes only a day after report pointed to a equally vital gross sales cut up for GTA 6 preorders. The Verge’s Tom Warren said that pre-sales for Rockstar’s upcoming blockbuster had been “closely skewed” in the direction of PS5, one thing that had set off “alarm bells” inside Microsoft’s Redmond campus.
In a press release shared with IGN, Xbox chief technique workplace Matthew Ball responded to this declare by stating that, truly, Microsoft was “very proud of GTA 6 preorders,” which had been “breaking information for Xbox” and “matching our share of the console market.” Precisely which information had been being damaged, although, Ball didn’t elaborate.
After all, no-one ought to anticipate a 50:50 gross sales cut up for Resident Evil Requiem or GTA 6 preorders throughout Sony and Microsoft’s consoles. PS5 has clearly outsold Xbox Collection X/S this era by some margin, and nobody at Xbox is attempting to fake in any other case. Nonetheless, what Ball seems to be suggesting — that GTA 6’s pre-sales cut up merely represents the fact of the {hardware} state of affairs — doesn’t seem to carry up with Requiem gross sales, the place Xbox might be seen lagging behind PS5 excess of its believed {hardware} gross sales may counsel.
There’s probably a quantity of causes for this, and it is honest to counsel that Resident Evil is a long-lived franchise that has traditionally loved extra of a house on PlayStation consoles than Xbox, significantly within the sequence’ homeland of Japan, the place Xbox has by no means gained a correct gross sales foothold. But it surely’s exhausting to take a look at simply how far behind Requiem’s Xbox gross sales cut up is and draw something optimistic from it for Xbox. Are individuals who even have an Xbox Collection X/S now leaving it behind to play on PC or one other console? Can these followers be tempted again subsequent console era, when Microsoft is believed to be launching a machine that may additionally play video games from third-party PC storefronts? Regardless of the case, that is one other regarding signal as the corporate struggles via an enormous reorganization aimed toward making certain its survival.
Tom Phillips
Information Editor
Tom Phillips is IGN’s Information Editor. You’ll be able to attain Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or discover him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social