Cyberpunk 2077 may already be on track to outperform The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt at launch, since CD Projekt RED’s latest RPG has surpassed The Witcher 3 in terms of preorders. Given that the latter moved over one million pre-release units, it’s safe to say Cyberpunk 2077 is in the same ballpark. Most interesting, but not at all surprising, is news that most of the new title’s preorders are for digital versions.
During an investor call earlier this week, company CFO Piotr Nielubowicz divulged preorders for Cyberpunk 2077 are outpacing those of The Witcher 3. Seeking Alpha transcribed the conversation, in which Nielubowicz also revealed that CD Projekt RED expects the ratio of digital sales to be higher than that of physical. Such an estimation is based on data related to Cyberpunk 2077’s preorder numbers.
According to the CFO, “the expected ratio between digital and physical on our sales, as we see it on preorders digital is very strong, so definitely we are more into moving potential split digital/physical, and more on the digital side.” He continued, “How far we’ll go? We honestly speaking do not know, definitely farther than we had on The Witcher 3 and definitely more than 50 percent should come from the digital channel.”
Interestingly, The Witcher 3’s success indicates the longer a game is available, the more “the split shifts towards digital.” Geralt’s last outing generated “the vast majority” of its revenue from digital sales, Nielubowicz told investors. Meanwhile, 99 percent of the revenue CDPR generates for The Witcher and The Witcher 2 come from digital units sold. He concluded, “so, this is the only direction that can be expected in that near and longer-term.
After three separate delays, Cyberpunk 2077 will finally launch digitally and at retail on December 10th for the PS4, PC, and Xbox One. PS5 and Xbox Series X|S owners can venture through the vibrant world of Night City via backward compatibility. A native next-gen version is expected to arrive on an unspecified date in 2021.
[Source: Seeking Alpha via PC Games Insider]
