Elden Ring sales data highlights its mind-boggling success

By Otto Kratky March 3, 2022

FromSoftware’s latest game, Elden Ring, has set records in the U.K. with a massively successful launch according to gamesindustry.biz. While only U.K. data is available so far, it sets the stage for a potentially record-breaking release.

According to data given to the outlet by game sales data, or GSD, Elden Ring‘s launch in the U.K. was larger than Call of Duty: Vanguard’s and Horizon Forbidden West‘s, the latter of which was outsold by Elden Ring more than 2.5 times. The FromSoftware game’s launch was the biggest for a title outside of the Call of Duty or FIFA franchises since 2018’s Red Dead Redemption 2.

Three Elden Ring characters standing at a cliff. — Image used with permission by copyright holder

While Elden Ring selling so many more copies than a first-party PlayStation title is impressive, the statistic shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Horizon Forbidden West is only available on PlayStation 4 and PS5 consoles, while Elden Ring is a multiplatform title, launching on PlayStation consoles as well as Xbox consoles and PC, giving the game a much larger potential user base.

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Over 68% of Elden Ring‘s sales were digital, with a majority of those copies being purchased by users on Xbox or PC. For Xbox, 85% of the game’s sales were digital, trumping the 73% of digital sales on PC. On PS5 and PS4, just over half of Elden Ring‘s sales were digital.

While most of Elden Ring‘s digital sales were on Xbox, a majority of the game’s total sales have been on PlayStation consoles, with a total of 32% of the game’s U.K. sales going to Sony’s platform, followed by 30% on PC. Just 29% of Elden Ring‘s sales have been attributed to Xbox consoles. Surprisingly, very few of Elden Ring‘s sales were for the game’s PS4 version, which accounts for just 9%.

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Otto Kratky is a freelance writer with many homes. You can find his work at Digital Trends, GameSpot, and Gamepur. If he's…

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