Late last week, news broke that Assetto Corsa developer Kunos Simulazioni has been purchased by 505 Games parent company Digital Bros. A salient detail was hidden within the comprehensive Trend Online report, however: sales figures.
According to the Italian finance site (original article here), Assetto Corsa has sold over 1.4 million copies worldwide since release. This includes the original Steam version—available since the end of 2014, and as an Early Access title before that—as well as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One version.
If these numbers are accurate, that’s quite a sizeable number for what is largely considered a niche product. For comparison’s sake, Slightly Mad Studios recently announced Project CARS had shifted over 2 million copies. That game is similar to Assetto Corsa in a handful of ways: a third-party developer, multiple platforms, and a focus on realism.
Forza Motorsport 6 hit the seven-digit mark in early 2016, around four months after release. There has been no update on those figures since, nor has there been for its arcade-oriented cousin, Forza Horizon 3. The highest-selling realistic racer of the last few years remains Gran Turismo 6, which squeaked past 5 million units last summer.
Interestingly, Digital Bros own website gives a much different figure: according to the page, the console versions have shifted 300,000 units combined since launch last August. There’s no note of when the page was last updated however, and numbers for the game’s success on Steam are hard to come by (though estimates, such as this one by Steam Spy, peg it at 400,000 or so).
The numbers suggest there still is a healthy appetite for sim racing on consoles, which should bode well not only for Assetto Corsa’s continued success, but also upcoming titles.
With plans already in place to continue to expand Assetto Corsa throughout 2017, we expect further updates on the sales figures as the year goes on.
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