Gran Turismo Sport Has Sold an Estimated 8 Million Copies

[TorqueHappenS08]

So GTSport outsold GT6?

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Even the king of sales, Call of Duty, stopped counting copies sold. I guess they’re still counting these for legacy reasons?

I find it hard to believe that any business would stop counting or tracking the sales numbers of any product.

They may have stopped reporting those sales numbers outside of the boardroom and not releasing the numbers to the public but I bet the game studio has accurate sales figures in hand within the business.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

So GTSport outsold GT6?

Officially it's unknown. The last update we got on GT6's figures were 5.01 shipped in June 2016. That was over a year out from Sport, so I wouldn't be surprised if it shifted a bit more; maybe around 5.25 million by October 2017.

Gamstat's player count for GT Sport seems mildly inflated, going off the data from Kudos Prime and Ryan Guernsey: those both hover around 8 million. Applying the sales/players ratio from the other PS4 games listed in the article to that player count (anywhere from 1.33 to 1.6) suggests sales figures of 6 million at the high end to 5 million at the highest multiplier.

This is all a lot of guesswork, but it uses at least some figures from Sport's player base. If I were to guess at an actual sales figure, GTS is probably neck-and-neck with GT6's lifetime shipped figure of low-to-mid 5MM. But I'd also wager its got far healthier legs than GT6 ever did, and if PD keeps up the steady support, it should add another million or two by PS5 launch. I don't see it ever catching GT2 (the lowest of the mainline titles) but it's still a huge accomplishment for the genre IMO.

Also, the thing about sales figures is there's so many more revenue stream options now. PD introduced microtransactions, for example. Depending on take rate, that could be a huge boon to profits. Just look at GTAV.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Also, the thing about sales figures is there's so many more revenue stream options now.

Sony can also track the income stream from the number of PS+ subs that can be attributed to GTS as well as they track what games and how many hours you play those games.
The only reason I have PS+ is for GTS.
I have never played any other Playstation games online.

 

[Outspacer]

Really, it needs to be stressed in-thread in case people don't actually read the whole article: this number is almost certainly inflated versus reality. The player count alone is around 8 million, and GT Sport would have to seriously buck the industry trend to hit a 1:1 sales/players ratio. That ain't happening.

Wait... you expected people to read past the bit they wanted to hear?!

Thanks for collecting some players vs sales figures - eyeballing those it looks like players being 30% greater than sales is about the average (modal, from GoW and GT6). Even though there's a lot of variance, it's good enough to use as a rule-of-thumb and it's in line with the previous comparison point for GTS at 3.3 million sold vs 4.2 million profiles.

I don't think we'll have to wait long for PD to announce 8 million players (maybe just a week or two away).

 

[Haitauer]

I hope they estimate other that sales from wholesale to retail as theres a ton of gt sport copies laying on retailer shelves.

 

[FUNanywhere]

Congrats PD. Totally deserved.

Sport mode is a revolution in console gaming.

 

[bloodyboyblue]

It’s still worrying that there’s 8 million players and the number of people participating in its flagship feature regularly, the FIA championships, barely clears five digits. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect 10 or even 5% of the player base to participate.

 

[ImaRobot]

It’s still worrying that there’s 8 million players and the number of people participating in its flagship feature regularly, the FIA championships, barely clears five digits. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect 10 or even 5% of the player base to participate.

If this is accurate in what it's actually saying, than that's 8 million sales, not players. If that's the case, there should be much more players than total sales.

 

[zeptrans]

It’s still a massive issue that there’s 8 million players and the number of people participating in its flagship feature regularly, the FIA championships, barely clears five digits.

Not for Gran Turismo, it's a massive victory.
GT series have a big "offline" community (GT1 to GT4), and succeeded with GT5 and GT6 (online community appearence), and now, have a big/active "online" community (cf lobby/daily event races or GTPlanet forums [lol]). So, GT Sport succeed to attract a new community, without forgetting the DNA of the previous ones.

 

[GT6mebe]

It’s still worrying that there’s 8 million players and the number of people participating in its flagship feature regularly, the FIA championships, barely clears five digits. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect 10 or even 5% of the player base to participate.

You vastly over estimate how many people want to take part in a serious sim like championship. The funnel goes like:

GTS casual players who play offline > GTS casual players who play online > GTS players who regularly play Sport Mode > GTS players who take part in championships.

 

[Sander 001]

I find it hard to believe that any business would stop counting or tracking the sales numbers of any product.

They may have stopped reporting those sales numbers outside of the boardroom and not releasing the numbers to the public but I bet the game studio has accurate sales figures in hand within the business.

You’re right I’m sure they are aware of sales numbers but they’re not an emphasis because it doesn’t directly indicate revenue or profitability.

 

[FPV MIC]

Huh? The vast majority of people voted for 5million+, with most of the votes at the end of the spectrum from 7-10 Million sales. You bring this up a lot, but I think you're not really remembering it correctly.

Either way, even if it's not entirely 8 million yet, I'm sure it's close, so good on them.

I'm not sure what poll you're going by but the one on this site is far from clear cut when it comes to sales estimate majorities. It's more of an even spread than anything else. The 1-4 million sales estimates (37.8%) actually polls a higher percentage than 7-10+ million copies (35.8%). The 3-7 million is the most densely populated grouping.

Not that a poll of this size has much meaning.... or that any of this really matters anyway .

Source: https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/estimate-gt-sport-sales.358075/

 

[Outspacer]

It’s still worrying that there’s 8 million players and the number of people participating in its flagship feature regularly, the FIA championships, barely clears five digits. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect 10 or even 5% of the player base to participate.

Note that it isn't "there are 8 million players", instead it's "there have been 8 million players in total over the 20 months". Or rather, profiles created. Just as the number of profiles will always be higher than the number sold, it will also always be higher than the total number of players. Imagine a parent with the main account buying and installing games for their children to play on a sub-account, as one example that would create a completely inactive profile.

Now I'm just using placeholder numbers for the sake of this... Let's say there have been 7 million actual players and they averaged a month of engagement with the game in the 20 months, playing for 2 days a week on average, meaning on average there were 7 * 1/20 * 2/7 million = 100,000 players on any given day. You can see that it can get divided down very quickly, and you (sort of) have your 10%!

If this is accurate in what it's actually saying, than that's 8 million sales, not players. If that's the case, there should be much more players than total sales.

I wish they hadn't used that title, but the article fairly warns to be sceptical.

 

[VincentVendetta]

Sony can also track the income stream from the number of PS+ subs that can be attributed to GTS as well as they track what games and how many hours you play those games.
The only reason I have PS+ is for GTS.
I have never played any other Playstation games online.

This and Burnout Paradise. That's pretty much it.

 

[DR_MOJO91]

Huh? The vast majority of people voted for 5million+, with most of the votes at the end of the spectrum from 7-10 Million sales. You bring this up a lot, but I think you're not really remembering it correctly.

Either way, even if it's not entirely 8 million yet, I'm sure it's close, so good on them.

It's definitely good, in fact I wonder what FH numbers were like. Microsoft generally avoids giving sales numbers and usually tend to provide player count only, maybe its like a way of inflating the commercial popularity, who knows. 8 million is definitely not a dying series especially considering this is basically a prologue/demo for GT7

 

[ScottPuss20]

If this is actually true, than it definitely wasn't expected considering how bad GT6 sales were. It shows that PD are getting their act together and I hope the continued support follows through to the next game. If it wasn't for the content updates, GT Sport would be dead now.

 

[ImaRobot]

I'm not sure what poll you're going by but the one on this site is far from clear cut when it comes to sales estimate majorities. It's more of an even spread than anything else. The 1-4 million sales estimates (37.8%) actually polls a higher percentage than 7-10+ million copies (35.8%). The 3-7 million is the most densely populated grouping.

Not that a poll of this size has much meaning.... or that any of this really matters anyway .

Source: https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/estimate-gt-sport-sales.358075/

You’re correct actually. 1-5 and 6-10 are more evenly split leaning towards the first half. Either way we wouldn’t be splitting it 1-4 because he actually said 1-3, which still points at the actual majority all picking more than that so his point is still wrong as if the consensus was actually the lower end of the spectrum. If we look at them all individually, the actual consensus would have been 5 million anyways.

Still, I do agree, it’s all absolutely pointless to even bring up something like that in the first place.

It's definitely good, in fact I wonder what FH numbers were like. Microsoft generally avoids giving sales numbers and usually tend to provide player count only, maybe its like a way of inflating the commercial popularity, who knows. 8 million is definitely not a dying series especially considering this is basically a prologue/demo for GT7

PD still has only given player count till this day. We have no sales number from them, just like T10. They’re both doing the exact same thing.

 

[vrossi]

Have you enjoyed playing Gran Turismo over the years?
...Then who cares about the sales figures?

 

[GT_brickhole]

How can there be more players than copies sold?

 

[TomBrady]

Good but wish it was higher. GT Sport is the best racing game of the gen easily.

Same with the Last Guardian's numbers. It did sell a lot better than SotC or Ico originally did, doubling their combined sales numbers. It also sold much better than the Ico collection on PS3, but still no where near what it deserves. Ueda's games get so much well deserved praise but not nearly the sales they deserve. TLG is a masterpiece and easily my favorite game.

 

[Northstar]

How can there be more players than copies sold?

Duplicate accounts as well as second hand/borrowed/rented copies.

 

[Magog]

Most sales happen during the first month of a release. Even if the PS4 launched, there were still over 80 million people who had a PS3 and not a PS4.

It's the only GT I skipped since the franchise started. I was busy with my PS4.

 

[SestoScudo]

If this is actually true, than it definitely wasn't expected considering how bad GT6 sales were. It shows that PD are getting their act together and I hope the continued support follows through to the next game. If it wasn't for the content updates, GT Sport would be dead now.

PD should be given its credit due rather than abandoning GT sport they stuck with their guns and supported the game.

Most games nowadays have their support plug pulled especially if the game was not well recieved or the sales were so bad.

Ea and activision are known for this rather than waiting for the game to grow they would quickly pull the plug.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

It’s still worrying that there’s 8 million players and the number of people participating in its flagship feature regularly, the FIA championships, barely clears five digits. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect 10 or even 5% of the player base to participate.

Nah. I'm sure if you looked at the elite esport championships of other games you'd find it's only a tiny fraction too.

I wish they hadn't used that title, but the article fairly warns to be sceptical.

Indeed: I stayed up late and put extra time into the research for the article to cross-check the 8 million figure, and wanted to make sure we weren't jumping into the deep end. Some people take the Shuhei response on Twitter as confirmation, but it isn't: it's a thank you. Whether the number is lower or higher, I sincerely doubt that is the arena a Sony higher-up would want to clarify it.

The current player counts, the ones that are easily accessible from PD's servers, are barely over 8 million. That should be enough — none of the big sellers on PS4 have a 1:1 ratio — yet even then I've reached out to Third Point for any insight onto how it came to that figure. Still nothing there, but I'm confident in stating the sales are not as high as the the report states. That's not a bad thing: quite the contrary, as even 4–5 million would be good in 2019. But I prefer accuracy.

It's surprising how many people just accept the figure with zero proof.

 

[FPV MIC]

You’re correct actually. 1-5 and 6-10 are more evenly split leaning towards the first half. Either way we wouldn’t be splitting it 1-4 because he actually said 1-3, which still points at the actual majority all picking more than that so his point is still wrong as if the consensus was actually the lower end of the spectrum. If we look at them all individually, the actual consensus would have been 5 million anyways.

Still, I do agree, it’s all absolutely pointless to even bring up something like that in the first place.

Actually he said ''Remembers the days when people thought GTS would only sell 3 million or so '', and I must admit that at the time of that poll only 3 million in sales seemed laughable to me too (I voted 6 million). There was no mention of 1-4m until I brought it up in reply to your statement of ''with most of the votes at the end of the spectrum from 7-10 Million sales''. I remembered it to be fairly evenly spread so I just compared even amounts from the top section and the bottom section of votes, simples .

Your original post in this thread was on the money though, and I'd like to see all motorsport game franchises flourish no matter what console (or PC), be they track based or open world .

 

[ArR29]

...Then who cares about the sales figures?

Well, yeah I guess but if you actually care about a franchise of course you still want to know if they're doing good commercially. So many great games has been discontinued because they're not profitable anymore. But some people use sales figures just to say their games is better because it's selling higher or it's not good or popular anymore because it's not selling like it used to be.

 

[ferreira]

So happy to see GT Sport grow! I'm sure this is in part thanks to the massive success of the Esports championships, as well as the ongoing updates and new content. Hoping this continues!

 

[AlanH49]

PD should be given its credit due rather than abandoning GT sport they stuck with their guns and suspported the game.

Most games nowadays have their support plug pulled especially if the game was not well recieved or the sales were so bad.

Ea and activision are known for this rather than waiting for the game to grow they would quickly pull the plug.

It does help that much of PD’s GT Sport work, be its assets, online features, whatever. Will transfer directly over to the sequel on PS5. That’s one of the reasons it was so important to ditch pre-PS4 standard content.

It must be quite invigorating for the PD team to know they’re now concentrating fully on high quality assets. With work that will be relevant for the next 5-10 year console cycle.

 

[GT_brickhole]

Duplicate accounts as well as second hand/borrowed/rented copies.

ill have to re read but i thought i read '16.x mil currently playing'

i guess currently is what threw me off