If you’re furloughed or otherwise social distancing right now, there’s not a lot to do. Many of us have been shut indoors for a month or so, and every possible small job that we can do is now done. It’s probably not much surprise then that we’re all turning to our games consoles for solace.
According to racing game stats site KudosPrime, we’re doing so in droves. By its count, GT Sport has experienced the largest swell in player numbers since the game’s launch back in October 2017 — to the tune of around 50% higher than this point two months ago.
Over the past two weeks, more than 140,000 players a week have been getting into GT Sport’s flagship Sport Mode feature. Last week’s 149,000 tally is the highest recorded since January 2018, and almost double the figures for the week before Christmas in 2019.
Since the beginning of February, the number of players racing online has increased by just over 54%. With nearly a quarter million players in Sport Mode across the month, March 2020 was the game’s fifth best month — behind only the first four of the GT Sport’s life — and up almost 40% on February. Despite that, April looks set to beat it by this weekend.
Of course a part of that is down to the much larger number of people owning the game now. Roughly 11% of player accounts were active in GT Sport over the last week, not just in Sport Mode, equating to around 1.1m users. During the game’s early peaks, there was a far higher proportion of accounts playing, but across far fewer copies.
GT Sport isn’t the only game experiencing an uptick in player numbers, as we’re all picking up gaming again to pass the time. Still, if the game is any reflection of a wider picture it’s little wonder that Sony and Microsoft are making moves to reduce the impact the large increase in network traffic on the online gaming experience.
Thanks to Milouse at KudosPrime for providing the stats!
Featured image courtesy of 05XR8.
