Viktor Spindler

March's top 5 PlayStation games by copies sold (@alineaanalytics estimates). #ResidentEvilRequiem sold 1.9M on PS5 in March, bringing its total on the platform to 2.8M. At launch, Requiem had sold through far more copies on Steam than on other platforms. While the number of copies sold on Steam remains higher than on PS5, Requiem has actually made MORE money on PlayStation. Requiem has generated over $200M in gross revenue on PS5, significantly outperforming Steam’s $167M. This difference is due to regional pricing and the different geographical distribution of Steam’s audience. Resident Evil Requiem costs $70 in the U.S., but the equivalent of $46.87 in India and $50.41 in China. Compared to Steam, more Requiem PS5 copies were sold in tier-1 markets, where the $70+ price point is more common. #FC26 sold another 1.3M on PlayStation last month. It gets a staggering 5M DAUs globally across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, but the platform preference is clear: PlayStation accounts for 80% of that daily engagement. And the volume is crazy, as FC 26 now boasts 25M players across PlayStation, Xbox and Steam, with 70% of that via PlayStation. Also, over 2.5M players are on PS4, if you’re wondering why EA keeps releasing last-generation editions. The sheer volume of FC sales means it’s worth keeping FC on last generation but not Madden and F1. Some food for thought: amid Xbox’s woes and Nintendo lowering its Switch 2 forecasts, I’ve heard the typical doom and gloom around the death of consoles. Sports games like FC and NBA2K sell best on console, sell gangbusters there, and have barely made a dent on Steam. The console-first nature of sports games also makes them a factor in Xbox’s next machine (and one of the reasons to keep the console side for now as Xbox transitions its players to PC). #CrimsonDesert has silenced sceptics (and the stock market…), who feared a rocky critical reception would hinder potential among consumers in the long term. Crimson has already made over $200M across platforms, including almost $75M via PS5, proving that there is a massive appetite for high-fidelity, single-player-focused sandboxes. On PS5, Crimson has carved out a specific demographic of enthusiasts that less global market data misses (but we don’t). Our estimates show that 38% of PS5 Crimson Desert players have also played Dragon’s Dogma 2. This is significantly higher than the overlap with more mainstream titles like Assassin’s Creed: Shadows or Expedition 33. Weird and wonderful RPG fans, let’s go. #Minecraft sold another 830K copies on PlayStation last month. Business as usual. With well over 300M sold across platforms, Minecraft is the best-selling game in history and one of the most resilient entertainment properties on the planet. Every month, a new cohort of children reaches Minecraft age, ensuring a constant volume of new sales regardless of the wider market’s health. Like sports games, Minecraft – while also on mobile – also serves as a gateway drug for wallets opening on the PlayStation ecosystem. #MLBTheShow26 sold roughly 400K units on PS5 since its March 12 launch, generating $30M in gross revenue. While these are respectable numbers for a launch month, they highlight the vast difference between regional and global sports IP. EA FC 26, a game that has been on shelves for over half a year, generated more revenue on PlayStation in the last two weeks of March from unit sales alone than MLB did in its entire launch window. And that’s not even including the huge revenue generated via FC’s Ultimate Team mode. The disparity here is driven by geography. While MLB’s player base is almost exclusively North American, with 96% of players located there and 92% in the US alone. Full write-up on the new free Substack! Link in bio.

Steam is Resident Evil Requiem’s top platform (@alineaanalytics estimates). Requiem is enjoying the best launch in the series’ history, over 5M sold-in as per Capcom’s official numbers. The success is the culmination of almost a decade of stellar Resident Evil titles, and a terrifying remix of the franchise’s highest highs. It’s a nostalgia free-for-all, and a bloody fantastic game. Literally and figuratively. But the new Resident Evil also underlines an important shift for Capcom. Our estimates show that as of March 4, just six days post-launch, Requiem had sold through 4.3M+ copies across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox. Capcom recently announced 5M units typically “sold-in” (shipped to retailers), so our “sold-through” estimates focus only on the sales to consumers – and don’t include Switch or Epic. Still, Steam’s performance can’t be understated: Requiem has generated gross revenues of over $340M across all platforms in under a week, and Steam accounts for almost $200M. Valve’s platform also accounts for 2.3M Requiem copies sold, or 53.1% of the playerbase across Steam, Xbox, and PC (console and Windows). This dwarfs even the PS5 (1.7M/39.5%) sell-through, and leaves Xbox in a distant third (300K/7.4%). Capcom’s PC-first dream is now a reality, and for a franchise that was once the spiritual ward of PlayStation. Capcom’s management has been aiming to do this for half a decade now and has been telegraphing this for months. In its FY25 Q3 earnings, Capcom confirmed that PC already accounts for 55% of its total unit sales across the back catalogue. Requiem proves that if you respect the player’s time, deliver consistent high quality, and fans on their platform of their choice, the audience is willing to show up. It’s refreshing to see Capcom’s flexibility and steadfast commitment to its core paying off. They’ve prioritised brand equity over fleeting industry trends, and in the process, they’ve expanded their user base in a way that feels incredibly organic. More in the new free Substack (link in bio)

🧟‍♂️ Resident Evil: Requiem is off to a record-breaking start, delivering one of the biggest launches in Capcom history, perfectly timed for the franchise’s 30th anniversary. Today, Capcom announced 5M units shipped in just five days, making it the fastest-selling title in franchise history. As shown in our visual, the game is tracking well ahead of prior entries and is positioned to generate substantial long-tail sales for the franchise in the years ahead. Huge congrats to Capcom for doing what they do best, pure quality. 💫 This will go down as one of 2026’s most acclaimed and biggest releases. Capcom continues its 2026 slate with Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection next week (currently #16 top-selling in Japan), followed by PRAGMATA, which already has an est. $1M+ Steam pre-orders and ranks 16th most anticipated on the platform, also selling especially strongly on the PlayStation Store in Japan. March is turning into a feast for gamers, with heavy-hitters like Crimson Desert, Slay the Spire 2, and Marathon lined up next.

Here's the top Steam Next Fest games by new wishlists during the event (@alineaanalytics estimates). Co-op pirate survival game #Windrose took the #1 spot, securing 351K new wishlists during the week-long event. This brings Windrose’s total count to over 1.3M, so Next Fest – and related promotions – account for about a quarter of wishlisters. Around 11.7% of Windrose’s total wishlisters played the demo, which was the third-most-played during the event. Despite the small team size, the Windrose looks stunning on high-end machines, too. Focusing on a PvE experience that scales for both solo and group play, Windrose Crew has so far done a nice job of turning the ship away from the sweatiness that can cause friction in this type of game (looking at you, Sea of Thieves). That said, over a third of Windrose’s wishliters have played Sea of Thieves previously. Given the positive reaction to the demo, I’m expecting plenty of Sea of Thieves regulars to – sorry in advance – jump ship when Windrose launches proper. Bungie’s Marathon secured the #2 spot for new wishlisters this Next Fest, adding 213K new wishlists and bringing its total to about 1.2M. A high 29.8% of those wishlisters played the Server Slam, the second-highest ratio in our top five. I was very curious about this one, so I spent a good chunk of the weekend playing Marathon (also, Resident Evil; more on that on Thursday). I’m happy to report that mechanically, Marathon is sublime. But there's a but. While Bungie’s gunplay remains best-in-class – feeling like a snappy, refined evolution of Destiny – the transition from the polished tutorial to the actual extraction loop is jarring. A messy UI combined with the punishingly quick time-to-kill (TTK) only makes things worse, and many players are being sent back to the lobby by AI before they even encounter another human. Marathon will likely do well due to Bungie’s pedigree and the fantastic mechanics. But for those outside that group, first impressions matter. While ARC Raiders succeeded by leaning into co-op and social glue, Marathon feels more weighted toward a hardcore PvP environment in its current state. Once I moved past those confusing first hours and internalised Marathon’s loop, it became clear that Bungie has a unique, fantastic game on their hands. Like, generational. But IMO, if Bungie wants to maximise its success here and capture the wider market, it needs to take a leaf from Arc Raiders’ playbook and bridge the gap between stellar presentation and high-friction onboarding. Full write-up on the free Tuesday Substack (link in bio)

Så glad att hälsa Tobias välkommen! 🙌

I'm off to GDC this year! ✈️ Anyone going? HMU if you want to chat about the games market, games data, or just grab a drink.

Here's the full top 10 for January's ranking of Steam games by copies sold (@alineaanalytics). Stardew Valley selling another 531K makes me smile. That $9 sale really upped the sales volume, but Stardew still sells 250K+ every month on Steam month regardless. Our PlayStation ranking is coming later, with an analysis in our Alinea Insight newsletter. Subscribe to the newsletter to get that in your inbox as soon as we publish. Link in my bio and the comments.

TTWO, Zelnick, tries to clarify that Genie is not a Game Engine for Investors.. cred: @Quartr_App

AI bros and Wall Street have lost the plot again.🤦 Following Google Genie 3’s announcement, gaming stocks dipped as investors panicked over a supposed “disruption” of the industry. It’s the same kind of DiSrUpTiOn we saw with web3, blockchain, the metaverse, cloud gaming, and esports. How are they doing again? The reaction to Genie is the clearest indicator yet for what most of us already know: generally speaking, the stock market doesn't have a bloody clue about games. Yes, it's a cool prototype, but Google will eventually shove Genie back into the bottle – or more accurately, the Google Graveyard. We saw this pattern with Stadia in 2019, a cloud gaming venture that Google unceremoniously axed. Genie 3 follows the same pattern of a flashy PR cycle followed by a prototype phase with no viable path to a profitable consumer product. Back when Google announced Stadia in 2019, I made a bet with one of my old bosses that it'd be in the Google Graveyard by 2023. I won that bet, and I’d bet the same thing again here – Genie will be in the Graveyard by 2028. Genie essentially guesses, frame-by-frame, what the next visual output should be based on your inputs. This lacks the core foundations of game development. There’s no intentionality here. In a real game, if you press ‘A’ to jump (let’s not argue about facebutton placement…), the game checks your velocity, collision, and gravity. From what I’ve experienced, there’s NONE of this in Genie – only a statistical guess that the next frame should look like a jump. In other words, because the model is just predicting the next pixels, it has no concept of rules, which are fundamental to games. Hell, they define a game in many respects. Scrolling through a video that reacts to your thumbstick is not playing a game. The model seems to be training on the visual output of games rather than the source code. That’s sort of like trying to build a working Ferrari by looking at photos of a Ferrari. And then there’s the plagiarism problem. Google says the model is trained on “publicly available web data,” AKA unlabelled gameplay footage belonging to publishers. Early user tests have already produced output that rips off Breath of the Wild and Super Mario 64, complete with paragliders and clearly plagiarised environmental assets. Nintendo’s lawyers are ruthless, and they’re not going to like this. I’d have loved to be a fly on the wall of that meeting. Nintendo has a history of litigating against even fan-made projects using their assets and IP (like AM2R, Pokemon Prism, and Lost in Hyrule). A multi-billion-dollar corporation like Google using its IP to train a commercial AI is a completely different kettle of Magikarp. Either way, there’s plenty of things to worry about when it comes to investing in AAA games, but Google Genie – and its ilk – isn’t one of them.

Enad Global 7: nästa indiehit in the making som marknaden missar? 🎯 @FarFarWestGame ett kommande co-op-spel publicerat av @FireshineGames , inom Enad Global 7, utvecklat av ett indie-team på sex personer. Trots exceptionellt starka tidiga datapunkter är spelet i praktiken inte inprisat alls i EG7 i dag. Min bild är att stora delar av marknaden knappt känner till att Fireshine står bakom projektet. Gameplay-mässigt, tänk Helldivers 2 och Deep Rock Galactic i ett cowboy-universum.🤠 Personligen tycker jag att det ser spelet både polerat och genuint underhållande ut. Se följande klipp: youtube.com/watch?v=ekp_Q0… Spelet har hittills genomfört två playtests: Playtest #1 (okt/nov) • ~125 000 unika spelare • Peak 2 591 CCU (samtida spelare) • ~98 % positiva omdömen Playtest #2 (nu i helgen) • Peak 9 385 CCU • Fortsatt ~98 % positiva reviews 9 385 CCU i ett playtest är extremt högt. Det placerar Far Far West bland topp 25 playtests någonsin på Steam, där majoriteten annars utgörs av AA och AAA-titlar med betydande marknadsbudgetar. Spelarfeedbacken är ovanligt samstämmig: • Väldigt roligt gameplay • Stark optimering • Ovanligt “färdigt” skick Många spelare menar att spelet i nuvarande playtest-form håller högre kvalitet än flera spel som släpps i full 1.0-version. Indie-setupen är helt rätt i tiden: • Mycket litet team, låg kostnadsbas • Co-op-fokus • Förväntat pris runt 19 USD Sätter man datapunkterna i perspektiv: StarRupture, som framgångsrikt lanserades i Early Access i förra veckan, peakade runt 6 000 CCU i sitt playtest och drygt 42 000 CCU nu i launch. Bolaget bakom, Creepy Jar, har senaste veckan mer än fördubblat sitt börsvärde och handlas i dag till ett högre EV än EG7. Min syn framåt: • Ytterligare playtest under Q1 • Early Access mot slutet av Q2 • Cirka 12 månader i EA före 1.0 Tidiga datapunkter är inga garantier, men signalerna här är ovanligt starka för ett så litet projekt.

Real-world validation comes from Max Verstappen using Assetto Corsa for F1 race preparation. simracingcockpit.gg/max-verstappen…

New Year! Kicking off with the Most Trending titles the first week of 2026. 👣 OKU starts the year as #1. To recap, Bongo Cat players get cosmetics for following and wishlisting OKU. As a result, the followers-to-wishlisters ratio is close to 1:1, which you don’t see very often. These incentivized followers will be an interesting reference point later, as followers campaigns are rare compared with wishlist campaigns. 🚀 Creepy Jar will release StarRupture tomorrow into Early Access, ranking as the 33rd most anticipated title on Steam with nearly 700k wishlisters, according to @alineaanalytics estimates. It will launch at a discounted price of $15.99 (down from $19.99). Other open-world survival, crafting and base-building games, such as The Planet Crafter and Icarus, show the highest wishlist-to-player affinity. 🌊 Subnautica 2 rounds out the top 3. Krafton’s upcoming 2026 title is currently the most anticipated game on Steam. Loads of its wishlisters have played the earlier installments, Subnautica (2018) and Subnautica: Below Zero (2021). The WL-prospects are also fans of titles such as Satisfactory, Astroneer and Deep Rock Galactic, as per @alineaanalytics affinity data.

Assetto Rally is being developed by Supernova in collaboration with Kunos. Supernova is also fully owned by $DiB. The game has been in development for around 4 years with roughly 30 FTE, many people from Milestone. I think it’s a smart move to tap into a nearly untouched genre.

Nothing indicates growth is slowing. With EVO’s monetization strategy and upcoming console releases, the franchise has the potential to compete with major titles such as Forza Horizon while maintaining high margins.

Assetto Corsa generated around €32 million in the last report. The franchise has grown at approximately 24% CAGR since 2018 and 11% over the last five years. All of this comes from a small and efficient team of about 30 people. There is a lot of exciting activity on the horizon!

The recent revision of Helldivers II figures by a third-party vendor illustrates precisely why we do not, and will not, comment on the methodological approaches of other firms. In this instance, the vendor themselves even transparently noted from the outset that there might be issues with the data. Definitions are critical in this space: our estimates reflect sell-through (units sold to consumers) on a global basis, not sell-in (incl. units shipped to retailers). That distinction can make a significant difference, particularly during the initial days after launch. Nevertheless, we want to emphasize that human judgment remains crucial when interpreting estimates, they should be seen as informed approximations, not absolute figures. In this case, it is not that surprising finding out about the revision. As a cross-reference, on Xbox, Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater launched the same day as Helldivers II, entering the paid chart at #22 and peaking at #9, whereas Helldivers II remained at #1 for the first fifteen days.

I guess @alineaanalytics numbers were pretty damn close to what really happened. I wonder will fanboys show them more respect now, or will they continue to bash them when the numbers doesn't fit their narratives?