Crimson Desert’s 4 million sales may already be worth about $200 million, analyst estimates say

Crimson Desert is off to a very profitable start

Fantasy open-world adventure Crimson Desert appears to be doing exactly what a major launch is supposed to do: sell a lot of copies and generate a lot of money. Pearl Abyss, the game’s developer and publisher, said this week that the game has sold 4 million copies. Based on analyst estimates, that works out to around $200 million in revenue and still climbing.

PS5 is carrying a very large share of the haul

In the Alinea Insight newsletter, Alinea head of market analysis Rhys Elliot broke down the game’s early performance and estimated that Crimson Desert brought in $200 million in its first two weeks. Of that, $75 million reportedly came from PlayStation 5 sales alone.

That does not mean Pearl Abyss keeps every dollar, of course. Digital storefronts such as Steam take their cut, because apparently even fantasy sandboxes have to pay rent.

Alinea’s chart also places Crimson Desert among the top five selling games across PS5 and PS4, where it sits in third place. It is ahead of Minecraft and MLB The Show 26, but behind FC 26 and Resident Evil Requiem.

Losing out to the world’s biggest football franchise and a new Resident Evil led by Leon Kennedy is hardly embarrassing company. According to the same figures, the game has sold 1 million copies on Sony hardware, which is roughly a quarter of its total sales.

A steadier reputation after a rougher start

The game’s reception has improved as Pearl Abyss has rolled out regular updates. The Steam user rating has climbed to Very Positive, a significant improvement after a rocky launch period.

There is still plenty of time to see how far the game can go, especially since many players apparently have not even made it out of the first region yet. But whatever happens next, the launch has already gone far better than many games manage to.