Elden Ring's latest Shadow of the Erdtree expansion has been a mega-hit for Bandai Namco, accounting for over half of the company's Q1 game sales volume.
This month, Bandai Namco released its Q1 FY25 results with flat operating profits, namely due to the amortization of development costs associated with specific games. But Elden Ring's new Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has done wonders for the publisher, selling more than 5 million copies in just 3 days' time.
"Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree got off to a good start and contributed greatly to our business performance," Bandai Namco said in a Q&A with investors.
Taking a closer look at Bandai Namco's supplementary earnings notes yielded an even more impressive result. According to the report, the publisher sold a total of 8.6 million copies of games throughout Q1'25 (April - June 2024). With 5 million copies sold, Shadow of the Erdtree actually accounted for 58% of the total number of games that the publisher sold during the quarterly period.
This is no small feat for any full game, let alone an expansion DLC. Elden Ring isn't just any game, though--the RPG has sold over 25 million copies worldwide. It's a smash success by all metrics.
Kadokawa Corp., the parent company of Elden Ring developer FromSoftware, also discussed Shadow of the Erdtree's meteoric numbers:
"...In the games business, where domestic sales of the large-scale DLC for Elden Ring got off to a good start, offset the impact of these businesses, resulting in significant increases in sales and profits of +7.025 billion yen and 2.761 billion yen, respectively."
All-told, Elden Ring helped boost Kadokawa's gaming sales revenue by 80%, and its gaming operating profit also shot up by 108% year-over-year.
