Starfield's debut PS5 sales may be as low as 140K, analyst estimates show

Starfield's debut sales on PlayStation 5 may be on the lower end, with the game selling an estimated 140K copies in its first week of sale.

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On the heels of reports that Microsoft may be re-thinking its exclusivity strategy, new reports indicate that Bethesda's latest RPG may not be performing exceptionally well, sales-wise, on the PlayStation 5. The game faced steep competition at launch due to a well-timed sale on the PS Store, which saw multiple high-profile sports games discounted below $15, as well as a $40 Call of Duty Black Ops 7.

New estimates from Alinea Analytics put Starfield's debut sales into perspective. The firm says that Starfield may have sold a smaller 140K copies in its first week, which is far from the breakout sales of a big game like, say, Crimson Desert (3 million sales in 5 days) and Slay the Spire 2 (also 3 million in 7 days).

"Our estimates show that the PS5 version of Starfield has generated $7.7M in gross revenue via 140K copies sold. It's done this in one week. While these would be decent numbers for many ports, it's not fantastic for a port of the biggest Bethesda RPG in a decade," Alinea's Rhys Elliott said in the latest newsletter.

That's hardly a breakout performance for a Bethesda game, and reveals potential cracks in the anti-exclusive strategy that Xbox employs, at least in its current state. Alinea argues that the sales on PS5 could have been better if Starfield was released day one on the platform, and the hype for the game may have died down in the last 3 years, especially now that there's many more games out in the wild.

It's possible that sales of Starfield could pick up in the coming weeks and months, and our recent findings show that the game did break into the top 5 best-sellers across multiple global PS Stores, however those standings have since shifted and Starfield has been knocked out of multiple top 5s.

Alinea's Rhys Elliott continues, giving the firm's estimates on total Starfield sales across all platforms:

"Starfield had already moved 3.7M copies on Steam before the PS5 port dropped. And even the Xbox version sold over 1M despite Game Pass cannibalising sales. The Venn diagram of Starfield prospects on Xbox and those subscribed to Game Pass is almost a big fat circle."