Analysts drop Cyberpunk 2077 sales forecasts by 20%

Cyberpunk 2077;s huge console controversy has triggered mass refunds and even removal from the PlayStation Store--a storefront that serves Sony's 100 million+ console base. Now analysts are reducing their sales targets to reflect the game's negative financial impact.

Six financial firms have updated their sales projections for Cyberpunk 2077, Bankier.pl reports. Analysts passed along their new predictions to the Polish Agency Press (PAP), showing drops of up to 6.6 million units a year after release.

Before the controversy, the median predictions among analysts had Cyberpunk 2077 selling 19.2 million at launch, and 31.4 million after a year. Now those forecasts see launch sales at 15.1 million (-4.1 million, -21%), and one-year sales at 25.4 million (-6.6 million, -19%).

The performance drops on consoles are the main reason for this adjustment, and rightly so. The firms expect consoles to make up 70% of Cyberpunk 2077's lifetime sales and this fiasco will set console sales back during one of the most critical periods of the game's lifecycle.

A day before launch, CD Projekt RED boasted that Cyberpunk 2077 had sold 8 million pre-orders across all platforms, and consoles made up 41% of pre-orders, or 3.28 million sales. CDPR has yet to update these figures, but promised to deliver new sales data before the end of 2020.