Earnings called with investors left CD Projekt in a tough situation where they wouldn't provide info about Cyberpunk 2077's return to PSN Store or directly deny low sales in Q1 2021.
CD Projekt recently held an earnings call where they were met with questions about Cyberpunk 2077's performance in 2021. One of the investors asked about the unit sales in Q1 2021, at which point CDP deflected the question by stating these numbers are usually presented around certain milestones.
They only added that 60 per cent of their product sales revenue came from CP2077 during the quarter. Considering that the main competition are sales of The Witcher 3, a six-year-old single-player game, six-and-a-half months old CP2077's seemingly large share didn't look too impressive.
Nick Dempsey, who asked the question was also curious about the possibility of returning to PlayStation platforms but didn't get an answer. He then followed up with an estimate that around 800,000 Cyberpunk 2077 units were sold during Q1 2021 and asked if the estimate is "in the ballpark", meaning if the approximation is at all accurate.
CD Projekt's answer was that Dempsey's calculation, based on his calculations for Ubisoft, "is not to be applied on CD Projekt and especially for a very special quarter after the release". More importantly, the remainder of the answer was fairly convoluted but mostly boiled down to CD Projekt presenting revenues "achieved from distributors" and that "pricing is different" because Ubisoft has direct access to retail channels.
The question was about units sold and the answer completely avoided talking about the number, focusing instead on revenue that CD Projekt presents.
If the estimate of 800,000 units sold over Q1 2021is indeed in the ballpark, it testifies to Cyberpunk 2077 absolutely flopping in performance after the strong initial sales that were based more on the hype for the game rather than the product.
Considering that CD Projekt avoided confirming or properly denying the number hints at some truth being in Dempsey's assessment. They definitely didn't stutter when they announced CP2077 sold 10.2 million units in the first week or over 13 million by the end of December 2020 .
