Cyberpunk 2077 had the biggest digital launch ever

Super sales despite ongoing strife

Mired among a string of controversies and a particularly brutal launch period, CD Projekt RED’s futuristic RPG Cyberpunk 2077 achieved the biggest digital launch sales in gaming history. That’s according to a new report by SuperData.

As noted by the industry number-crunchers, the future-noir adventure sold an estimate of around total 10.2 million digital copies on PS4, PC, and Xbox One during its launch month of December 2020, simultaneously causing a huge 40% spike in PC game sales. Amazingly, this number does account for refunds – an important disclaimer giving the poor state of Cyberpunk 2077’s console release and its ensuing money-back campaign.

“An extremely high share of digital sales (80%) were on PC, likely due to the delisting on PlayStation and overall state of the console versions,” said SuperData of its findings. “Regardless of the short-term financial success, the critical backlash means the developer will now have to invest significant resources fixing the game in order to rehabilitate its image before the launch of its next title.”

Rehabilitate indeed. CDPR, who has a string of excellent titles to its credit, has been feeling the sting of Cyberpunk 2077′s fallout since launch, rescheduling its entire year around fixing the console ports while trying to get the title ship-shape for its upcoming PS5 and Xbox Series X editions. This is not to speak of the company facing two class action lawsuits, as well as the loud chagrin of disappointed players.

Cyberpunk 2077 is the biggest digital game launch of all time [Eurogamer / SuperData]