May 23, 2019 THQ Nordic’s CEO says PC launches on the Epic Store have exceeded expectations.
During its latest financial results, THQ Nordic noted that Metro Exodus sales made it “the largest game launch” in the company’s history, but that the “absolute majority” of those sales were on console. Many fans of the historically computer-focused series took that to mean PC players had abandoned the game over its Epic store exclusivity, but CEO Lars Wingefors says that’s not the case.
“Epic Games store has exceeded our expectations in terms of sales in actual units of both Metro Exodus and Satisfactory during the quarter,” Wingefors tells us. “Epic Games store is in fact the group’s leading digital platform in terms of revenue generated by units sales in the quarter ending March.”
In other words, direct game sales through the Epic store brought in more money for THQ Nordic in the quarter than sales on Steam, PlayStation Network, or Xbox Live. That can be partially attributed to the higher revenue cut developers receive through Epic, but it takes more than a few percentage points to compete against the big install bases on console.
Wingefors adds “my statement yesterday” – that ‘absolute majority’ bit noted by many on Twitter – “about console share of Metro Exodus sales was referring to the two console platforms combined – both physical and digital revenue. This is still the majority of the revenues of Metro Exodus.”
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There’s a lot we don’t know about the sales numbers – including any actual numbers. Back at GDC, Epic said during its keynote that Metro Exodus had sold more than 2.5 times as many copies on the Epic Games store than Last Light did on Steam back in 2013, but the PC market has gotten a lot larger since then.