SuperData: Sekiro sells 1.4m digital units in March, beating Dark Souls III launch
Battle royales continue to drive growth alongside console games as premium PC digital sales decline
The first quarter of 2019 continued a trend of unremarkable but steady digital spending, with gross sales across PC, console, and mobile down 3% year-over-year in March to $8.7 billion.
SuperData's March 2019 digital games spending report shows that the largest spending declines were seen on PC, which dropped 23%. Mobile revenue also fell a slight 2%, though mobile spending made up 56% of total March industry revenue.
Console, meanwhile, actually saw a 10% year-over-year sales increase due to a combination of premium releases (such as Devil May Cry 5, Tom Clancy's The Division 2, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Yoshi's Crafted World) and the ongoing strength of Fortnite and Apex Legends.
Speaking of Fortnite, its revenue was up 7% year-over-year from the previous month. Superdata notes that March 2019 is the first year-over-year comparison we've seen where both months include console, PC, and mobile sales together as Fortnite's iOS beta didn't launch until March of last year. Epic's battle royale remained steady on the top grossing charts this month, dropping one spot on the console listing to No.3 and remaining at No.5 on PC.
It's also worth observing that while SuperData didn't give hard numbers for Apex Legends, its position on the charts has only dropped two places since its launch in February, from No.4 to No.6
Another top contender, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, saw its spending drop 20% year-over-year as the game enters its fourth year. That said, a recent content release put it up 43% from last month. Rainbow Six Siege's near cousin, The Division 2, topped the digital console charts for March in its debut month.
SuperData estimates that Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, which reached No.7 on the PC charts and No.4 on the console charts in its debut month, sold around 1.4m units in digital sales alone - more than the 1.2m digital sales for Dark Souls III's launch month.
Finally, SuperData also suggests that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate brought in around $67 million in revenue from in-game purchases alone during the Q1 of 2019, most of which would have come from the $25 Fighter Pass that will unlock a total of five new characters in the game over time. The first of these characters, Joker, was released this month.
