Resident Evil Requiem is a behemoth. It’s just passed $500M (@alineaanalytics estimates). Revenue-wise, it’s outpacing every other game in the franchise and will certainly leapfrog the Resident Evil 4 remake’s $600M+ when all is said and done. Requiem is also another hit in Capcom’s greatest run of its 46-year history, having sold a record number of games last fiscal year and openly targeting even more this year. Part of that success is Capcom’s strategy around catalogue sales and discounting on Steam. But PlayStation remains Requiem‘s #1 platform, accounting for 48.1% of the 8.5M players (followed by Steam with 43.4%). Of the more than 4M Requiem copies on PS5, 30.8% (or 1.2M) are physical. More on the new free Substack.

Wolverine has sold through 1.9M copies (1M in pre-launch digital pre-orders), generating $130M - @alineaanalytics estimates. Of these revenues, 22.9% were physical. As always, these estimates don’t include unsold retail copies, which publishers often report in their sold-in numbers. Wolverine’s early success means it just passed Death Stranding 2‘s lifetime PS5 copies sold and revenues ($129M and 1.8M copies). And Wolverine is already the top-performing new PlayStation Studios game on PS5 this year, leapfrogging: - MLB The Show ($99M and 1.5M copies sold on PS5) - Marathon ($60M and 1.8M sold across all platforms) - Saros ($40M, 510K sold on PS5) - Marvel Tōkon ($49M and 740K sold on all platforms) Wolverine‘s top market, by a landslide, is the US, accounting for 53% of the player base, followed by the UK (7%), France (5%), and Canada (4%). Logan is Canadian, after all. So yes, Wolverine has sold well, but its commercial long tail is limited by its mixed media and streamer reception. Unlike Spider-Man, which reviewed insanely well and has stayed evergreen for years, this one’s tail will be shorter and lumpier, but still there. Wolverine will have secondary volume bumps driven by MCU X-Men marketing beats, holiday gifting, and new PS5 owners looking for high-budget graphics showcases (I’m looking at you, upgrading GTA 6 crowd). But make no mistake, Wolverine will keep moving. The backlash was fast and hard, but that discourse will sail clean over the heads of the millions of more passive, mainstream players who make up the bulk of this audience. Those folks’ll buy Wolverine for the brand, get it for Christmas, and never once open Reddit to find out they were supposed to be angry. Wolverine will keep selling, just not at Spider-Man heights. Spidey’s been evergreen. Wolverine will be more ever-yellow. I’ll see myself out... More on the new free Substack (link in bio!)

Phantom Blade Zero is on track for a hit launch (@alineaanalytics estimates), if it sticks the landing. In the week since pre-orders went live, it's sold 300K copies on Steam and generated $14.5M in revenue, with 10 weeks left until launch. Phantom Blade Zero also just passed 1.6M Steam wishlists, comfortably the most of any game coming out this year. Like a lot of other action game sickos in the West, I’ve been following Phantom Blade Zero since its appearance in a PlayStation Showcase back in May 2023. While that was my first exposure, the so-called Kung Fu punk action game, mixing up steampunk machinery, body modifications, and fast-AF combat, has been in the pipeline for almost a decade – and in full development since 2022. PlayStation is pushing this one hard, with a dedicated 20-minute State of Play deep dive, write-ups on the PlayStation Blog, and some PlayStation-peripheral features that are usually reserved for first-party games, like haptics, adaptive triggers, and 3D audio. In other words, Phantom Blade Zero is getting the full first-party marketing treatment. Let’s get the obvious comparison out of the way. This one is ticking a lot of the same boxes as Black Myth: Wukong. Phantom Blade Zero looks big-budget, bloody awesome looking, and is a culturally rooted Chinese action game that’s resonating with folks across the East and West alike. I had a chat with China gaming consultant @DanielOlimac earlier, and he reckons hype in China is high right now. In Dan’s words (can I call you Dan? I’m calling you Dan...), it’s “nowhere near what it was like for Black Myth: Wukong, but considerably higher than what we saw before the launch of Wuchang.” Looking at Alinea launch-aligned Steam copy estimates, Phantom Blade Zero had sold about 286K copies 70 days before launch (yesterday). It’s about 6.4x more than what Wuchang: Fallen Feathers had sold on Steam 70 days before its launch (45Kish), and about 73% of Black Myth: Wukong’s frankly mental 393Kish. Tracking in the same ballpark as Black Myth: Wukong is hell of a position to be in. Dan's boots-on-the-ground read is that Wukong was a once-in-a-generation cultural movement that basically everyone in China was exposed to, while Phantom Blade Zero is “much more a ‘gamers’ thing’, but in a big way.” Obviously, that could snowball, though. Phantom Blade Zero also – unlike most Western games without a local partner – has the official go-ahead to launch in China. It leans into the home-market appeal. Phantom Blade Zero’s action is based around authentic Chinese martial arts (with Hong Kong action legend Donnie Yen being a mo-cap performer and consultant – as well as consulting from Shaolin and other traditional schools). There’s also a bunch of cool Chinese cultural heritage in the game, including lion dances, Beijing opera, nuo masks, imperial ceremony, ink-wash art, and all that neat stuff. It’s a game that clearly will evoke a similar kind of national pride that Black Myth Wukong did. Of course, it’s ticking all the right boxes for landing well in China. Phantom Blade Zero has a Chinese dub, and is regionally priced well for China and surrounding countries. It costs $60 in the US, but the equivalent of: - $39.84 in China (-33.6% of the U.S. price) - $41.81 in Hong Kong (-30.3%) - $43.25 in Taiwan (-27.9%) More on today's free Alinea Insight Substack.