Dark Souls series sales surpass 8.5 million
Praise the sum!
The brilliant Dark Souls series has surpassed 8.5m sales, and more than 3.25m of those were on PC.
The numbers come from a Japanese presentation by From Software, reported by Famitsu and relayed/made sense of on NeoGAF.
According to the numbers:
- Dark Souls has sold 2,828,000 units worldwide
- Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition ("with Artorias of the Abyss") has sold 2,765,000 units worldwide
- Dark Souls 2 has sold 2,311,000 units worldwide
- Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin has sold 600,000 units worldwide
- That's a total of 8,504,000 sold
The PC-specific number comes from SteamSpy, which may not be entirely accurate. According to SteamSpy:
- Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition has sold 1,977,541 (+/- 33,243) units on Steam
- Dark Souls 2 has sold 994,455 (+/- 23,621) units on Steam
- Dark Souls 2: Scholars of the First Sin has sold 256,772 (+/- 12,021) units on Steam
- That's a total of 3,228,768 sold (+/- 68,885)
However, SteamSpy's Dark Souls 2 PC figure is in dispute. Start with the Dark Souls 2 total of 2.3m. Subtract from that 1.2m - the figure Bandai Namco said it shipped within three weeks of Dark Souls 2 launch (before the PC version came out and could add to the total). Subtract another 350,000 for sales of Dark Souls 2 on PS3 in Japan, a version From Software published. That leaves around 700,000 attributable to PC. But that's nearly 300,000 fewer units than SteamSpy attributed to Dark Souls 2 on PC (994,455). Thank you commenters grassyknoll and CatButler for putting that in terms I could understand.
Dark Souls wasn't originally intended for PC, which seems ludicrous now. It was a fan petition - with more than 100,000 signatures - that encouraged publisher Bandai Namco to go ahead with it.
The PC version turned out to be a ropey port but was made good by patron saint of the Dark Souls community, Durante, and the DSFix mod.
Dark Souls 2 was released on PC as well as PS3 and Xbox 360 from the off - well, almost a month late, but more or less the same.
Dark Souls 3, announced only last month at E3, will be a PC, PS4 and Xbox One game. The godfather of Souls, Hidetaka Miyazaki, will co-direct it. Look for the game in early 2016, apparently.
