Red Dead Redemption 2 is out today on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The epic open world Western-themed game made by Rockstar is currently being consumed – quite literally – by fans all over the world after a long, hard wait.
Meanwhile, analysts are already wondering how much RDR2 will be to sell in this first weekend on the market. According to a new Piper Jaffray report, the game could reasonably sell six to eight million units for a revenue of 400 to 500 million dollars. Overall, if that happened, they believe investor expectations for FY19 sales of 18-20 million units could be met. This would be significantly more than Piper Jaffray’s earlier 15.5 million estimates.
Related Red Dead Redemption 2 Plays Best on Xbox One X with Native 4K, “Nigh-On Locked” 30fps
RDR 2 Metacritic Scores On Par With GTA V.
Red Dead Redemption II launches at midnight, with an early “expert” review score of 97.5 across PS4 (69 reviews) and X1 (25 reviews). The score is equal to Grand Theft Auto V (2013 launch), and ahead of Activision’s recently released Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (86.5) and EA’s Battlefield 1 (88) from 2016.
What Is Reasonable to Expect for Initial Sales of RDR2?
First Weekend Revenue of $400-500M. It is possible that Take-Two will provide a first day or, more likely, first weekend sales figure for RDR2 next week. Based on our conversations with many investors over the past month, we believe expectations are in the range of 18-20M units of RDR2 to be sold in FY19 (ending Mar-19). Our gamer buying intent surveys over the past six months have suggested that RDR2 is the second most anticipated game of this holiday season, behind CoD: Black Ops 4, which is consistent with investor expectations for 18-20M units of RDR2 in FY19, compared to expectations for 23-24M units for Black Ops 4 in the Dec-18 quarter. Considering Activision announced that Black Ops 4 soldthrough $500-550M in its first weekend, we would expect RDR2 first weekend sales below that level. We believe reasonable RDR2 first weekend revenue is $400-500M, which would equate to approximately 6-8M units and would put the title well on its way to meeting Street FY19 expectations.
As you can read above, part of their evaluation includes high critics scores on aggregate sites like Metacritic, where our own review is included as well. You can read it here.
