Giants Called Me, Astro!

Gran Turismo 7, which launched in March 2022, has sold 12.7M copies (@alineaanalytics estimates) This amounts to $840M in revenue, second only to Spider-Man 2’s $1.3B – if we’re talking PlayStation first-party for this generation. Games like Ghost of Yotei, Helldivers 2, Astro Bot, and Wolverine (2.7M now, by the way) hit the headlines for us core gamers, but GT7 has outearned them all life-to-date on ONE platform (yes, even Helldivers 2). Gran Turismo 7 still brings in around 3M players every month (and between 400K and 700K active players per day). It’s also an evergreen seller every year. Looking at its post-launch years, Gran Turismo 7 generated: - $189.7M in 2023 via 2.9M copies - $161.3M in 2024 via 2.7M copies - $119.1M in 2025 via 1.7M copies This year, Gran Turismo 7 has already sold 1.3M copies, generating $74.7M. Every December is comfortably GT7’s biggest month of the year (except launch), and the gap is widening there. December generated 2.1x a normal month in 2023, and by 2025 that had grown to 2.8x. As the typical months cool off with age, Christmas always holds strong, so the holiday period is becoming a bigger slice of Gran Turismo 7 yearly revenue. For Gran Turismo 7, the week around Christmas does 3x to 5x a typical week – three years running: - Christmas week 2023: $14.7M (4.6x the year’s median week) - Christmas week 2024: $9.3M (3.3x) - Christmas week 2025: $8.5M (4.6x) These Christmas peaks happened at the full $59.99 (Gran Turismo 7 wasn’t discounted at all in December 2023 or December 2025). And although there was a discount late in December 2024, GT7’s peak week that year still happened at full price. You can really see why Sony hasn’t added this one to PlayStation Plus, eh? Say it after me: Subscriptions cannibalise premium revenue. More on Substack!

Gran Turismo 7 has sold 1.3M copies THIS YEAR, the same number that Forza Motorsport has sold since launch (@alineaanalytics estimates). Here's some more estimates on how Gran Turismo 7 is doing versus its nearest competitor, Xbox console exclusive and long-running sim racer Forza Motorsport (released in 2023 as a reboot for the franchise, about 19 months after GT7). Forza Motorsport has sold around 1.3M copies across Xbox (75.4% for Xbox console and PC) and Steam (24.6%), grossing $89.9M across those platforms. Launch aligned, and on just PlayStation, Gran Turismo 7 had sold 10.2M copies, generating $676.1M, by that point. When all is said and done, Gran Turismo 7’s 2026 revenues will have lapped Motorsport’s lifetime, too. It’s worth noting that Forza Motorsport was not released on last-gen consoles, and just under a quarter of Gran Turismo 7’s revenue has come from PS4 consoles. Critically, Forza Motorsport is also on Game Pass, where nearly 7M players have accessed it. Meanwhile, the Forza Horizon series has been performing incredibly in terms of revenue. This year’s Forza Horizon 6 has generated $583.7M across Xbox and Steam despite Game Pass cannibalisation, and last year’s Forza Horizon 5 PlayStation port has generated $383.5M on PS5 alone. So two questions, then: 1. How well is Forza Horizon 6 going to do when it launches on PS5 in January? Hit subscribe to get that in your inbox in January (which is in two months somehow!?) 2. Open-world arcade Gran Turismo when? Also, if you like arcade racers, go and play Star Wars Galactic Racer. It rules. Like GOTY material, seriously.