April 25, 2025 by Rhys Elliott
Indiana Jones is selling copies faster on PS5 than it did on Steam and Xbox – a positive sign for Xbox’s third-party future
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the MachineGames-developed Xbox first-party title, officially launched on PlayStation consoles last week. It’s sold over 100 thousand copies so far (and growing).
The game wowed critics back in December with its blend of meaningful exploration, light immersive-sim elements, and a great execution of an established IP – perhaps the best release in said IP since the 80s.
Xbox has so far staggered its first-party releases on PlayStation, but the gap is closing – Indiana Jones came to PlayStation just four months after Xbox and PC.
As we covered previously, Xbox first-party games have had mixed results launching on PlayStation so far – some sold slowly while others sold well. Indiana Jones, so far, seems to be in the latter camp.
Indiana Jones is selling faster on PlayStation than Steam and Xbox – but there’s a caveat
Alinea’s copies sold estimates – the most accurate on the market (we’ll show you!) – show that Indiana Jones is selling more copies on PS5 than it has on Steam and even Xbox.
While our estimates show that just under 5 million Xbox players have checked out Indiana Jones & the Great Circle, the overwhelming majority of these came in via Game Pass.
Indiana Jones is selling faster on PlayStation than it is on Steam so far. While it launched on 8 December on Steam and April 17 on PlayStation, we’ve aligned the data below to show the period 4 days before and 6 days after launch for each platform:
Six days after launch, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle had sold 117.2K copies on PS5 (as of April 23, 2025) and 91.2K on Steam (as of Dec 14, 2024). It’s selling 28% faster despite the initial marketing cycle being over.
Speaking of marketing, this generation Xbox has been leveraging superfans’ FOMO to grow launch revenues. Like most publishers these days, it uses collector’s editions as a trojan horse to charge more for ’early access’ – AKA delayed access for those consumers unwilling to pay the markup.
Back in December, buyers of Indiana Jones’ $100 premium edition got two/three days early access on Steam and Xbox (depending on their country). This led to a bump in copies sold on Steam (even more visible in our Steam player data).
Want a demo of our copies sold and player data? We’ll show you.
Collector’s edition buyers of the PlayStation version could also get two days’ early access. However, the early-access jump was nowhere as near as sharp as Steam’s, as Indy had already been out on other platforms for months.
The fear of missing out had already been felt in full force. What’s another two days after four months of waiting?
Ultimately, the PS5 version’s sales outpaced the Steam ones as soon as the ‘real’ PlayStation launch period kicked off on April 17.
Indiana Jones has now sold over 300K copies on Steam after four months. We expect the PlayStation version to outdo that.
What else have PS5 players of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle played?
Below is a selection of games that Indiana Jones players on PS5 have also played (and they also over-index for all these games versus the average player):
As you can see, Indiana Jones’ players have a noticeable preference for narrative-driven action-adventure games – especially those based on established and cinematic IP.
The Uncharted franchise is a PlayStation stalwart, is available on PlayStation Plus, and was heavily inspired by the Indiana Jones IP, so it’s no surprise to see that almost 80% of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s PS5 players played The Legacy of Thieves Collection.
Speaking of franchises inspired by Indy, Shadow of the Tomb Raider (played by 45.8%) and Rise of the Tomb Raider (45.5%) are no surprise.
On the IP side, high-quality open-world superhero franchises also stand out – Spider-Man 2 (played by 63.5%) and Batman Arkham Knight (59.8%)
Franchise loyalty is a key theme across the board, particularly with transmedia IP. Hogwarts Legacy (66.0%) and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (54.1%) show the pull of globally recognised universes leveraging pre-existing fanbases from films and literature.
Marvel and Star Wars also make other appearances in the ranking. There is clearly a cohort of players attracted to big-budget high-quality single-player games – again showing that live-service meanders like Marvel’s The Avengers, Suicide Squad, and Gotham Knights were perhaps ill-advised.
Of course, Indiana Jones franchise fans were obviously drawn to this title. Over 10% of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle players on PS5 have also played Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, an obscure remastered PS2 game that game to PS5 (and PlayStation Plus Premium) back in January of this year.
Of course, many of these games have appeared on PlayStation Plus, which is of course boosting their player numbers.
More actionable PlayStation telemetry for Xbox as it moves towards the inevitable
It stands to reason that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would have sold even faster on PlayStation had it launched on the same day as the other versions, when the marketing was in full force.
Xbox is of course looking very closely at this data. We expect that it wants to – and will eventually – launch all its first-party games on PlayStation on day one. It’s been creeping up to it in a bid to not annoy its vocal core fans too much during the transition.
Xbox has been slowly boiling a frog, and it’s almost hit the boiling point of day-one cross-platform launches. Despite the vocal minority, the games market, gamers – and Xbox itself – will benefit from this cross-platform strategy.
Xbox needs to do it to continue revenue growth. It’s clearly gearing up for a halo effect of more successful launches down the line (puns intended – sorry).
The subscription cannibalisation conundrum
As we mentioned, Indiana Jones’ inclusion on Game Pass means it has more players on Xbox. However, multi-game subscription numbers have largely saturated. Xbox made a big bet here that didn’t quite pay off.
Despite companies’ best efforts, subscriptions will not be the main method of game distribution. For now, consumers – and the market – have spoken.
The reasoning is clear: the attention economy is already oversaturated, and consuming game content is more demanding than other mediums. A consumer can:
- Listen to hundreds of tracks on Spotify each month
- Watch dozens of movies / TV episodes
- But the majority only has time to play a few games maximum – and that extends to even highly engaged players
This is just the tip of the iceberg about why multi-game subscriptions are only worth it for the most dedicated players.
Many gamers are already served by the free-play markets, via games like Fortnite. Others are happy to buy a few premium games a year.
This is why Xbox’s hand has been forced to finally move its once-exclusive games games off platform (and gate day-one access behind Game Pass’ highest tier).
Day one releases on Game Pass Ultimate naturally cannibalise premium sales. While this is true for Game Pass PC as well, and Game Pass PC had some cannibalisation there too, old habits die hard.
Peeling players away from Steam has proved difficult. Therefore, many PC players wanting to check out Indiana Jones likely paid $70 for it on Steam anyway.
To that end, Indiana Jones has currently sold over 310K copies on Steam, grossing revenues of $17.5 million.
Indiana Jones and the Long Tail (sorry)
Alinea data shows that the game’s price dropped from $70 to $56 for one week on February 24 and another week on March 13, helping it double copies sold each day (versus the week before the discounts).
Want to see how price drops have impacted sales for your competitor’s games? Let us show you.
This signals Indy having a long tail, with increased sales velocity after heavier discounts. After all, 1.5 million people on Steam have wishlisted Indiana Jones, and discounts will notify then, prompt them, and – in many cases – convert them.
We expect the game to have a similar trajectory on PlayStation. While time will tell, Indiana Jones seems like one of those games that will sell well over time.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer reckons that the Indiana Jones franchise has a future with Xbox. It’s still early days, but we’re inclined to agree. And we expect to see the next one on PlayStation on day one.