Prediction: Which gaming console exclusive will sell more copies across its lifetime: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, releasing May 10^th on Sony Corp’s (6758) PlayStation 4 or Quantum Break which is out tomorrow Apr 5^th on Microsoft Corporation’s Xbox One? Note that the latter will also be available on PC.

*FAIR WARNING* This will be a lengthy post, and more analytical than my usual ones. This is to dive deep into what is driving my predictions, rather than simply stating them blindly.

My personal guesstimates are below. In my opinion, Uncharted 4 has the better upside since it is the latest and likely last installment in a long-standing series. Additionally, PS4 user base is larger at around 36 million currently and I expect it to be as much as 50 million by end of 2016 based on growth since launch (and even more by the end of the generation, as we’ll see below). Moreover, Quantum Break is a brand new intellectual property (IP) for the lagging Xbox One this generation so its sales potential is lower despite its overall favorable critical reception now that review embargo has lifted as of last week.

When it comes to these two exclusives, quick predictions for sales this year and then rationale to follow:

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (Naughty Dog, Sony Computer Entertainment)

Predicted Lifetime Sales: 8 million

Quantum Break (Remedy Entertainment, Microsoft Studios)

Predicted Lifetime Sales: 5.9 million

The basis for these predictions comes down to a handful of factors: Current and predicted install base of each current generation console, historical attach rates of similar titles (comparison of software units sold per units of its console), actual company estimates and finally pre-order figures.

For Uncharted 4, the historical sales of each installment in the series is as follows over each game’s lifetime compared with the install base of PlayStation 3 on which all were originally released. Note these are lifetime sales:

Subsequently, current lifetime sales of select PS4 exclusives to date and corresponding attach rates based on 36 million units sold of the console itself. Caveats, obviously, these are newer than the older Uncharted games and some are available on PC. But these represent only console sales.

Pushing this one step further, let’s assume based on early sales trends that the PS4 will outsell the PS3 to upwards of 100 million (almost what the PS2 sold). Using this assumption, these are “potential” lifetime figures of the same select PS4 exclusives we just plotted at current attach rates:

Which ultimately leads to my estimate of 8 million lifetime sales for Uncharted 4, assuming it achieves an attach rate of 7.50% which is comparable to earlier titles in the Uncharted series and a bit more than select titles currently available for the PS4 console. This is my built-in upside, as the title has already achieved gold status which is pre-order sales of 250,000 before it has even released.

 

As for new Xbox One title Quantum Break, we’ll first look at historical sales of new exclusive titles available on “Original” Xbox and Xbox 360 platforms over the past few years again compared with corresponding console sales:

Now sales of Xbox One exclusives to date and attach rates based on 20 million consoles in the wild:

Similar to what we had above, the following is “potential” lifetime figures assuming that the Xbox One sells exactly the same as its predecessor which is around 84 million. I am estimating less lifetime sales here than PS4 based on the Xbox One lagging for the foreseeable future.

Almost done. While Quantum Break isn’t a part of an existing series, I’ve charted how earlier games by Remedy Entertainment have sold on their individual consoles. Note these are not console exclusives except for Alan Wake.

And finally, this brings me to my Quantum Break estimate of 5.9 million lifetime unit sales. I have to assume the game has an attach rate similar to existing Xbox One exclusives like Halo 5 or earlier Remedy title Alan Wake rather than classic titles such as Halo: Combat Evolved or original Fable. And also, this assumes Xbox One again sells as much as the Xbox 360 which I think is realistic depending on how this generation plays out.

 

Two MAJOR edits at this juncture: The Alan Wake sales figures above initially were high, as this is the figure was for the series overall. I have edited this to reflect Xbox 360 sales only which are around 1.5 million. Also, the big caveat that I didn’t properly convey is that at present Quantum Break is a console exclusive and it is available on PC but only via the Windows Store. Limiting distribution to one platform on PC rather than opening it up to others, namely Steam, will have huge negative implications for sales of the title overall. If MSFT doesn’t offer Quantum Break on the most popular PC distribution platforms at some point in its lifetime, and Xbox One doesn’t sell as well as Xbox 360, then my estimates would need to be revised downward.

Keep in mind, there are a ton of assumptions and estimates here. The bottom line is that I think Uncharted 4 has the greater potential when all is said and done, in that it’s the final installment in an established series going up against a brand new game in Quantum Break. This is despite higher historical attach rates for Xbox exclusives, as I think the Xbox One console could sell less than its competitor PS4 plus Quantum Break is an unproven brand. How do you feel about these assumptions and estimates? Do you think Quantum Break will actually sell more?

Sources: Sony Corp, Microsoft Corporation, Remedy Entertainment, NPD Group, Forbes, GameSpot, Amazon

-Dom