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Despite only being out for less than a month, the sales for Ghost of Yotei reportedly already beat its open-world Japan rival, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, on the PS5. According to analyst Rhyss Elliott for the Alinea Insight Newsletter, Ghost of Yotei has sold 2.5M copies on the PS5 since releasing on October 2nd, meanwhile, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is estimated to have sold 2.4M copies on PlayStation since releasing on March 20th.
While Ghost of Yotei has reportedly beat Ubisoft on the PS5, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has the higher number of sales overall with an estimate of over 4.3M. The belief is that Shadows’ sales are split 56% on the PS5, 26% on the Xbox, and 18% on Steam. However, while Ghost of Yotei is considered a success and Sony’s biggest first-party launch since Spider-Man 2 in Europe, Shadows overall sales are considered “lukewarm”.
Ghost of Yotei Players in Japan is ‘Over Triple’ Assassin’s Creed Shadows’
In addition to already outselling Ubisoft on PS5, Ghost of Yotei’s playerbase in Japan is much stronger, too. According to Elliott, “just 1.6% of Shadows’ audience on PS5 is in Japan,” meanwhile, “Yotei’s share of players in Japan is over triple that”. This is relevant because of how both games targeted Japanese players albeit with slightly different time periods with Shadows set in 1579 and Yotei in 1603.
Elliott believes Ghost of Tsushima may have contributed to AC Shadows’ “lukewarm” sales because fans of the franchise begged Ubisoft to explore Japan for years, but Tsushima beat them to the punch and did it better. Other considerations include the controversy surrounding Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ depiction of Japan leading up to its release, as well as fatigue with the Assassin’s Creed franchise plus the Ubisoft open-world formula.
Another consideration for why Ghost of Yotei has already sold better on PS5 is simply brand loyalty. However, whatever the reasons, Ghost of Yotei has done well in just under a month so far, and there’s plenty more to come with Legends arriving in 2026 and Yotei eventually porting to PC.
Ghost of Yotei is fantastic game and it is a worthy sequel to Tsushima. The biggest controversy leading up to its release was replacing Jin with Atsu, but the actor behind Lord Saito fully believes abandoning Jin for Atsu with the time skip was the “right move”. Erika Ishii also delivered a phenomenal performance as Atsu, recognising that replacing Jin was “daunting” but ultimately a “dream come true”.
As for what’s next from Sucker Punch, they have discussed wanting to continue exploring different time periods and settings belonging to Japanese history. However, they are yet to decide their next game whether it’s more Ghost or returning to Sly Cooper.
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