Pre-orders for Cyberpunk 2077 are “visibly higher” than those of The Witcher franchise

In a recent call with investors, the transcript of which is on Seeking Alpha, it was revealed that Cyberpunk 2077 has already received more pre-orders than any game in The Witcher franchise. At least 50% of those preorders are for digital copies of the game.

CD Projekt Red’s CFO Piotr Nielubowicz explained to investors that the balance between physical and digital pre-orders for Cyberpunk 2077 is strongly in favor of digital. While it’s too early to predict the split exactly, Nielubowicz thinks that it will definitely be more than 50% in the game’s early life, at the very least.

Over the course of the call, Nielubowicz went on to say that digital pre-orders are visibly higher than anything the company saw for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Furthermore, pre-orders are higher than sales for any Witcher game at any point during their development or release.

Interestingly, the company is deferring all revenue that Cyberpunk 2077 has generated so far, choosing to report it once the game is out. The data will be included in their next financial report, including development and marketing costs. This will give us some idea of how profitable the game has been over the first quarter after launch.

It was also reported that CD Projekt Red had deferred PLN 77.7 million ($20.7 million) in revenue during the call. This is the biggest deferred revenue that the company has ever experienced.

Cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed several times this year. Now, its release date looks to be set for December 10. While the pre-orders sound impressive, a contributing factor could be these delays. As the new release date got closer each time, more pre-orders will have been made, only for the release date to shift once again.

It’s certainly impressive that Cyberpunk 2077 has more preorders than any game in The Witcher franchise, but it’s also been delayed more times than any game in recent memory.