Sony probably has reason to wince here: just as it seems ready to lean away from PC with its single-player games, PC appears to be the strongest platform for one of its live-service bets.

After publishing a pre-launch sales estimate, data firm Alinea Analytics has now followed up with a post-launch estimate for Bungie’s new shooter, Marathon. Having already sold close to 250,000 copies on Steam before release, the game has reportedly reached 1.2 million copies sold in total just three weeks after launch. Most of those sales still appear to be coming from Steam. Roughly 800,000 copies of Marathon are estimated to have been sold to PC players there, while the PlayStation 5 share is said to be much lower at around 217,000 players. Xbox players account for another estimated 133,000 copies.

Bungie’s new hardcore shooter seems to be struggling to find a broader audience at launch, but there is one point in its favor: the players who bought it are sticking around. While concurrent player counts on Steam reflect only part of the overall audience, Marathon is averaging between 300,000 and 480,000 daily active users across all platforms. Last weekend, average DAU stood at 380,000, while launch weekend climbed to 478,000. On Steam, we know the game peaked at 88,337 concurrent players, and that it currently fluctuates between roughly 15,000 and 45,000. Those figures suggest that, at least so far, engagement remains strong among both PC and console players, who keep logging in each day for a few more runs on Tau Ceti IV.

Alinea Analytics also added that there are clear signs Bungie fans have found a new home in Marathon. Some 78.2% of Marathon players had previously played Destiny 2 on Steam, and the figures are similarly high among PlayStation and Xbox users, at 74.2% and 82.7% respectively, indicating a substantial shift from Destiny 2 to Marathon. In addition, at least 36.1% of Steam users who play Halo: The Master Chief Collection have also played Marathon.

Source: WCCFTech, Substack, SteamDB