Sacred Symbols+, Episode 465 | Industry Economics Is A Numbers Game (Patreon)

Please welcome Rhys Elliott to Sacred Symbols+. Rhys is Head of Market Analysis at Alinea Analytics, a Norwegian firm that you may have heard of as of late, at least if you're in the industry weeds. That's because Alinea is one of the only reliable sources of otherwise-hidden sales and performance data for all kinds of modern games. So, for instance, when we recently spoke about Xbox performance on PlayStation, that came from Alinea projections spearheaded, in part, by Rhys himself. Thus, I (Colin) invited Rhys to Sacred+ for a conversation about the company he's employed by, the vital work he does for and alongside them, and what it all means for stats-driven enthusiasts that long for hard numbers. Within, we do indeed revisit the topic of Xbox publishing performance on PlayStation 5 -- did you know Microsoft sold about as many copies of Forza Horizon 5 on PS5 that Sony sold copies of AstroBot? -- but we touch on some other intreresting subjects, too. For instance, how are PlayStation games selling on Steam, and what kind of trends lie within the data? And speaking of Steam, is the PC platform truly as powerful and ubiquitious as it seems? What kind of companies and entities tap Alinea for their bespoke data? And where does all of that data come from, anyway? Why are their methods trustworthy, and why should we believe them? All of that (and more!) on the other side of the play button.