The Orange Box was a success both commercially and critically for all platforms but gamers have been left in the dark on exactly how much the gaming package has sold. Over on Tom’s Games, Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing for Valve, gave a little insight on the sales performance of The Orange Box.
According to Lombardi, the Xbox 360 version sold over a million copies, while the PS3 version sold over a few hundred thousand copies. Overall, he estimated that the Orange Box would have sold about 1.5 million copies on consoles. But as for the PC version, Lombardi said that sales for that platform were stronger.
Regarding the strong Orange Box sales for PC, he said, "I’d say significantly stronger, at least a two-digit percentage increase over the console sales. And that includes Steam sales, retail sales, and now individual sales of Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life 2: Episode 2. So when you take the PC numbers for The Orange Box a la carte, they’re significantly higher."
Lastly, Lombardi spun his take on the whole ‘PC gaming is dying’ scene. He said that while PC game retail sales in the U.S. are slipping, the genre is still very prevalent worldwide, such as Germany where PC game retail sales are much stronger than consoles. Also he said that digital distribution is definitely a continuing factor for PC gaming sales in the future.
"Well, the NPD numbers are just a snapshot. In America, there’s no doubt there’s a problem with PC game retail sales. But look at other countries like Germany, where sales are much stronger compared to the consoles in a lot of cases. So you have to look at the bigger picture; just look at what Blizzard did alone in 2007.
And you also have to look at how money is changing hands and how games are being distributed for the PC games business. The PC is way more evolved in that respect, and digital distribution is a big part of it."
