It's actively being stupid to pretend it doesn't matter for industry health
PS5 has sold more than 533,000 units In February NPD, breaking the record set by PS2 in 2005
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it shouldn't be even a question. this all narrative is like they are trying to bankrupt whole market. how stupid you have to be to parrot that sales don't matter?
it is like to say, Reality don't matter.
these guys went through serious brainwash program. to be so delusional, you can't be such retarded.
Software sales may not matter to Microsoft (They do) but they most certainly matter to third parties. We're already seeing Japanese publishers flat out skip xbox ports and i wouldnt be surprised if in the next few years we start to see western ones as well.
25 million gamepasss subscribers means 25 million LESS people willing to buy your game, not more. That means said game better have some form of microstansactions to have a hope of making money or it will be it will be an indie. ALL of the games on gamepass, sans halo infinite, were made in a buy to play paradigm in mind. Studios microosft has acquired, and games made specifically with gamepass in mind wont be traditional games but will need microtransactions to be profitable. Which puts them in this really strange place in-between free to play stuff like apex and fortnite, and traditional AAA. In other words a midrange, AA game with microtransactions. Gamepass is an inherently flawed proposition for gaming as a medium, like kinect was.
And for starfield. Resident evil 4, the original for the GameCube was one of the best games ever made that influenced countless games after it even to this day. Starfields will never be either of those. Even with RE4 anf Nintendos catalogue the GameCube never crossed 30 million and was a side console at best. My point is one big game isn’t enough to change the trajectory of an established generation. And re4 wasn’t launching against spider man at peak popularity.
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RE4 reached critical acclaim and praise immediately when it came out? I wasnt talking about sales but influence.
Sometimes i wonder if your just a meme account the mods made.
To the ignore list you go to save me for your idiotic incessant ramblings, i'm probably not the first either.
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RE4 was considered tp be am incredible game upon release on GC. The PS2 release was like an afterthought quite some time later. I'm sure it sold more on PS2 because of the console numbers but the version didn't match up.
RE4s reputation is in place firmly because of that original release.
It doesn’t matter if it was later and arguably not as good, the bulk of copies of RE4 were sold on PS4, and it was that version that made it a success.
Also, the PS2 version’s extra content alone makes it better.
You guys are placing too much emphasis on total software sales for Xbox. And I never said Starfield would sell a certain amount of copies. The point of bringing up past Bethesda sales numbers was to illustrate that their games are hyper popular and have clout to throw around. People will try Starfield, millions of people. The whole point for Xbox is that they want to grow Game Pass by millions of subscribers every year.
Can their games still sell well? Yes. Forza Horizon 3, 4, and 5 were/are great sellers on Xbox, and Steam sales for Microsoft titles like Halo MCC and Forza and Age of Empires are all great.
With that, Microsoft still wants Game Pass to grow because the more users that have it, the greater impact on impressions and word of mouth there is.
If Game Pass didn't exist today and Starfield was Xbox/PC exclusive, it'd sell at best maybe 5-8M in the first month. 2-3M in Xbox and 3-5M on PC. With Game Pass, and I'm sorry if this upsets some of you, it'll easily be played by +10M people in weeks if not days. Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite did the same.
Microsoft's entire 1st party strategy since 2018 is to maximize reach and get as large of a recurring subscriber base as possible.
Look at games like Hi-Fi Rush and Grounded. HFR was played by 2M people thanks to Game Pass, how many copies do you think that sells without GP, 500K maybe? Grounded has been played by over 10M people now, how many units is Grounded selling if Game Pass doesn't exist?
What are your opinions on Xbox Cloud Streaming where all you need is a GP Ultimate sub and you can play Xbox exclusives on your phone? No need to buy the game, and over 10M people have used XCG, are those just not real users to you, or are worth less than a $70 purchase?
The sales success of a game is not a primary factor for Xbox anymore, this is just an objective fact and has been since 2018. You can bring up Sony and Nintendo and any other publisher and it'd mean nothing. The more people that interact with your product, the better. It's current streaming logic 101. Microsoft would much rather have 5M people play an exclusive and stay subbed to Game Pass than that same game only sell 2M units. The value of a long term Game Pass subscriber is worth more than someone who buys 1 or 2 games a year.
Microsoft didn't buy Bethesda and Activision to just have more games that sell millions, they were bought to put value in Game Pass and expand the brand's reach.
It's been 5 years since Xbox started putting their games in Game Pass Day 1. Questioning the strategy and benefits of it at this point is being willfully ignorant.
Can their games still sell well? Yes. Forza Horizon 3, 4, and 5 were/are great sellers on Xbox, and Steam sales for Microsoft titles like Halo MCC and Forza and Age of Empires are all great.
With that, Microsoft still wants Game Pass to grow because the more users that have it, the greater impact on impressions and word of mouth there is.
If Game Pass didn't exist today and Starfield was Xbox/PC exclusive, it'd sell at best maybe 5-8M in the first month. 2-3M in Xbox and 3-5M on PC. With Game Pass, and I'm sorry if this upsets some of you, it'll easily be played by +10M people in weeks if not days. Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite did the same.
Microsoft's entire 1st party strategy since 2018 is to maximize reach and get as large of a recurring subscriber base as possible.
Look at games like Hi-Fi Rush and Grounded. HFR was played by 2M people thanks to Game Pass, how many copies do you think that sells without GP, 500K maybe? Grounded has been played by over 10M people now, how many units is Grounded selling if Game Pass doesn't exist?
What are your opinions on Xbox Cloud Streaming where all you need is a GP Ultimate sub and you can play Xbox exclusives on your phone? No need to buy the game, and over 10M people have used XCG, are those just not real users to you, or are worth less than a $70 purchase?
The sales success of a game is not a primary factor for Xbox anymore, this is just an objective fact and has been since 2018. You can bring up Sony and Nintendo and any other publisher and it'd mean nothing. The more people that interact with your product, the better. It's current streaming logic 101. Microsoft would much rather have 5M people play an exclusive and stay subbed to Game Pass than that same game only sell 2M units. The value of a long term Game Pass subscriber is worth more than someone who buys 1 or 2 games a year.
Microsoft didn't buy Bethesda and Activision to just have more games that sell millions, they were bought to put value in Game Pass and expand the brand's reach.
It's been 5 years since Xbox started putting their games in Game Pass Day 1. Questioning the strategy and benefits of it at this point is being willfully ignorant.
Everything you wrote can be summed up as "sales dont matter." Ok maybe to microsoft the company, sales no longer matter, for now. For individual studios and creatives? They absolutely matter hence almost every xbox studio having studio founders and talent leave on a almost monthly basis.
So fuck the game industry let's suck Microsoft schlong
It's like I'm reading some kind of PR speech from a Microsoft employee
To be honest, it just doesn't make sense.
GamePass can't reach 30 million subscribers for how long? Two years?
All these marketing slogans make no sense if the investment from the cost of games is not returned in full.
Everything Microsoft has been doing for the past 5 years has been spending money on the xbox brand with no real return.
And if the position of their consoles in the market (Together with the position of subscriptions) does not change dramatically, then all this bullshit about "BILLIONS OF PLAYERS IN HALO INFINITY" will not make any sense
If you can understand why MS...
- Dropped the number of titles in development and takes years to release a single game
- Dropped the quality of their own first-party in both content and overall presentation
- Focused in GAAS games
Then you is more biased than I thought you ever where... you eat MS marketing at breakfast.
I will be fine because I don't play on Xbox but who know how much these that play will sufer until left the boat
Hardware numbers don't matter, software sales don't matter, market share doesn't matter, profit doesn't matter.
Do subs still matter or have we also moved past that now that MS hasn't updated the numbers in a long time and missed their targets?
There is absolutely nothing impressive about Xbox except the amount of money MS is still willing to spend to keep it going.
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This.
Youre correct, NOTHING MATTERS, except stamping sony out of the games industry. Thats Xbox's charter at this point.
their games are not hyper popular. like, at all.
Well that just means microsoft needs to buy another publisher. Sony needs to be punished!
I also want a lapdance from Jennifer Lawrence. Doesn't mean it will happen, but hey, if we do live in the multiverse, somewhere another me is enjoying it right now.
How many copies did they sell?
It shouldn't upset anybody if the game is played by 10, 20, or 50M people. But the point here, which you're trying to strawman yourself out of, is SALES.
Let's make this simple: You release a game which cost you 200k to develop. You decide to put it on gamepass for 200k, breaking even. Your game ends up being played by 2M people. Do you know how much money you made? 200k.
Now, on the same scenario, you release your game and sell 25k copies. Each copy is being sold for 20 dollars. Even after store fees and taxes, you're making a profit.
Which one would you prefer? To make money out of your creation or to watch people say they're very happy they got it for free?#
They are real users, and they're also very stupid. They're contributing towards an industry that will not be able to fund games from sales, and will need to fund them with even more microtransactions. Imagine paying to access fremium games.
Of course its not, because MS had to come up with their bullshit metrics to justify keeping a failed business open. As for "streaming logic 101", it's working great for all the streaming companies. It's absolutely a profitable endeavour that doesn't cannibalise your returns whatsoever.
Is it though? Let's do some math. If I'm subscribed to gamepass, I pay 144 quid per year. 2 games is 160 quid more or less if AAA. Let's say after manufacturing and retail costs, 2 games is 100 quid gross. Oh no, i'm losing money! However, my beautiful streaming service requires millions thrown at it to maintain infrastructure, add more games, etc. So in the end, the lad that buys 2 games per year is actually more profitable to me than the guy that subscribes and gets all the crap "for free".
Now, microsoft may prefer the streaming scenario because they want to devalue gaming, but that's their whole angle: Gobble the industry, devalue it, and shovel people on their shit service.
They bought them to keep their games away from the competition first and foremost. The second objective yeah, to bury them on gamepass and eventually close their studios because those games will not be profitable.
Xbox was never profitable except for a couple of quarters. Trying to ignore this is being willfully ignorant.