My mistake. Every single video i have seen of it was in coop, i assumed that was largely the focus.
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State of Decay 2 and Sea of Thieves both exceeded Microsoft's expectations
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
My mistake. Every single video i have seen of it was in coop, i assumed that was largely the focus.
Unless you're an investor that has poured money into Microsoft in the hope of a financial return, sale numbers do not matter, other than tinflame the pathetic console wars being fought by the man babys.
You aren't wrong, but current player numbers matter a lot if you are a player. And they could at least share that.
The numbers given are very obviously lifetime player numbers and not something from say, the past month.
Based on where both of those games are usually in the most played games charts, not a lot. SoT more so than SoD2 but SoT stays around the 30's for most played.
Granted the first game did not have co-op so lot of the marketing has been focused on showing it off. It's just as single player focused as the first game imo. If anything I would say the multiplayer is pretty limited.
Sea of Thieves came out in March. In July 21st's UK charts it was number one for the month. It didn't exactly stop selling did it?
It's not pointless because even if someone played for a minute it generated revenue. Neither are f2p games that need to keep the player engaged and spend.
Were this coming from anyone else I would believe it but seeing as Greenberg has said the exact same things about other MS games this gen that ended up being false I don't see why I should trust him this time around.
So far the only other comments regarding these games were just they they did better than expected at launch and Games Pass seems to have helped sales. We've had no official comments regarding LTD expectations, profitability or Current Userbase except these vague figures from Greenberg about total player counts which tell us almost nothing considering these are games that are both included in a subscription service and are meant to draw in long term active user bases. We have no idea how these games performed on a sales or active population basis and their refusal to comment on either figure makes it seem pretty obvious that they're something they don't want to reveal. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess why that might be.
That all said XB1 HW and SW seems to seeing some solid growth this year and I find it frustrating how they refuse to comment or acknowledge this with anything but the vaguest of metrics. Their refusal/aversion to providing any meaningful information is bizarre to say the least given the positive trajectory they are, by most every account, experiencing this year. At this point I'm convinced that we will never actually have any official figures for sales of their XB1 platform for historical data or analysis.
So far the only other comments regarding these games were just they they did better than expected at launch and Games Pass seems to have helped sales. We've had no official comments regarding LTD expectations, profitability or Current Userbase except these vague figures from Greenberg about total player counts which tell us almost nothing considering these are games that are both included in a subscription service and are meant to draw in long term active user bases. We have no idea how these games performed on a sales or active population basis and their refusal to comment on either figure makes it seem pretty obvious that they're something they don't want to reveal. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess why that might be.
That all said XB1 HW and SW seems to seeing some solid growth this year and I find it frustrating how they refuse to comment or acknowledge this with anything but the vaguest of metrics. Their refusal/aversion to providing any meaningful information is bizarre to say the least given the positive trajectory they are, by most every account, experiencing this year. At this point I'm convinced that we will never actually have any official figures for sales of their XB1 platform for historical data or analysis.
World of Warcraft had like 12-13 million active subs on its glory days and now they don't even report them anymore, because it is so low. Hell I don't even wanna know how many unique accounts they've had to try the game.
That's pretty much what just makes this PR talk. Not trying to bash Microsoft and gamepass is working as intented, but if they wanted to actually impres people they should tell sales numbers or active players
That's pretty much what just makes this PR talk. Not trying to bash Microsoft and gamepass is working as intented, but if they wanted to actually impres people they should tell sales numbers or active players
It is weird to realize that Microsoft has, by all accounts, had two successful exclusive titles this year. I heard about both games when they came out, and there really nothing from them sense. I am glad to hear they exceeded expectations, but it doesn't feel like either game latched onto the mainstream audience in the way that you want a first party exclusive to do so.
I have to imagine that in the grand scheme of things its an accomplishment just to have someone find your game, click download, wait for the download and then play it for even 10 minutes, even if it's "free." Saying non-concurrrent player numbers mean nothing seems weird to me.
If you're referring to the giant bomb interview he said the games performed better than expected and outsold their projections at launch. Which absolutely aligns with the data we have for the launches of these games. But unless I'm remembering incorrectly he said nothing about lifetime projections. If I'm wrong on that though please do correct me.
With the way the games seem to have been selling following their debuts it just a bit hard to believe that their LTD sales exceeded expectations. Even going by the lifetime player numbers with the number of years in development SoT was its profitability margins should be razor thin if there are any at all at this point. But perhaps they are meant as loss leaders to help sell Games Pass and generate more subscriptions. If that's the case then you'd figure they'd be commenting on and revealing Games Pass subscriber figures to show the titles were successful at doing that.
If you like a game, it's best if that game sells well so that you have a better chance at seeing a sequel. So it does matter to a certain point.
Agreed, but I don't think that's a bad thing. If they can release several games with a smaller but very enthusiastic fanbase like Sea of Thieves, they'll end up with many (new) loyal customers after all. I guess that's why Spencer is aiming for more creative AA games now instead of more big budget mainstream games.
I think this might be a sign that they are finally embracing the idea that not every game needs to be amassive blowout and that their catalogue should have a wide reaching appeal. Especially with their investment in studios recently that create games in genres and types for audiences that they are traditionally not serving. At least I hope that's the case. It certainly needs to be in order to grow their new subscription platform.
So yea it very well could be that they've learned not every game needs to be a mega blockbuster and that smaller lower cost less traditionally successful releases serve their own audiences. The proof will be in how these new studios are handled. Time will tell
Eh it is in the sense that these games were designed with the intent of having a continuous active user base in order to presumably help push subscriptions. So I'm this instance a download that plays for a week and then never comes back isn't doing what the games were presumably funded and created to do: generate and grow a consistently engaged player base. At least to me, going by the very limited data we do have access to it seems like their reach was severely limited when looking at the long term appeal of both titles.
PUBG barely hit 3m concurrent players. you think any of these games even come remotely close to even 1m? SoT is a dead game if we got by twitch/whatever else there is.
I want a Ryse sequel man. It was a fun game with awesome setting.
Clearly not 5 million playing it right now. That would be... megaton. The biggest game on Steam currently has about 1.2 million playing it.
How dare Microsoft be satisfied with their developers finding success on new and niche games. They must be lying. /s
This has been exactly the issue with every single game they launch.. Sony on the contrary hits a home run with the mainstream every single time.. I think MS should spend more time seeing what the community & respective audience wants more
That isn't necessarily true. The reason most don't go by player numbers is because you get multiple accounts from the same copies, borrowing, lending, used games, and in the case of these games, free trials via Game Pass. That's why number of players usually exceeds actual sales figures by some margin.
In any case, it's good to hear. In terms of how successful these games are in the context of other games, we simply don't know. We also don't know how high or low Microsoft's expectations were, but as long as they're happy.
I don't know if "Xbox most played games" can be trusted but according to this, SoT is currently in 32rd position.I don't see State of Decay.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/most-played/games/xbox
I'm just saying both numbers matter. You can't get higher concurrents without a lot of people trying the game. It won't be for most of them and those people move on, but the more that try it the more that might stay, the more people see their friend playing Sea of Thieves and check it out, stuff like that.
It's also not entirely clear to me yet that ever increasing concurrent numbers are the best way to judge these games. Have they even given people a way to spend more money on either of them? It seems to me that the idea could just be to create enough of these games that get frequent updates that people maintain their various Xbox subscriptions and check them out for a bit every time something new drops.
How many of them are constant players, for both games? Both games are pretty low on charts.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/most-played-xbox-one-games-in-the-us-week-35.66267/
Whilst this is true, sale numbers also have such ridiculous variables as to not make them very useful for long-term success evaluation either. If a game sells multiple millions in the first month, then all is likely well, but over time a $60 purchase turns into a $15 purchase, yet everyone treats a 5 million seller as a 5 million seller regardless.
According to the information in the OP this is what their audience wants...
It's weird to see Benji as a known sales expert on this forum basically confirming the success of gamepass titles and putting some positive light as a whole at the Xbox in year 2018 and many people just ignore that and try to say the opposite.
Agreed. That said, if those initial sales already cover development, marketing costs etc, then usually all else is a bonus anyway.
Wrong! They matter to gamers. Ask Sunset Overdrive fans or Alan Wake fans if they wish those games sold more. Ask fans of most of Sega's classic franchises like Panzer Dragoon Saga or Jet Set Radio. Sales dictate ongoing support and sequels.
These numbers are good news for the fans of the franchises. Personally I hope this ongoing support for SOT turns it into the game I was hoping it would become. Right now it's not and I had high hopes for it.
User Banned (1 Day): System Wars + Numerous accumulated infractions
Well, I guess this explains why Xbox don't get games of the quality of Nintendo's and Sony's first party that often, it seems they don't need to, two pretty average games seems enough to call it a day.
Average games to some people....Outstanding games to others. Everyone has an opinion.
When Sunset Overdrive, Alan Wake, Panzer Dragoon Saga and Jet Set Radio came out the pubs/devs didn't have a revenue stream like Game Pass to monetise their games. Of course they would rather their games sold more. But also, we have people (literally in quote like in the OP) talking about how just having more and more people playing games is good for their health and sales. More times you see State of Decay or Rocket League on your friends 'now playing' list on your console. More times you hear you friends planning to get together to play them. More times you hear them being discussed on forums (even if it's usually just Derrick screaming into the void asking for receipts or how much he hates Microsoft)... it all seems to be working towards more sales. It's a little early to say that definitively but that's what people are seeing.
I mean, you have two people in this thread saying that SoT is their GOTY for 2018. They're obviously not average to everyone. Sorry you didn't like them though.