@ Christopher - I hope that's sarcasm. A single-player RPG, that's a new IP, in a genre renowned for hyper difficulty, with no pay-to-win/pay-to-get-ahead or any real microtransaction elements, has a more successful launch than titles that it is the antithesis of.

And with that success, the publisher immediately grants huge raises across all of their teams.

That is huge and you're dismissing that because of... the popularity of a F2P shooter? That's on been on every platform except iOS for like half a decade?

Aside from having to re-install it because of corrupt data (corrupt data because I never used to quit the game the proper way, lesson learned), I haven't had any issues at all. I can't say there's any reason not to get it right now :)

@Scoota
Actually paying attention to it right now, and I've only seen inconsistency in Limgrave open world, smaller environments are pretty smooth, I've see some judder before in even cave environments, though, but maybe a recent patch did fix that for performance mode.

I have an active Game Pass Ultimate sub. Please don't speak for me. I rarely am interested in the games there since the games I want to play don't go there. Or if they do, I've already played them. Perhaps some future games will be day 1 stuff for me, but most games that I want to play just aren't there until much later than when I want to play and I don't know if they will ever go there.

Well, if you look at UK numbers on a weekly basis, Xbox numbers tend to be down even relative to Xbox's smaller install base there. The assumption is that people pass on certain games either because they may come to GP later or because they are focused on games that are on GP.

The major caveat to this reasoning is that it obviously will not apply to tentpole releases like Elden Ring. There are always going to be a few games people won't wait for, but that doesn't disprove the notion that GP users are generally more hesitant to buy games.

***The assumption is that people pass on certain games either because they may come to GP later or because they are focused on games that are on GP.***

Weird, Microsoft says this:

"Microsoft says that even though Game Pass subscriptions and first-party titles did numbers during the quarter, those gains are offset by a decrease in third-party game purchases.

There doesn’t seem to be any one major 2020 title that drove last year’s increased revenue, but Microsoft does note that its 2020 third-party performance was impacted by stay-at-home orders tied to the spread of COVID-19."

Or it shows the type of people that play souls games are not the type of people to pay subs for game pass

That's also an option

It doesn't, and even if it was on GP I would most likely still buy it at some point.

Oh Sparky, this comment honestly made my head hurt. You have literally no numbers, proof and facts to back up anything you claim. But continue being hyperbolic with the comments.

The best part; ‘If GP didn't exist it wouldn't surprise me if the Xbox split was equal to PS.‘ That right there is incorrect, simply put.

@InUrFoxHole

LoL It's so easy to trigger people on this site . I tried to list a numbers of factors that could've been cumulative reasons to why it sold well but he and the down voters be getting mad and resort to name calling ... not even worth my time. Obviously if the 1st game sold like 25 mill and the 2nd sold like 15 mil then my point still stands that the second game didn't sell as well by a large margin . Add in bundles and the free giveaways ( with the $10 upgrade to add to the sale factor) and other none main entries ( which the article didn't specify it was only ) could've added to the total.

Even people commenting that they love the series with very minute criticisms the fanboys start crashing out like Sony games are holier then thou even though almost every sequel they've put out perform significantly worse then the originals . I wasn't even really trying to knock it as a series as opposed to just being a little sus about the sales figures but a majority can't handle opinions that aren't their own ... so soft so squishy haha

@InUrFoxHole

Just to you and your pathetic ilk. Sony's fiscal year 2021 (FY21) Q4 covered the three months ended March 31, 2022. During this time period they sold around 2M PS5s. Horizon forbidden west released during this quarter. The next quarter was Sony's fiscal year 2022 first quarter (FY22 Q1) ended on June 30, 2022. This period covers the three months from April 1, 2022, to June 30, 2022. They sold around 2.4M PS5s. Before the holiday season, PS5 was averaging around 600K to 800K a month. Hell if memory serves me correctly, they sold around 500-600K PS5s the same month that Horizon forbidden west was released. Keep in mind this is all PS5 sales, from all bundles to stand-alone systems. Same year, Sony also had the GOW and COD PS5 bundles. Also, are we forgetting Horizon forbidden west also released on PS4? Figures suggest the PS4 version was a significant portion of early sales. The PS4 didn't have a bundle of the game. So should we ignore the PS4 with the bigger player base and pretend most the this game sales were on PS5 and due to bundles?

In 2023 when it was announced that Horizon forbidden west has sold around 10M, a smooth brain like @Miraak82 said on Twitter and I quote:
"The point is that out of the ten million sold this year, most were bundles and most were horizon bundles. It’s not hard. Transitive property shows you that if ps5s sell and they come with a game, the game sells. It’s not an argument, that’s what happened."

Christopher Dring, editor-in-chief and co-founder of The game business responded saying: "But 80%+ of Horizon's sales across Europe were not part of a bundle" He is known for his expertise in the video games market, particularly for his analysis of sales and data.

It takes a special breed of stupid to see this game and start screaming it only sold because it was bundled or most of it's sales were from bundles, completely ignore PS4 sales, and other PS5 game bundles

@Miraak82

Sorry, are you stupid of something? Honest question. Since when did something free count as a sale? As a public trade company, you know lying about sales can lead to legal problems right? It is literally illegal for them to lie about the sales of a product and can result in server consequences. So I will ask again, are you really that stupid?

Also the Sony themselves said the games that came with Play at Home initiative are free. Can you please provide us with a link to backup your lies. Please show is all the games giving away were all counted as sales. I'm sure you have insider information to show Sony lied to their shareholders about the sales of their games.

Could count as a sale if those people did the $10 upgrade , if I decide to try it out again I would definitely do it and I’m pretty sure a lot of those people did . There’s plenty of ways to prop up sales numbers even counting the lowest of margins lol

@Miraak82

Could count as a sale if those people did the $10 upgrade?

Seriously, where the hell are you getting these lies from? Sony themselves literally call it an upgrade. The most they can do is add it to the revenue of the game, not a sale. Can you please provide proof to backup your ignorance? Thanks in advance