yazenov
Member
OK so why not release it on PS5 for some extra money like Minecraft?
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[GSD] UK sales September 2023 - PS5#1 (+24%) XBS#2 (+136%) NSW#3 (+18%) | EA FC 24#1 Starfield#2 MK1#3
- Thread starter Thick Thighs Save Lives
- Start date
GHG
Member
HeWhoWalks
Gold Member
How much profit is their software pulling in?
yazenov
Member
They sure like to talk about profits even though MS never mentions it in their financials
Mr Moose
Member
Reckheim
Member
its a catch 22 for MS. They clearly stated that they need their GP subs to increase substantially; especially on PC. PC players ignoring gamepass during the starfield release is not a good indicator in accomplishing that.
Console players are the ones that are and stay subscribed to Gamepass. And their hardware is just not selling very well (compared to the competition)
as some posters mentioned above me, if they wanted actual sale profits they would have released the game on ps5. I think growing gamepass is 10 fold more important to them at this point.
TheGodfather07
Member
Decent boost for xbox from last month but it being down yoy has been the case all year long. Having peaked at only year 2 is pretty bad and that was only like 7m-8m units worldwide. Xbox is in pretty bad shape at the moment. There's no growth. It's just been getting worse every year since the xbox one released.
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Mibu no ookami
Member
A price cut and massive investments into GamePass would have been FAR more effective than buying ABK.
Imagine dropping the price of the Xbox Series by 100 dollars across the board and let's say those sold 30 million units as a result. That's only 3 billion dollars. Drop the price by 150 dollars and sell let's say 45 million units... that's 6.75 billion...
Maybe I'm being to generous in how effective such a sales drop would be, but I can only imagine that if the Series S was 150 dollars, you'd have a lot more people on GamePass.
Their inability to invest in their actual platforms reveals the truth about how unserious they are and how much they don't believe in the Xbox Series or Xbox at all for that matter. They think they can pivot to being a 3rd party publisher and all would be well, but the value of Activision is going to be destroyed by GamePass in the meantime. It was already a company going downhill.
Mibu no ookami
Member
As I've mentioned the dip in sales due to not having the license aren't nearly as bad as the dip in sales due to new competitors that will pop up now and eventually a competitor that DOES have the FIFA license.
Short-sighted for people saying they haven't seen an impact yet. No other games have released yet.
The other question is does EA have exclusivity on its club licenses, if so, it'll be difficult to get beyond that.
Mibu no ookami
Member
That's not remotely true...
You're full of bad takes...
You're only going to come away with about 80% to 75% of the profit on PC because of Steam's royalties (I'll have to double check the amount).
Whereas B2P royalties and MTX on your own platform produce endless revenue. A game like Hogwarts Legacy probably made Sony more money than Starfield did for Microsoft on PC, especially when you consider operating costs such as marketing and production.
H-I-M
Member
"Obviously, we know Starfield isn't coming to PS5 anymore. What persuaded Microsoft to ditch these 10 million potential Starfield sales was the belief the company could recuperate these profits by launching Starfield via the Xbox Game Pass subscription service on both Xbox Series X/S and PC, not to mention increased console sales."
Xbox expected Starfield to sell 10 million copies on PS5 but decided it's worth more as an exclusive
Source: https://news.yahoo.com/xbox-expected-starfield-sell-10-144156712.html Microsoft estimated it could get 10 million Starfield sales on PlayStation, but – surprise – opted to make it to an Xbox console exclusive instead. Yesterday, July 13, a US court released its findings from the case...
They clearly were betting on Starfield boosting subscriptions and console sales.
ReBurn
Gold Member
Making less money on PC is not the same thing as making no money on PC and Steam isn't the only way to buy PC games.
GHG
Member
Making less money on PC is not the same thing as making no money on PC and Steam isn't the only way to buy PC games.
Where else are people purchasing Starfield on PC then?
Mibu no ookami
Member
Chris really humiliated himself with his hot take on Starfield at launch, love that he got called out when he tried to double down...
Leave the console wars to console warriors and stick to heads-up analysis and reporting.
Leave the console wars to console warriors and stick to heads-up analysis and reporting.
MrTired
Member
You might want to check the stats Steam is the defacto market place for games. If some is a PC gamer there using steam and there certainly not using the Microsoft store to purchase 3rd party games where the profit for licencing fee is at.Making less money on PC is not the same thing as making no money on PC and Steam isn't the only way to buy PC games.
Thirty7ven
Banned
He’s putting the pressure on himself it’s so stupid.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
GG Phil, Todd and the teams at BGS and Xbox Games Studio.
Mowcno
Member
If Xbox hardware is down again in 2024 Microsoft will have some serious thinking to do about the future of their Xbox hardware business. Because it's certainly looking like the Series is going to end up doing worse numbers than the Xbox One at this stage.
Mibu no ookami
Member
Honestly, Matt isn't all that much different. Wonder if there is some sort of paid promotional deal from Microsoft. Wouldn't be surprised.
yazenov
Member
GG Phil, Todd and the teams at BGS and Xbox Games Studio.
That's MoM, not YoY. But you already know that.
XBS (-13%) YoY
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Mibu no ookami
Member
The pandemic had a sharper impact on console adoption this generation than it did on PC userbase. As a result, console is playing catch up on per game sales.
I wouldn't call that becoming little brother, but rather a natural but also augmented result of the cyclical nature of consoles as well and the pandemic. Going to be even sharper on Xbox than PS5 because the Xbox is underperforming.
Zekra Dezivad
Member
iirc last year xbox had +104% month on month aug to september. Since year on year 2023 is flat vs 2022 we are probably looking at ~
sept 2022 = sept 2023
aug+sept 2022 > aug+sept 2023
What does the -13% YoY figure refer to?
sept 2022 = sept 2023
aug+sept 2022 > aug+sept 2023
What does the -13% YoY figure refer to?
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Please someone tells him (be gentle, it does not seem we are dealing with the sharpest knife in the drawer)
GG Phil, Todd and the teams at BGS and Xbox Games Studio.
Mowcno
Member
-13% is estimates from the Install Base thread. Chris Dring says Flat. Reality is probably less decline than 13% but still a decline.
TheGodfather07
Member
It will be down. Once the decline starts, it doesn't stop. We could be looking at xbox only selling 5m worldwide in 2024. The only thing that could have an impact is a major price cut.
Zekra Dezivad
Member
Thanks
Horseganador
Member
September USA+UK:
PS5 ~ 582K
X|S ~ 354K
2023 USA+UK:
PS5 ~ 4,33 M
X|S ~ 2,26 M
USA+UK:
PS5 ~ 18,62 M
X|S ~ 13,81 M
PS5 ~ 582K
X|S ~ 354K
2023 USA+UK:
PS5 ~ 4,33 M
X|S ~ 2,26 M
USA+UK:
PS5 ~ 18,62 M
X|S ~ 13,81 M
I remember this being discussed before the game launched. Now its crickets or goalpost moving all over the world explaining why its not that bad.
As of right now, there is no game exclusive to Xbox that will generate as much hype as Starfield did.
Killjoy-NL
Member
Why do people ignore the fact that there is a ceiling to gaming services, which is much lower than tv or music.
They could add a shitload of extra games to GamePass incl COD and the like and it won't really make for a drastic increase in sales.
BootsLoader
Banned
They will release a broken remaster in PS6.
For someone who claims to not have an egg in the race, you simp pretty hard for starfield/xbox.
yazenov
Member
TheGodfather07
Member
2023 total so far is almost 2 to 1 before even adding Europe and japan... worldwide totals must be a murder show. Just pure domination of your competitor.
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I don't think they can. They most likely still lose money on each unit sold, and just spent an ungodly amount of money buying up Activision, there's no way the higher ups will allow them to take massive hits on price drops. Even with the deep pockets. Maybe a temporary promotion at best
TheGodfather07
Member
You must be new here if you don't know that Dench is a huge xbox fan. He's alright though most of the times and keeps the warrior side in check.
He knows he's just on a wind up, you're all falling for it. Anyway the lad is happy with starfield performance leave him be
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
It's just a silly thing I like to post in any thread starfield sales related. People seem to really like discussing the game a lot.
Plus, for some strange reason the comment seems to rustle some people's jimmies. Quite funny I think.
Starfield is a beast!
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demigod
Member
Give it time
Phil just took over from Don Mattrick
They just made The Initiative and it will take years to make a game from ground up
Covid caused delays, only for ms studios apparently
There are stock shortages still
Sales don’t matter because reasons and Gamepass
Starfield Game of the Generation, system seller #1 npd
2024 will be the best year
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Flutta
Banned
That has nothing to do with anything. This issue has been going on before the increase in price. Xbox sales are tanking due to MS attitude to the console market and their own incompetence.
Their messaging is all over the place.
*Console sales don’t matter,
*We don’t care where you play our games
*Day and date with PC
*Starfield selling more on PC than Xbox
*Gamepass is not linked to their console
*There are no console exclusives.
*Their games are mid.
Etc etc
TheGodfather07
Member
It's mainly to do with barely any game releases and no marketing. Which is funny because Microsoft are a trillion dollar corporation. We should be seeing xbox ads all over the place. The cost is nothing to them.
Reckheim
Member
By MS's own account, staying at 30m subs wont be good enough. I don't think that is the ceiling that MS wanted.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Gold Member
Agreed. At first I thought this Xbox jump was pretty impressive because I assumed it was YOY, but we know it did shit-all in UK sales for August, so a 136% increase MoM isn't very good when the August figures were so low.
But, hey, Microsoft love using these percentages as measurements of growth, because they're so easy to exaggerate and manipulate (to some degree) in data analytics. You can even mix it up with changing the methodology of reporting altogether. October's down MoM to September? Just do YoY for October instead. November MoM looking better than YoY? Switch back!
But it's also a self-inflicted wound. Microsoft go out of their way to give people less reasons to buy an Xbox. Therefore, they sell less Xboxes. If Starfield were an actual full-on console exclusive, and no PC version present, they'd of gotten similar software sales AND seen a much better increase in hardware sales.
Both Sony and Nintendo regularly show that to be the case.
They need games, it's that simple. Mass-market appealing games, associated with their console gaming brand. 1P and 3P.
Unfortunately for them, Hellblade 2 and Avowed aren't going to cut it, and they don't have marketing rights to the Avatar game. Highly suspect Sony have marketing rights to GTA6. Marketing deals for Persona 3 Remake, in all honestly, won't move the needle for Xbox.
Luckily for Microsoft they now have ABK, and I'm 100% expecting them to market the shit out of COD (and other ABK games) next year to tie them with Xbox. Also 100% expecting them to tie in XP, weapon, cosmetics etc. free perks and bonuses to Game Pass subscribers. Good Guy Phil™ said there's be feature parity, but he never said access to those features would be equal across all services.
And, you can make a distinction between a service (Game Pass) and a platform (Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, even Steam). They're absolutely going to go ham on free perk item/weapon/skin/XP bonuses for ABK games to Game Pass subscribers next year, particularly Xbox Game Pass.
Killjoy-NL
Member
I know, but they won't reach 100M.
Certainly not by 2027.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
So glad you said this. You are 100% correct here. It's a bone-head decision that makes ZERO sense. They need to undercut Sony on price NOW!!!
Narratives! All of these people like Chris and Matt that have these numbers are constantly trying to push narratives with their data. I don't think they love Sony, MS, or Nintendo. I think the narrative is to seem "Balanced", regardless of what the data shows.
Chris Dring needs to be placed on the figurative stake if GSD-UK Xbox sales are actually down 13%. Because in NO WORLD is that flat.
Yes they do! If MS really cares about their brand, they need to hugely increase their Xbox consoles sales because that's where most of their money is made.
No way bro. I think you may be missing the point of what MS is trying to do. They might legit by 3rd party within 5 years if GamePass doesn't hit 100 million subscriptions. And if they do, OWNING the content will be worth billions. Not selling more consoles today.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Gold Member
They already are with Series S. $349 now vs. the new PS5 Slim Digital's $449. If you're talking about Series X, well, that gets tricky.
Realistically and based on sensible economics they can't price the current X at say $399, or something even more insane like $249. Not only would Microsoft be losing tons of money, but they could also get accused of and investigated for price-fixing, an anticompetitive practice. Leveraging their sums of money from much more profitable divisions of the company, to basically drive competitors into a pricing war with gaming hardware that only a company of Microsoft's size could sustain the bleed of, is just easy pickings for anticompetitive investigations.
I don't think Microsoft want that, so they'll respect the economics of the supplier & production markets, and try having Xbox operate with a semblance of independence (in terms of needing to make by on its own merits to survive). So there won't be any undercutting of PS5 with Series X in price unless it's the current disc model late next year, or early 2025, when Microsoft want to phase out that old stock for the new (discless) Series X.
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