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[Negotiator101]

Maybe a bargain bin game in 5 years. Major letdown for me. Lets hope Elder Scrolls doesn't suffer as much.

This is 1/100th the game Star Citizen/Squadron 42 is.

In 5 years? What game isn't?

 

[Negotiator101]

Yeah not talking about the economy, I have no insight there. But MS can probably pick Phil’s nose and find 200m USD. It’s no real issue right now. I’m just talking about gamers discovering a game and being interested enough to try it. 11 million on Xbox Series, Steam and Microsoft Store is certainly not bad, even more so if half on the players are on Xbox, which is a small platform today.

I’d like to know the Steam Microsoft Store split. It’s doing okay on Steam with 20-60k concurrent players 2 months after release and no online mode, but I think the drop off is going too fast. I’d like to know if it’s the same on the MS Store version. I think they need to get the modding tools out asap. The concurrent player number will likely drop below Skyrim if they wait until next year. The game needs some new blood to create hype and give it legs.

It's got a major DLC next year and of course the official modding tools. Don't worry about the longevity of the game, it will sell for many years to come. The modding potential alone is enormous.

 

[SenkiDala]

You think netflix gives a shit how many DVDs Stranger Things sold? All they care about is recurring payments.

Yes I mean thank you mister obvious. I'm just saying 1 game sold in its month of release is not the same attachement than 1 game played 10 minutes.

But thank you to remind me that what a company wants is money, that's useful.

 

[Riky]

So the game was the massive success a lot of people thought it would be, huge sales, huge jump in Gamepass subs and huge jump in hardware sales.

As expected, congrats to Bethesda and Xbox and to Phil Spencer who has his purchase justified in a big way.

 

[sinnergy]

Neogaf Sony fans in tatters but here most predicted Switch would flop.. so that says it all imo .

 

[PaintTinJr]

Starfield isn't a particular buggy game today, why is it going to be so in 9 years? Also, your first paragraphs premise is based on someone staying subscribed for one game, and that just is not realistic. I agree that no one is going to discover Starfield 9 year from now and stay subscribed just to continue playing the game, but that also isn't gamepasses value proposition.

Idk, I went back and read a little of the convo beforehand, but I might be missing some context.

I'm not singling it out for its bugs as a retail game, where typically games do most of their business at launch, but as a game for a subservice and now, a month old? The game should be at a TotK, Spiderman 1 or Horizon level of finish, which from what I gathered from the Spiderman 2 thread ManaByte put up, Starfield has many of its launch day bugs(graphical glitches) post launch month suggesting that "good enough" is where the game's support is at, which doesn't age the game well for a sub service, because gamers coming in late and getting a game on a sub service are expecting perfection(edge case bugs only), at the level of Nintendo and PlayStation, and major third party efforts with a month's worth of release patches.

So it would be buggy in the context it isn't probably getting to a milestone of just "edge case glitches/bugs" ever.

 

[Mephisto40]

Now lets see how many of those 11 million actually got the first achievement in the game

 

[BigLee74]

I’m so confused. This forum tells me every turn that Starfield is shite. Yet there I am playing it every night and enjoying it. I must be wired up wrong.

 

[Mitsurugi Reiji]

Now lets see how many of those 11 million actually got the first achievement in the game

How many?

 

[StueyDuck]

Seems like alot of people were like me. Subbed for a month, played as much as they could (or could handle in my case)

If they are like me they'll drop the sub once that's done until the next thing worth subbing for appears for a month

Why pay$60-70 when I can pay $7 and play most of a game till completion or at least till a point where I am done with the title.

 

[PnCIa]

I’m so confused. This forum tells me every turn that Starfield is shite. Yet there I am playing it every night and enjoying it. I must be wired up wrong.

As someone who does not enjoy it - i would love to be in your shoes.

 

[BootsLoader]

They really try to push any number to make the game look like as a success.

 

[Mephisto40]

How many?

Looking on the xbox app, about 50% of people who played it actually joined constellation, so that's a 50% droppoff in the first half an hour

 

[MidGenRefresh]

I’m so confused. This forum tells me every turn that Starfield is shite. Yet there I am playing it every night and enjoying it. I must be wired up wrong.

It's equally shit and genius. I've clocked 208 hours so far.

 

[Mitsurugi Reiji]

Looking on the xbox app, about 50% of people who played it actually joined constellation, so that's a 50% droppoff in the first half an hour

Damn. Thts a big dropoff.

 

[DForce]

I’m so confused. This forum tells me every turn that Starfield is shite. Yet there I am playing it every night and enjoying it. I must be wired up wrong.

A game being "shit" is subjective. But we know that many players had a mixed reaction to it. The mixed reaction could also explain why sales have declined after the first few weeks.

 

[Little Chicken]

They said 10M less than 3 weeks after the game was out. Over a month later, just another million?

"Over 11 million" could be closer to two million now and that's bad how?

We haven't even encountered the holiday season yet, where sales/engagement will spike again.

Congrats to Bethesda and the team at Microsoft Activision Blizzard King for an iconic launch that has them all talking

 

[systemr123]

1 million in over a month is a serious rate decrease.

We'll see if there is any nominal uptick through the holidays, but my guess is that the Xbox series is a dead platform after January 1.

There seems to be continued obfuscation around how well Starfield performed, but I think MOST of us measure the goals around Starfield (enough to foreclose it on PS5) to be as follows:

• Sell Xbox Series Consoles
• Sell GamePass Subscriptions
  • Retain MAU beyond 3 months

We've seen in every reported region in the world that Starfield failed to move Xbox Series passed the PS5 with no major release for even the month of September. That is enough to suggest that it didn't sell a sufficient number of units because I don't really think anyone would say the PS5 sold an exceptional number of units in September and by all reports it comfortable outsold the Xbox Series.

With Spider-Man 2, the PS5 Slim, and new accessories, the PS5 is going to have an extremely strong holiday season while the Xbox has nothing to push it this holiday. I'm stunned that Microsoft hasn't dropped the price yet, because that's the only thing left in their control to do. They should immediately drop the price by 100 dollars for the XSX and 50 dollars for the XSS. That they haven't dropped the price tells me that don't want to to eat the operating cost for selling at a loss even if it means maintaining market share. That tells me they are no longer interested in market share this generation, and that's a VERY dangerous conclusion to make this early in the cycle that will reverberate into the next cycle.

Not sure we've seen any reason to believe that GamePass subscribership would have largely advanced due to this game. Forza 5 seemingly got significantly more players though perhaps less engagement. Even if 75% of players played it on GamePass, that would still only be 8.25 million. Let's be aggressive and say half of these are new subscribers, that would mean Starfield only drove 4.125 million subscribers... that's not sufficient, particularly because there is no guarantee that they'll stay beyond 3 months, especially with nothing of note on the horizon.

The player counts for Starfield on in serious decline on Steam. Even Xbox players have moved on to other games falling behind games like Stray...

Perplexed by people who are saying this game wasn't a failure, when it clearly is.

The only people who are saying that are the well known MS defense squad. They’re not many, but they’re very loud. If only they could take some minutes to reflect their own behavior and see how silly it is, maybe there is some hope for them left.

 

[systemr123]

Neogaf Sony fans in tatters but here most predicted Switch would flop.. so that says it all imo .

I never predicted this but I can totally understand how many people would have thought so. You got the super popular but super underpowered Wii, then the Wii U of which almost no one even knew it existed. Then… Nintendo came with a sort of silly concept of a handheld and console in one hardware unit, and massively underpowered again compared to the competition of course.

It’s easy to see in that chain of events why a lot of people thought it would fail. It didn’t though and I’m really happy about it because the device is awesome and the games are even awesomer. This has nothing to do with Sony fans, but you do you

 

[systemr123]

I’m so confused. This forum tells me every turn that Starfield is shite. Yet there I am playing it every night and enjoying it. I must be wired up wrong.

Yep.


Also, I enjoyed Starfield for about 20 hours I guess before I got bored of it. It’s not a terrible game, but it’s not really good in any way either. And it’s true that the engine is old as hell and it really holds the game back in every possible way.

 

[yazenov]

They said 10M less than 3 weeks after the game was out. Over a month later, just another million?

He's not really laying down a world class riddle here:



He's using the recent Forza and Halo stats for 18 and 20 million players and using it as reference to how they can make Starfield the most played Todd Howard game.

If Forza and Halo can reach 18 and 20 million in 1 to 2 months, it's sure as shit possible that the next prestige Bethesda game will reach those numbers too.

Nowhere in his statement he's talking about SELLING more. That's just something you've concocted yourself to make a false argument.

He's pushing for things like Game Pass, XCloud and launching on platforms like Steam on day and date to meet those player numbers.

Does anybody think Starfield will sell 20 million units?

Yes, very easily.

That is certainly a word salad on Phil's behalf. And it was a long winded way of saying :





This. Basically.

Starfield may be skipping PS but they're probably banking on it releasing on PC via Windows Store, Steam (maybe even EGS) and the mobile market using x cloud to off set that.

If Forza and Halo are any indication, 18 to 20 million people playing it within a couple of months shouldn't be difficult

 

[sinnergy]

I never predicted this but I can totally understand how many people would have thought so. You got the super popular but super underpowered Wii, then the Wii U of which almost no one even knew it existed. Then… Nintendo came with a sort of silly concept of a handheld and console in one hardware unit, and massively underpowered again compared to the competition of course.

It’s easy to see in that chain of events why a lot of people thought it would fail. It didn’t though and I’m really happy about it because the device is awesome and the games are even awesomer. This has nothing to do with Sony fans, but you do you

When it was announced, I saw it win and saw this concept for Nintendo easily stick 20 years . But I try to keep an open mind . I’ll always be me

 

[Danjin44]

I’m so confused. This forum tells me every turn that Starfield is shite. Yet there I am playing it every night and enjoying it. I must be wired up wrong.

This is your first mistake, you have your taste and others have theirs. Don’t let other people decide what you should and shouldn’t play.

 

[rolandss]

I’m one, was hyped for it all year. Picked up a second hand Series S to play it on. When it came out I subbed to gamepass, downloaded it and played it. Tried to like it. I can’t. The gameplay loop of accept mission and go through 3-4 menus and loading screens in quick succession for a fetch quest sucked. I’ve unsubbed from Gamepass.

To me this shows the value of gamepass. Demos are a long dead relic and this is the next best thing. I only buy 2-4 games a year, max. If I bought Starfield I would have spent $110 AUD on a game I don’t like. I can sub for the $11, try a game for a month, and unsub at the end of the month if I don’t like it.

 

[Flutta]

Neogaf Sony fans in tatters but here most predicted Switch would flop.. so that says it all imo .

And you predicted Starfield to be GOTG, XBOX S to outperform and outsell PS5,
and your uncle Phil to win more awards than any of his games… oh well at least you got the last prediction right

 

[DaedalusGrim]

11 million players but only 5.5 million bothered playing it first longer than ten minutes apparently. Weird.

The game isn't a bad one at all, but its also not the second coming of christ either.

 

[cireza]

Starfield has been a super fun game overall. No wonder it attracts players. Of course it is not perfect, but it really deserves the success in my opinion. Some quests are simply excellent.

People here are trying too hard to paint a negative picture for the game, it makes absolutely no sense. What is at stake here already ?

 

[Mephisto40]

Starfield has been a super fun game overall. No wonder it attracts players. Of course it is not perfect, but it really deserves the success in my opinion. Some quests are simply excellent.

People here are trying too hard to paint a negative picture for the game, it makes absolutely no sense. What is at stake here already ?

People have got an interesting idea of what success is tbh

Cast your mind back to The Last Of Us 2 when it was released, was slated left right and center when it was released by all sorts of people, yet the game has a 60% completion ratio

Now look at Starfield, 10% of people have bothered to finish the main questline

Starfield is not a "success" in any metrik, it's not even keeping 50% of people engaged enough to play it past the first half hour of the game

And before you start, yes I own and xbox, and yes I bought the premium edition of Starfield

 

[Darsxx82]

10 millons 21 September and 11+ millons 30 September.

It has already been indicated several times but you have seen fit to make tons of quotes before informing you...

 

[Tomeru]

how many?

 

[yazenov]

10 millons 21 September and 11+ millons 30 September.

It has already been indicated several times but you have seen fit to make tons of quotes before informing you...

So will it reach 20 million players in a couple of months "easily"? Let see your prediction

 

[Darsxx82]

So will it reach 20 million players in a couple of months "easily"? Let see your prediction

I have only corrected you, I have not made any predictions.
But thanks for confirming what your interest was

 

[cireza]

People have got an interesting idea of what success is tbh

Cast your mind back to The Last Of Us 2 when it was released, was slated left right and center when it was released by all sorts of people, yet the game has a 60% completion ratio

Now look at Starfield, 10% of people have bothered to finish the main questline

Starfield is not a "success" in any metrik, it's not even keeping 50% of people engaged enough to play it past the first half hour of the game

And before you start, yes I own and xbox, and yes I bought the premium edition of Starfield

Who gives a shit about this abysmal metric really ?

The game is in a subscription service. You are comparing it to a game people WANT to play and complete by definition since they are paying 70$ for it. The engagement is not the same obviously. There will be a lot of people who are simply going to try it. Of course they will, it doesn't cost anything more for them. Do you have to love, enjoy and eat entirely every single meal in a buffet restaurant ?

On top of this, you are comparing a linear cinematic game with limited content to an open world game with hundreds of things to do. I know people that have been actively playing the game since launch and still haven't completed the main quest. That's my case. Quick, finish the game to build a good looking metric for the company you love !

Can this comparison can be even more bathed in bad faith ?

 

[Fredrik]

It's got a major DLC next year and of course the official modding tools. Don't worry about the longevity of the game, it will sell for many years to come. The modding potential alone is enormous.

Potential don’t create mods. It still have fairly okay concurrent player numbers and mods are uploaded every day but I think there is a real risk that the modding community will have already left the game by the time the real tools are out if that takes too long and player numbers are low.
I hope for Skyrim legs though. High effort mods for this game could make it absolutely awesome.

 

[H-I-M]

Zero numbers shared.
We also know that they failed to meet the target, 3 years in a row.

Microsoft are so good at PR...

 

[Mephisto40]

Who gives a shit about this abysmal metric really ?

The game is in a subscription service. You are comparing it to a game people WANT to play and complete by definition since they are paying 70$ for it. The engagement is not the same obviously. There will be a lot of people who are simply going to try it. Of course they will, it doesn't cost anything more for them. Do you have to love, enjoy and eat entirely every single meal in a buffet restaurant ?

On top of this, you are comparing a linear cinematic game with limited content to an open world game with hundreds of things to do. I know people that have been actively playing the game since launch and still haven't completed the main quest. That's my case. Quick, finish the game to build a good looking metric for the company you love !

Can this comparison can be even more bathed in bad faith ?

I would rather eat a nice meal i've paid for than feel like I have to finish a bad meal just because I've paid for it up front if that's what you're trying to say

 

[Esppiral]

And 100 of them actually purchased the game.

 

[Gavon West]

11 million players but only 5.5 million bothered playing it first longer than ten minutes apparently. Weird.

The game isn't a bad one at all, but its also not the second coming of christ either.

This is the perfect example of people not reading statements from Phil that LITERALLY said that he didn't expect Starfield to sell a heep of consoles. The man said it could be an 11/10 game and it still wouldn't magically leap frog Sony console sales. Like, holy shit bruv.

All this to paint some false narrative?? Crazy...

 

[H-I-M]

This is the perfect example of people not reading statements from Phil that LITERALLY said that he didn't expect Starfield to sell a heep of consoles. The man said it could be an 11/10 game and it still wouldn't magically leap frog Sony console sales. Like, holy shit bruv.

All this to paint some false narrative?? Crazy...

Sure, he wasn't expecting their biggest game of the generation to push Xbox sales above PS5 sales, but let's NOT act like the hardware being down all over Europe and slightly up in the US in September isn't an underperformance.

 

[cireza]

I would rather eat a nice meal i've paid for than feel like I have to finish a bad meal just because I've paid for it up front if that's what you're trying to say

The way you spin this in the exact opposite way it actually works is hilarious. Who is going to feel more forced into finishing a game ? The guy that paid 70 bucks for that game alone ? Or the guy who paid 10 bucks and got 100 games ? Give it two seconds of thought. Quality isn't even part of the equation at that stage.

Don't worry, we all understood your narrative, which consists in taking a dumb metric and trying to turn it into "the game is bad" argument without it making any sense.

 

[nikolino840]

Maybe a bargain bin game in 5 years. Major letdown for me. Lets hope Elder Scrolls doesn't suffer as much.

This is 1/100th the game Star Citizen/Squadron 42 is.

Yeah sure I have seen the screenshot of gillian anderson and ellie on a ps4 is better

 

[Mephisto40]

The way you spin this in the exact opposite way it actually works is hilarious. Who is going to feel more forced into finishing a game ? The guy that paid 70 bucks for that game alone ? Or the guy who paid 10 bucks and got 100 games ? Give it two seconds of thought. Quality isn't even part of the equation at that stage.

Don't worry, we all understood your narrative, which consists in taking a dumb metric and trying to turn it into "the game is bad" argument without it making any sense.

I think you are getting a bit confused here, I never said the game was bad, I said the game hasn't been a success

I quiet enjoyed my time with it whilst it lasted tbh

 

[cireza]

I never said the game was bad

Then your comparison to a "bad meal" certainly wasn't the best to make.

 

[Mephisto40]

Then your comparison to a "bad meal" certainly wasn't the best to make.

ok Karen

 

[LiquidMetal14]

Yeah sure I have seen the screenshot of gillian anderson and ellie on a ps4 is better

I appreciate that hot take on this. It closes the case.

 

[Mr Moose]

So the game was the massive success a lot of people thought it would be, huge sales, huge jump in Gamepass subs and huge jump in hardware sales.

As expected, congrats to Bethesda and Xbox and to Phil Spencer who has his purchase justified in a big way.

There was no huge jump in hardware sales. Seems it sold well enough, with 2/3 being on PC (EU). No sales numbers though, sadly.

 

[Edmund]

You think netflix gives a shit how many DVDs Stranger Things sold? All they care about is recurring payments.

Just to sidetrack abit, is that a tranny in your display pic?

 

[StealthGoblin]

Without numbers this is worthless, and given Microsoft haven't banged the drum I'm willing to bet the numbers aren't as high as they wanted.

I suspect the vast majority of Starfield players already had gamepass and had it for a long time.

It's done well, but it won't offset those 10 million sales lost from PlayStation.

 

[Schmendrick]

PR talk with close to zero real information.

 

[Gavon West]

Sure, he wasn't expecting their biggest game of the generation to push Xbox sales above PS5 sales, but let's NOT act like the hardware being down all over Europe and slightly up in the US in September isn't an underperformance.

Starfield is a BRAND NEW IP. No established lore, no nothing and it was at 11 million players from September 30th. It's sold more than that since then. A brand new IP??
As a new IP Starfield is murdering the narrative despite hardware sales. Some of y'all be trying WAY too hard.