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Starfield has been played by more than 11 million people to date. Launch day set a new record for most Game Pass subs added in a day

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Great. Now how many finished it? I sure didn’t.
true
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
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.
What were the hardware sales the prior month? What were the September 2022 hardware sales and how do both compare?
You think netflix gives a shit how many DVDs Stranger Things sold? All they care about is recurring payments.
Terrible absolutely terrible comparison!
Netflix is huge,a household name with a massive amount of subscribers.

GP is tiny and unheard of in comparison.
Man, happy bunch of gamers here aren't ya. I'm going to buy some stocks in salt, hilarious. Kudos to Bethesda and MS/Xbox, game could have been a homerun out of Starfield but I'll settle for a triple with some jank and a broken bat.
Why would anyone blink a eye or be bothered by GP?
sawyer-james-ford.gif






- #1 game in US and Europe in sales despite being on Game Pass
- Most new GP subs added
- More people played it on Xbox than PC
- Leading cause for the 13% growth in Xbox content revenue this quarter.

Looks like the game has been the success everyone knew it would, and then some.

GG Todd, Phil and the rest of the XGS team.
Links?
To be fair it's probably lower than the execs at Microsoft thinking of ways to spin their sales figures to make them look good.
Right and they do these spins often
The number of players doesn't make it a success.

Game X has 11 million downloads and Game Z has 11 million downloads?

Both games are a success by your definition, regardless of the cost and time to produce, the cost of buying the company that produced it, the opportunity costs, and the marketing costs.

For example, for the money it took Sony to buy Insomniac (229 million dollars) and the time it took them to create Miles Morales, Rift Apart, and Spider-Man 2, and the cost it took to create those 3 games compared to the money it took Microsoft to buy Zenimax (7.5 billion dollars) and the revenue generated by all their games in the same time period... I can assure you that Starfield isn't a success in that story.

Starfield was in development for 8 years with a studio larger than Insomniacs. That game was extremely expensive to develop and almost certainly costs more than 200 million dollars.

If you told Phil Spencer this was going to be the results of Starfield when he bought Zenimax, either he would have released it on PS5 to make up the development cost or he wouldn't have bought Zenimax at all.
Agreed
 
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On Xbox, no, it doesn't seem like people dropped off. On Steam, yes, it has seen a significant drop.

And I think the Microsoft website just calculates the most number of hours during a given time period. But that's just my guess. I wish we get more info on stuff like this, but we rarely do (another reason why I hate these vanity metrics).
Steam seems like a normal drop-off for these kinds of games. Looking at old Fallout 4 and Cyberpunk numbers, it doesn't seem all that far off from what we're seeing with Starfield.
 

Gavon West

Spread's Cheeks for Intrusive Ads
Starfield is not getting any hate, Starfield is getting what it deserves as a product, and the byproduct of that is MS getting shit because of it, deservingly so, they need to be accountable as they did with Redfall.
But, again, Starfield is doing SUPER well. So you're actually arguing for a narrative thats not even remotely true. Microsoft should take accountability for it's successes and fai
I never said was a failure, but for sure they expected a much better performance.
It's exceeding their expectations broski. Lol. And it's still happening. Do some research.
 

NickFire

Member
Considering 25+m GP subs, that's not all that great, tbh. Especially considering the hype going into the game.
I don't see this as a knock against the game itself, but I'm really surprised it isn't closer to the number of subs. It just makes no sense to me. This is one of, if not the biggest GP game of all time. These people have already "paid" to play it. Why haven't most of them tried it yet?
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
The best indicator of Starfield (and Gamepass) being a success:

Tell us how many subscriptions with actual numbers GP Ultimate increased by prior to Starfield and the end of the actual year. If they added 5M or so subscribers THEN MS will have something to brag about.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Starfield has been huge. No doubt about it. Every single person in my office is still playing it. That's 8 people but we are a pc gaming company. We have multiple offices and many people are still playing the game.

Starfield and balders gate 3 are the biggest PC games in the company. I don't see how that is anything but a success when everyone is playing either cyberpunk, balders gate 3 or staffield right now.
Weird. I teach high school. I told my kids I was playing Starfield. Not one of them said they had an interest. Many of them are asking if I have played Spiderman 2. I am telling them I will finish Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty first.
 
Weird. I teach high school. I told my kids I was playing Starfield. Not one of them said they had an interest. Many of them are asking if I have played Spiderman 2. I am telling them I will finish Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty first.
I don't see Starfield attracting the same people that Spider-man 2 does. I'd imagine the player base skews older.
 
I don't see this as a knock against the game itself, but I'm really surprised it isn't closer to the number of subs. It just makes no sense to me. This is one of, if not the biggest GP game of all time. These people have already "paid" to play it. Why haven't most of them tried it yet?

This is my point.

I think back to how ridiculously hyped and marketed Skyrim was. Starfield's hype was even bigger than this. I can't understand why GamePass users haven't played it already when it costs them no additional expense to do so.

It could be indicative of a large proportion of Xbox gamers also being on PC and choosing to buy the game on Steam rather than play on Xbox.
 
This is my point.

I think back to how ridiculously hyped and marketed Skyrim was. Starfield's hype was even bigger than this. I can't understand why GamePass users haven't played it already when it costs them no additional expense to do so.

It could be indicative of a large proportion of Xbox gamers also being on PC and choosing to buy the game on Steam rather than play on Xbox.
You do realize gamers all like different kinds of games, right? Starfield is an RPG and that alone probably cuts off have the Game Pass subscribers.
 
Chill, the Xbox isn't going anywhere. You have a bunch of made up scenarios in your post with a bunch of guesstimations, with zero facts to back them up. The fact is that in the United States, Xbox console sales actually increased in the month of September with the release of Starfield, while Playstation saw a decline. So while it didn't out sell the Playstation, the Xbox is on an upward trend.

The reason the Xbox isn't seeing a drop in price, is because there aren't warehouses full of Xbox consoles out there and there hasn't been a major cost cutting revision. None of the three major players this console gen are sitting on tons of stock. Xbox, Playstation and Switch are all doing decent (Xbox) to great (PlayStation & Switch) this gen.

Not sure where you are getting the stats that more people are playing Stray on the Xbox than they are Starfield.

Here is the current Microsoft Store Top 15 in the US:
1. Fortnight
2. Call of Duty
3. Roblox
4. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Seige
5. NBA 2k24
6. Apex Legends
7. Starfield
8. Grand Theft Auto 5
9. Minecraft
10. Madden 24
11. Overwatch 2
12. Rocket League
13. Destiny 2
14. Grand Theft Auto Online
15. Halo Infinite


Trending up? So then October will be an up month for Xbox right?
 
Starfield was a massive pile of disjointed ideas that weren't fully fleshed-out or felt like they were held back because they played everything way too safe. The game is also absent of any memorable characters, Vascoe had the most memorable lines of all the characters in the game, and he didn't even get an affinity quest. Everyone was such a one-note character based entirely around a singular thing/idea and most of them were outright unlikeable. Frankly the writing and character development was terrible even by Bethesda standards.

I legitimately found Everspace 2 to be a more memorable game with more memorable characters and that game is a 100% space shooter with just radio dialogue and a sprinkle of still-frame cutscenes.

This game is evergreen though; it will continue to sell for another decade. As modding comes in next year, the mostly blank canvas that Bethesda made will become populated with all sorts of shit and the game will have more half-baked stuff added to it by Bethesda through their paid mods. I did enjoy it, I dumped over 400 hours into it, but I'm already forgetting a lot of what I did. It has just doesn't have those moments I'll remember in a decade like Bethesda's previous games.
 

Gavon West

Spread's Cheeks for Intrusive Ads
Weird. I teach high school. I told my kids I was playing Starfield. Not one of them said they had an interest. Many of them are asking if I have played Spiderman 2. I am telling them I will finish Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty first.
Dem po kids. Jesus, fix it!
 

DaGwaphics

Member
I don't see this as a knock against the game itself, but I'm really surprised it isn't closer to the number of subs. It just makes no sense to me. This is one of, if not the biggest GP game of all time. These people have already "paid" to play it. Why haven't most of them tried it yet?

Some of the GP subscribers just play the games they are comfortable with and don't try the new games right away. The "most popular" GP games list always has a lot of the usual suspects on it (Mincraft, FH, SoT, Madden, Fifa, etc.) plus players might be finishing their current game and so on. It would be unrealistic to think that every subscriber immediately jumps on every new game.
 

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
This is my point.

I think back to how ridiculously hyped and marketed Skyrim was. Starfield's hype was even bigger than this. I can't understand why GamePass users haven't played it already when it costs them no additional expense to do so.

It could be indicative of a large proportion of Xbox gamers also being on PC and choosing to buy the game on Steam rather than play on Xbox.
There are literally hundreds of games on Gamepass, players don't have time to play all of them, it's physically impossible.

Guess how many hours of Forza Motorsport I've played this month. Zero. I'm not that into racing games. Guess how many hours of
Yakuza I've racked up in the last year. Zero. I've never played GTAV since 360. Guess how many hours of GTAV I've played? I've wanted to see what it's like on Series X for a while now, and it's on Gamepass. I've played it loads.

Actually, that's untrue, I haven't even installed it.

And yet, I've played Gamepass games most days this past month.
 
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mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
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.

How can you tell that this bolded is true? How do you know?
 

K2D

Banned
If a game is disappointing, middling, avarage.. Is it better to have 11 million sales or 11 million players? /rethorical
 
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NickFire

Member
Some of the GP subscribers just play the games they are comfortable with and don't try the new games right away. The "most popular" GP games list always has a lot of the usual suspects on it (Mincraft, FH, SoT, Madden, Fifa, etc.) plus players might be finishing their current game and so on. It would be unrealistic to think that every subscriber immediately jumps on every new game.
Yeah yeah I know you’re right. Still crazy to me that so many who have it access hadn’t played in first month. I just can’t imagine not having done so if I had the service.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
Yeah yeah I know you’re right. Still crazy to me that so many who have it access hadn’t played in first month. I just can’t imagine not having done so if I had the service.

I'm always somewhat mystified by the "most popular" section of the GP tab. It shows that a lot of users don't use the service like I do, I'm all about trying out the new games. Sometimes I get behind when they drop 4 or 5 things I want to play in the same month, or I spend a month playing a longer game (took me like a month and half with Starfield), but I'm always trying to get the most out of it. When Hi-Fi Rush launched and didn't spring up the most played games on Xbox list I was thinking come on guys let's try out the interesting smaller games too. Especially when you are on GP and it doesn't cost you extra.

To each their own though. I guess user taste comes into it quite a bit as well. Even Nintendo couldn't sell every Switch user on Mario Kart (not for lack of trying), I guess GP would be the same way, where every game would have a portion of subscribers that just weren't interested in it.
 

Fredrik

Member
You've got to be shitting me with this. Destiny 2 released 2 years later on steam and Destiny 2 is still beating Starfield.
Eh? Multiplayer always pull in more people. People usually drop single player games in like a month. Starfield is 2 months old now. For fun I looked at concurrent players and filtered for single player games at the weekend, Starfield was at 60k at that time. Was just outside the top 10, then if I removed all games with online modes, co-op etc, like BG3, then Starfield was #2 on Steam and only behind Cyberpunk.
 

Three

Member
Eh? Multiplayer always pull in more people. People usually drop single player games in like a month. Starfield is 2 months old now. For fun I looked at concurrent players and filtered for single player games at the weekend, Starfield was at 60k at that time. Was just outside the top 10, then if I removed all games with online modes, co-op etc, like BG3, then Starfield was #2 on Steam and only behind Cyberpunk.
Exactly, I'm not saying Starfield is performing poorly but what numbers is it pushing past Destiny 2? A 2017 game that released 2 years late on steam and still performing better in 2023 than a recently released game. You can see the decline in Starfield.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
It's a pretty solid milestone for Starfield to be pushing numbers past Destiny 2.

What's the chart from and what does the hours played represent there? (weekly, monthly, yearly, lifetime, etc.)

Just curious because I'd never noticed Steam putting that statistic into a chart, would be interesting to see. I can only imagine how insane the Fortnite or CS numbers would be, LOL.
 
What's the chart from and what does the hours played represent there? (weekly, monthly, yearly, lifetime, etc.)

Just curious because I'd never noticed Steam putting that statistic into a chart, would be interesting to see. I can only imagine how insane the Fortnite or CS numbers would be, LOL.

Steam charts, looks like Global > Top Games by current players report > Last 30 days filter. PM TransTrender TransTrender as it's their chart if you want specifics mate.
 
By achievements. It's a slight exaggeration. Only 55.7% join constellation which is less than an hour in. Only 46% make it to level 5 which doesn't take long either. 34% level 10 and so on.

Same shit happens to most games, with some variance between them of course. Halo campaigns have similar stats like that, hell half the players of Halo don't even turn the multiplayer on, they just play campaign. I'd imagine the reverse is true e.g. never touch campaign but just balls out play multi.

It's pretty shocking to see devs efforts fall by the wayside in how gamers play things. I remember years ago finding out about stats like that and thinking "who the hell buys a game and only plays the first level?". It's further altered by choice e.g. you don't have to join constellation, you can just say no and venture out on side quests etc. (from memory).
 

Fredrik

Member
Exactly, I'm not saying Starfield is performing poorly but what numbers is it pushing past Destiny 2? A 2017 game that released 2 years late on steam and still performing better in 2023 than a recently released game. You can see the decline in Starfield.
Yeah just saying, apples and pears etc.
Tbh I think the decline goes fast compared to games like BG3 for example. But it started high and is still pulling in 20-60k concurrent players on Steam alone with a Gamepass version available, I’d say that’s fairly impressive.
And continuing with the apples and pears, it’s #1 and bigger than all top 10 combined on Space Sim genre. 🙃

Anyway I think the official modding tools should’ve been there day 1. They hyped up that aspect too much for something they then said would arrive next year. I keep thinking I shouldn’t do all factions until then to have some extra pull when modders start going crazy with whole planets or whatever could happen then. New mods comes every day on PC but they’re very limited compared to what modders can do in Skyrim, and I assume they aren’t available at all on console, no?
 
It's further altered by choice e.g. you don't have to join constellation, you can just say no and venture out on side quests etc. (from memory).
yeah probably but you'd still hit level 5 inside a couple of hours. With this game I suspect the drop off is so bad because of people who don't usually play bethesda games getting to try it on game pass. Still fair to use the stats though because microsoft are :)
 
yeah probably but you'd still hit level 5 inside a couple of hours. With this game I suspect the drop off is so bad because of people who don't usually play bethesda games getting to try it on game pass. Still fair to use the stats though because microsoft are :)
So true, if they're not used to Bethesda games then they're in for a shock.
 
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