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Mat Piscatella (NPD Group) : Still no sign that Game Pass cannibalises sales volume. Still signs that Game Pass may increase sales volume...
- Thread starter JINX
- Start date
Well, MLB was announced since the beginning to be in GP, yet it's #2 in NPD sales on Xbox.
What is the evidence that it INCREASES sales?
I definitely agree that it doesn't cannibalize sales, on aggregate.
I definitely agree that it doesn't cannibalize sales, on aggregate.
Even if Gears 5 did have less sales at release (not sure that it did), unlike with with normal non-subscription releases, a game releasing on Game Pass might not have the same percentage of total lifetime sales frontloaded right at release
Good to have Matt weighing in, what we've seen from GP is without the full force of MS first party yet, once that gets going, a string of high profile releases, it's going to be fascinating to see how it blows up further.
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and that's without including digital sales on Xbox, so it would most likely be #1.
Gears 5 was an outlier. Forza Horizon 4 is consistently in the Xbox Top 10 NPD charts.
Do we actually have some numbers to play with? Like did sales of games increase when they reached Gamepass or did they suddenly decline? How about first party titles? It would be amazing if GP both increased physical sales and also made money from subs. people could be using it like a giang demo station where you can try out some games before you buy.
It wasn't announced to be in GP since the beginning. In the beginning all we knew it was coming to Xbox.
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I think it probably impacts in ways that are not obvious, essentially creating decision points on consumers to pass (for now) on certain games if they have a big enough "backlog" on Gamepass.
Outriders is on gamepass and still sold very well, so I don't know if Gamepass means anything at all. I know for me, without gamepass, I probably would have bought Nier and/or Returnal but due to having 50+ untouched games still on GP neither of the two games were enough to get me to pay MSRP at release. Mass Effect Legendary was though. Maybe you balance enough people who save money with GP that they'll splurge on some games that it balances out losses from people who wait.
Outriders is on gamepass and still sold very well, so I don't know if Gamepass means anything at all. I know for me, without gamepass, I probably would have bought Nier and/or Returnal but due to having 50+ untouched games still on GP neither of the two games were enough to get me to pay MSRP at release. Mass Effect Legendary was though. Maybe you balance enough people who save money with GP that they'll splurge on some games that it balances out losses from people who wait.
Outriders was free on gamepass, day 1 but was still #1 on the charts.
Also The Medium made a profit after only a day.
Not necessarily definitive proof but the signs are there.
Developers share info that GP increases word of mouth and henceforth sales outside GP.
What's the ratio split though? That's the only way to tell. And the only hard numbers we have says the opposite with UK's chart.
Yeah I find this very hard to prove. Not like they could control for a release with game pass and without. Perhaps there are sales bumps when older games get added to game pass but idk if that's good enough evidence
I've purchased 5 games, 3 of them with an additional discount due to being a Game Pass customer, in-spite of these same 5 games being on Game Pass.
Like usual I see a lot of people over thinking it. It's like renting, or play/try before you buy for a very low monthly fee. 100% worth it.
Like usual I see a lot of people over thinking it. It's like renting, or play/try before you buy for a very low monthly fee. 100% worth it.
That does make sense to me though, games like Forza and MLB are something that players will likely keep playing regularly due to their nature (sports, racing). Gears however, unless you're into online, it's probably the type of game most people won't get back to after finishing the campaign.
Still not convinced something like GP will benefit big budget single-player titles that already have a ton of exposure, but I'm really curious to see how the market will respond to more MS games (since they'll be on the service permanently if I'm not wrong).
I don't think that proves that Outriders is doing BETTER than it would have done BECAUSE of Game Pass?
This still seems like backyard science... but I understand that thought...
Yup, this is how I see it as well. If Game Pass doesn't hurt sales there's no reason for Sony and virtually every other publisher to not do the same as well. I can see how it can help sales in a certain way because once the game leaves the service people who enjoyed it might go out and buy it so they can continue playing it, but I don't see how it doesn't hurt initial sales especially for the full priced games when tens of millions of people can access the game anyway with a subscription they're already paying for.
But we have numbers that prove it doesnt hurt sales ... its more likely that it isnt easy at all to get a service like this going and a really big invesment.
Isn't most of the gamespass worry about the effect on indies? Or is there a different AAA worry I've not come across?
Well yea, that's common sense, especially for multiplatform games. People not on Xbox see the buzz and WoM from Game Pass players and only have the option of buying the game to join in on the fun.
It means Xbox MLB buyers aren't GP subscribers. Without others datas it's hard to extrapolate.
I guess it depends on the game.
It probably canibalizes the sales of big AAA sales. No doubt Halo Infinite would sell
more if it wasn't on XGP Day1, or someone thinks otherwise?
However, for 'smaller' games, it can help because of more people are talking about it.
Outriders and several other games probably benefited from it.
For Sony releasing GoW Day1 on PSNow wouldn't be as profitable. However Dreams or Predator would have benefited A LOT from it.
It probably canibalizes the sales of big AAA sales. No doubt Halo Infinite would sell
more if it wasn't on XGP Day1, or someone thinks otherwise?
However, for 'smaller' games, it can help because of more people are talking about it.
Outriders and several other games probably benefited from it.
For Sony releasing GoW Day1 on PSNow wouldn't be as profitable. However Dreams or Predator would have benefited A LOT from it.
Isn't gamepass probably run at a loss for MS? I feel like this came out recently, maybe as part of the epic lawsuit, but it could have just been analysis and supposition and I'm mis-remembering.
Well, Sony, Nintendo and a long list of publishers clearly don't as evident by the fact that they're not following Microsoft. And yes, adding all those 3rd party games would require a big investment but launching your own games on the service day 1 wouldn't, the only requirement there is wanting to do it.
I believe games that have been added to Game Pass after launch (say 1 year later) have seen sales increase due to Game Pass. Several developers have spoken out about how they saw Game Pass help their sales.
It may be hard to prove for a Day One release as you have no baseline, but games launching later into the service should have some good internal metrics.
Cause, huh? Alrighty. *shrug* I find that still hard to believe without more concrete information... and I think the way people tend to carefully word the response when it comes to INCREASING game sales is interesting as well.
This isn't concern-trolling, btw. I totally understand how there's no way Game Pass would actually cannibalize game sales, especially with only ~20m members. It'll be interesting when that number becomes the majority of gamers, but at the end of the day, it's an incredible service that we all seem to be benefiting from. That's what matters.
Ahhh, I could see this! That makes much more sense. I was only talking about Day 1 games previously.
Absolutely this, by opening the game to a wider audience of GP people, more twitch streams and social media impressions get out there which likely feeds the FOMO on something new. I think it'll be an interesting case study in a few months to look back and compare Returnal to the Medium as two exclusive big new IP for the PS5 and XSX respectively this year. Both are in fairly niche genres (roguelike vs horror) yet The Medium despite reviewing worse seems to have done better commercially/financially and gamepass might be the reason why. I know it's not a perfect comparison as the medium is a "budget" $50 game, but both are the biggest endeavor by both studios behind them and pushed by a major publisher as a big exclusive. I wonder if Returnal had been given a gamepass style option from Sony if the game would have performed better financially.
I think some people think something like GamePass is just like flicking a switch. Doing something like this is a fundamental business pivot. It's something that takes a long time to develop. GamePass itself has evolved and changed infront of subscribers eyes since launching and remains an evolving work in progress.
Further to your specific point though, Nintendo are Nintendo and are on their own path. Sony has a different model based around their exclusives (but have suggested they are working on a GP-type service. Again, these things take time). Not sure how many third parties you think are big enough to do something like this, but perhaps the one that is has backed GamePass to the point of rolling their own subscription service into it.
I think it's still far too soon to come to these conclusions for all types of games. Particularly when it comes to big-budget first party games, we really just don't know yet.
Person who works on sales - Gamepass is not stopping games from selling
Resetera users - Well i still think you're wrong
Resetera users - Well i still think you're wrong
no, it's part of a larger thread on sales. Twitter flow is just confusing. the game pass tweet is its own commentary.
It's losing them quite a bit probably. Gamepass in isolation at least. Third party licences are expensive as hell to keep. Will likely take a few years before subscribers can make the service self-sustaining.