Remember this? :)
"The Sea of Thieves player count totaled over 2 million during its launch month of March. According to market research group SuperData, there were over 1.7 million players on Xbox One, and 283,000 active users on PC."
Source
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Microsoft Studios |OT2| The Best Is Yet To Come
- Thread starter Figments
- Start date
- Status
Remember this? :)
"The Sea of Thieves player count totaled over 2 million during its launch month of March. According to market research group SuperData, there were over 1.7 million players on Xbox One, and 283,000 active users on PC."
Source
Noone can prove it, but I don't either doubt it would have sold well. At least 50.000+ (lol).
I still remember the nightmare that was RotTR sales numbers on the Win Store:
http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/06/09/how-fable-legends-took-down-lionhead
people talk console wars and how cancerous they are but take one PC studio and put it under a console umbrella and some people act like the world is imploding.
I would want it just to see the Era thread.
I would want it just to see the Era thread.
That's not really fair tbh. We know Sea of Thieves had hundreds of thousands of pc players (per the beta numbers). And I also think SoT couldn't have launched on Steam because of Gamepass and Play Anywhere. So launching games on Steam isn't an option right now for MS.
With Nier having finally come to Xbox and selling quite decently (correct me if I'm wrong) I really think it's time SEGA starts considering porting the Yakuza games to Xbox now as well and not only PS and PC. Who knows, it might do surprisingly well too.
Not to disagree with the point your trying to make, but this an absolutely awful example especially when we have data for SOT beta numbers making up 50% of the playerbase.Remember this? :)
"The Sea of Thieves player count totaled over 2 million during its launch month of March. According to market research group SuperData, there were over 1.7 million players on Xbox One, and 283,000 active users on PC."
Source
EDIT: Also Superdata, I would be better off getting those sort of number from VGChartz lol.
Last edited:
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Infinite Warfare was in 2016. Call of Duty games notoriously struggle to keep a multiplayer player base on PC regardless of platform. Plus the Windows Store version was more expensive and had no crossplay with the Steam version meaning the CoD multiplayer audience naturally gravitated towards the Steam version.Remember this? :)
Activision is going to use Black Ops 4 to push Battle.net, on a related topic.
About 300k people played the beta on PC. And when SoT had 2 million players, only 283k were PC players (source is in my previous post). That's only 14%. Cuphead for example sold as much or even more on Steam than on Xbox One, and that's even a more niche game than SoT.
Microsoft CAN use both GamePass and PA on Steam by the way. Steam supports game renting and allow implementation of any other service/ecosystem. Look what Ubisoft does with uPlay?
Last edited:
I'm sure MS will keep working to improve their store but that doesn't stop them from acquiring these devs right now...Improving the store isn't the only thing that will drive growth and attract gamers to it, they also need more content and I'm sure they know this.
Also compared to a few years ago I'm sure there are much more people using the store now and games like Gears 5, Gears tactics, FH4, Halo Infinite, Ori 2 will only entice more users.
Last edited:
I'm sorry but in this case Superdata is as accurate as VGChartz, to take their numbers as fact is laughable.
We know that the last SOT test before launch had 50% of the playerbase on PC, to say that doesn't show a very large sign of growth compared to your infinite warfare example is ludicrous.
You do know that super data doesn't have any official info? They are simply estimating.Remember this? :)
"The Sea of Thieves player count totaled over 2 million during its launch month of March. According to market research group SuperData, there were over 1.7 million players on Xbox One, and 283,000 active users on PC."
Source
Though, I don't see how 300k users in a single month would be considered a bad start for a new ip $60 game on pc (also, game pass library on pc is kinda non existent so I don't see that many people subbing)
Actually the Windows Store version was €10 cheaper than the Steam version. ;)
But you're right, because of the lack of cross-play, it's not a good indication. The other part of my reply (superdata sales) is tho. Windows Store exclusive games sell much, much less on PC than on console, compared to other multiplatform games that are on Steam and GoG.
Even if it's an estimation, it indicates SoT didn't do very well on PC compared to Xbox One.
And no Lucas, 300k for such a hyped game like SoT is NOT a good result. Also, many popular game sites advertised the Game Pass trial as a free way to try the game on PC.
Pretty sure turtle rock is already making a game for somebody else. So it wouldn't make sense to buy them anytime soon( We happy few is actually out this month so it's not comparable to a game years away). And ready at dawn haven't put out anything good. So why buy them
Wait, how are almost 300k users in a 2 million pool equates to only 7%? Am I missing something here?
Let's talk about mobile for a sec.
We've seen Gears Pop being announced on the biggest gaming event with a one minute trailer. I wonder how MS looks at mobile as a way to open the brand a bit and let people on other platforms enjoy the games, or if they really want to jump into the mobile platform with new IP's and all that. I would love to know what you guys think of MS' upcoming mobile investments.
We've seen Gears Pop being announced on the biggest gaming event with a one minute trailer. I wonder how MS looks at mobile as a way to open the brand a bit and let people on other platforms enjoy the games, or if they really want to jump into the mobile platform with new IP's and all that. I would love to know what you guys think of MS' upcoming mobile investments.
You keep posting superdata but don't you realize that they are no different than chartz. They literally make up numbers. The mods just haven't banned the site yetRemember this? :)
"The Sea of Thieves player count totaled over 2 million during its launch month of March. According to market research group SuperData, there were over 1.7 million players on Xbox One, and 283,000 active users on PC."
Source
Of course it would.
Gran Turismo Sport would've also done better if it would be on Xbox, too. That's just a logical conclusion. More platforms. More sales. What's the point?
That doesn't change the fact that MS has their own ecosystem storefront on Windows. But I don't want yet another Win 10 Store discussion. It gets tiresome.
The original statement was about MS potentially buying a PC centric dev and how that would - I quote - "break PC gaming". This is just bogus.
On the contrary, you've just met my math talents ^^
It's 14% of course.
Wrong comparison. PC is a single platform.
There's a difference between estimating and making things up.
Turtle Rock hasn't announced anything relating to the game they are working on right now which seems to be a "AAA competitive FPS" which kinda sounds like Perfect Dark to me, but ofc that could be other franchises so i might be jumping to quick on it.
Ready at Dawn has a creative team, but definitely needs some assistance in terms of gameplay/level design since The Order had a real lack of depth in those two aspects with some of the worst level design/mission design i've seen this gen. Still, a small/medium team with lots of potential if led properly.
Agree, but as Spencer said they are rethinking and reworking their pc gaming infrastructure right now. So God knows when we'll see improvements/changes coming. Could be years from now. So buying pc centric game devs would be bad press AS OF NOW since their infrastructure is far from ready.
It wouldn't break it. That would be nonsense. It would cause a popular pc dev to lose pc gaming sales because of the platform they'd be publishing on. That's all.
Not if you were buying grey market or physical copies, which may did. (The Steam prices for CoD games are kind of ludicrous.) The momentum of people actually buying that version needed to exist, and it didn't. It had zero benefits over the Steam version. It was a massive game, and the fragility to Windows Store downloads in 2016 made it very unappealing.
The problem with this logic is that you can't really prove the game would have done better as a Steam title. It's not like we can pop into an alternate universe to compare sales figures. Lots of games don't sell well on Steam. Just look at Bethesda's games last year, among many other examples. Just look at how the massively hyped Final Fantasy XV landed with a bit of a wet thud on Steam.
Steam has problems. Major problems that are eating the platform from the inside. The major AAA publishers are starting to jump ship. EA jumped ship years ago. Did EA jumping ship really, really burn poor Crysis 3 on PC when they made it Origin exclusive? Sure it did. But now EA control their own successful platform.
On Steam, the indies are swamped, which is really hurting their non-AAA demographics. Not that this makes the problems with the MS Store any less serious, but Steam isn't in all that great shape.
What? So based of an estimation that could either be wildly over or under the actual number it "indicates SoT didn't do very well" you have got to be kidding. Let's also not pretend that those numbers Superdata created by sticking a few thousand surveys together with thin air aren't good, especially from someone who just posted the COD numbers. Again I don't disagree with the point your trying to make, but the way your going about it and the sources your using are awful.
Last edited:
It's not in terms of storefront - which is what we were talking about.
Games also take years to develop and that's why they do not have to wait until the store is completely fixed before they acquire the devs and get them to start developing the games. I'm certain steam didn't start out perfect either.
People go to Steam because of freedom and options. The Windows Store is the epitome of the oppositve of what PC gaming is.
Storefronts matters a ton for PC gamers. Storefronts decides the limitations a game has for the buyer.
MS buying a PC-centric studio like Larian and releasing Divinity: OS3 only on Win Store will drive PC gamers away from buying the game.
Storefronts matters a ton for PC gamers. Storefronts decides the limitations a game has for the buyer.
MS buying a PC-centric studio like Larian and releasing Divinity: OS3 only on Win Store will drive PC gamers away from buying the game.
Shhh if MS buys one studio...Steam will die. >.> (outside of buying Valve but that's now what I was implying...lol)
I'd like to see the personalized and carefully selected list of studios Microsoft is allowed to buy, is it alright with everyone if they buy The Devil's Third guys or the studio who made Ride to Hell: Retribution?
/s
/s
There is no point in using that data since it's pulled out of thin air. SOT may have had 100k owners on WS, it may have had 800k. Since the data is useless it has no bearing on how the game actually did.
The discussion about MS plans for pc gaming in the future is relevant tho. I'm not sure if they'll ever understand PC gaming and the pc gaming crowd.
Exactly. And even today, there are still many other reasons why PC gamers don't like the Windows Store. As Suikerbrood said, Microsoft should fix it before launching more games. Exclusivity alone isn't gonna win PC gamers' hearts back I'm afraid.
That's not true at all. Steam is in better shape than ever. They are gaining millions of new users each month. Not saying that Steam needs improvements because they do. But none of Steams issues is as bad as Microsofts Windows Store + UWP combo, that actually tries to kill most of the benefits of PC gaming.
Steam might die or be forced into a bad position anyway. At some point the declining sales, AAA publishers and their multi-million selling games leaving, and indie developers seeking greener pastures is going to start biting very hard, with Valve being forced to rely on their own games to stay competitive. They've rested on their laurels for many years now. A lot of people seem to think Steam is invincible. But the gaming landscape is changing. A vast majority of the games market is controlled by EA, Actvision, and Ubisoft. And they all have their own digital platforms. EA has left Steam. Activision already releases multiple games outside of Steam and they are adding Call of Duty to that list. Ubisoft continue to release on Steam in addition to Uplay, but there's no knowing how long they'll continue. You can also add Epic (who have become a giant in the industry) to that list. Fortnite isn't on Steam. It's on the Epic Games Launcher. I don't see Epic going back to Steam.
It doesn't matter how many users Steam has. The platform is bleeding badly. AAA publishers are leaving, and indies are atrophying. A tiny fraction of the games on Steam make up most of the sales.
https://www.pcgamer.com/gdcs-realistic-talk-about-game-sales-on-steam-paints-a-grim-picture/
There's a reason we're seeing Switch ports that outsell their Steam versions in a fraction of the time.
I guess you're right. I didn't know Superdata's numbers are as bad as VG247. These are the only numbers I've ever seen, so if these aren't trustworthy, I rest my case.
No you weren't. You were talking about launching a game on an additional platform. Steam and the Windows Store or both on PC and on Windows 10. Most PC gamers don't mind buying games from different stores (at least I don't), unless a certain store tries to push stuff that they really don't like.
Do you have any source that indicaties the data is pulled out of thin air? I thought it was estimated based on surveys and stuff.
To be honest I don't think Klobrille understands it as well. :) And to be honest I can't blame him. In the eyes of an Xbox fan, Microsoft is doing all the right things on PC, since they are doing exactly the same on PC and Xbox One.
Interesting. I don't pay too much attention to steam but I always wondered with AAA games having it's own store front / distribution platform how the hell is steam gonna survive?
I don't think there is that much they can do actually. Obviously they need to continue to work on their own store - which is what they will do hopefully even more in the future. That sad, they have so many initiatives that will only work with their own store. Play Anywhere, one unified store across PC and consoles, Live ID connection, cross-play, unified updates and so on. Changing all of these systems to the competition would take years. They won't do that.
They need to concentrate on their own stuff. And enhance everything there. Putting your things on another storefront isn't a holy medical cure.
Do you realize how - sorry for being frank - stupid this sounds? "Microsoft should put a halt on every project for every studio till their store is working 100% to the tastes of the steam-centric crowd". They have money to burn but that doesnt mean they want to make a bonfire bigger than texas with their funds
According to Microsoft, MAU's are more important than anything else. :p
This article says that it's very hard to stand out with your games, and yeah, I can understand that. There's a huge amount of high quality games on Steam, compared to a much, much smaller selection of (indie) games on Switch. While some people like to blame this on the huge amount of bloatware on Steam, the dev in the article literally says that even without the crap, his game wouldn't had any chance. Your game has to stand out to get huge sales on Steam. But this really isn't "Steam bleeding out", because in fact there are more good games on Steam than ever.
There's plenty of stuff they can do:
- stop charging €70 for AAA games
- don't put (the best) discounts behind the xbox live gold paywall
- stop selling games as encrypted "apps", we need file access for all games
- allow mods and free community content for ALL games, don't rely on developer support
- allow full customization for every game. Now you can't even choose the desired resolution in fullscreen mode for UWP games
- make a separate game client for core games with features PC gamers want
- dump or redesign the Xbox app, design a decent overlay for online interactions, chat etc
- allow devs to generate game keys to sell in competing 3rd party webstores
- embrace existing popular PC services like twitch, discord, Steam etc instead of trying to compete with them
- ...
Last edited:
I never said they should put things on other stores. I just think they need to work on A. their storefront and B. their image in the pc gaming world. Not fixing that will hurt their sales quite significantly. I'm not Ge0force ;)
The store has really improved in the last couple of months. Downloading stuff in 2015/2016 was a nightmare. Now it's much better. Two days ago the Sea of Thieves patch was done in 10 minutes and I was ready to play. I just think they have to rethink their Xbox app and make that the starting point for us gamers. I don't have any reason to open the Xbox app right now.
We were discussing possible acquisitions and that's how we talked about Larian and Obsidian.
Valve do have their own, very successful games. So it's not like Valve/Steam are gonna run out of money. But many threats are creeping up on them. Steam enjoyed some massive growth thanks to the popularity of PC games in China. That's why so many games on Steam are adding Chinese language support, for instance. But Tencent are making their move now. Tencent, incidentally, are the largest videogame company on the planet. They own or have stakes in a lot of companies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent_Games And they have their own digital distribution platform, WeGame, which they are apparently planning on launching outside China at some point in the future.
What is happening is that the old paradigm of Steam vs a bunch of scrappy usurpers such as Origin and Uplay and MS Store is turning into a crowded free for all. A bunch of fish all trying to bite each other. I suspect this is why Valve are getting back into videogame development so seriously. They can't rely on third party content to keep them dominant anymore.
That's because Microsoft's customers actually buy stuff. It's a very important distinction.
Here's how it works for indies currently, although it'll obviously eventually change.
Release game on Steam. Nobody buys it. Like, seriously. You're better off putting your game on itch.io.
Release that exact same game on the Switch. It sells super well.
Steam has gone from being an amazing and flourishing platform to being an increasingly troubled one.
Last edited:
Exactly. Most of Bungies fans were on Mac when Microsoft purchased them and that worked out. People overthink that stuff too much. What really matters is what the leaders within those companies think. Most development studios have regular turnover. If the leaders are on board and have access to high level talent, it will remain in position to turn out high quality products which is what Microsoft cares about. Pissing people off due to irrational loyalty to a platform can't be their concern.
They should rework their whole vision in regards to pc gaming. Look at Discord, look at Steam, etc.
Sea of Thieves has made people aware of their pc gaming offering. Now they have to build upon that so people come back.
can we stop posting in black text. its awful to read on dark theme. I think when you manually shift text color it doesnt translate to the other themes.
Any idea when Sea of thieves will be getting a narrative campaing?
Any idea when Sea of thieves will be getting a narrative campaing?
Honestly, as a PC user, I couldn't care less if a PC game goes the way of UWP unless it has mod support. BGS games on UWP? Even if Microsoft would buy 10 of the best devs right now I'd hate it. And no, I don't think UWP is perfect, but Steam was far from perfect when it first launched, and honestly still is.
NT might have been more associated with Sony than Microsoft lately, but that's primarily because they chose the PS4 over the Xbox One due to sales. NT, at least last I recall has better words for Microsoft than Sony. I think most of that came from Heavenly Blade and IP usage though.
Obsidian is still the most likely PC-centric studio imo as they're open to be bought, have sort of a history with Microsoft, and I still look at most of their games being console friendly than other devs like Larian. At least the non-Kickstarter ones.
Buying a few PC devs won't do anything bad to the PC gaming overall. The oversaturation is much worse than that. PC gaming will destroy itself before Microsoft ever would. Not saying it will be destroyed of course, but Steam isn't exactly making it much better.
NT might have been more associated with Sony than Microsoft lately, but that's primarily because they chose the PS4 over the Xbox One due to sales. NT, at least last I recall has better words for Microsoft than Sony. I think most of that came from Heavenly Blade and IP usage though.
Obsidian is still the most likely PC-centric studio imo as they're open to be bought, have sort of a history with Microsoft, and I still look at most of their games being console friendly than other devs like Larian. At least the non-Kickstarter ones.
Buying a few PC devs won't do anything bad to the PC gaming overall. The oversaturation is much worse than that. PC gaming will destroy itself before Microsoft ever would. Not saying it will be destroyed of course, but Steam isn't exactly making it much better.
You can play the narrative Cursed Sails campaign ... Right now.
- Status