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Sea of Thieves boasts highest debut for Rare game since NPD started tracking in 1995
- Thread starter Deleted member 278
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If you look at the selected facts you choose to pick, sure, although: a) that doesn't negate my point in any way at all since I never said half-baked launches were the norm and b) it's not as simple as just stating that, as I explained:
I'm not disputing that the majority of games are complete. However in less than 2 years (NMS was August 2016) there's been 3 high-profile half-baked games going to market and being very successful. Prior to that, none that I can think of to that level of success. The industry is going through great change: rising dev costs, publishers having to find more income streams through DLC and experimenting with various income models and this is yet another new way of addressing those cost issues.
As I said - why wouldn't publishers look at that and think there's something in that to de-risk the massive (and increasing) costs of development? I believe that's a dangerous precedent for us gamers, although I'm heartened to hear that people are enjoying SoT.
Yeah, to tell you the truth I'm not a fan of your agenda here. I understand your concerns and you have every right to voice them but when your beliefs constantly trickle into every Xbox article or every Windows article or any topic about games that have to do with either it just disrupts the discussions going on. I really don't see why Rare should be punished because they work for Microsoft just because you forecast what may happen in the future and the impact Windows has on other parties. To say Sea of Thieves lacks content and other issues is fine but to continually take pot shots at Windows store is kind of being picky just because. The game is actually running very well, especially compared to other titles that rely heavily on online play.
Thats weird. Because people keep telling me that Microsoft doesnt do marketing and sends out games to die. /s
But Bluehole and Hello Games keep supporting their games. They didn't stoped because success, they kept adding and fixing their games because success. You can think that "incomplete" games can be succesful is bad or undeserved, and that's fine, but the true is that being succesful and also facing criticism tends to make developers do the effort to try to get better.
Well, if a service game is sold for full price and sells very well, but has a horrible player retention quickly, it shouldn't be a problem, as long as the studio gives it up quickly enough. Because then it is not much more costly to make than a standard game and if it sold more or the same as a standard game would have, financially, everything is fine. To me, personally, the ideal situation would be good to very good initial sales, completely cratering right after and super-low player retention immediately (ensuring Rare's future, but Sea of Thieves' lack thereof). However, user numbers doubled from a million to two millions quickly and it is still played a lot, right? So I guess this is just both, a great sales success and a great success as a service.
I wish as well, but hope is lost.
Biggest gaming let down of 2018for me. Should have been something I loved but it's a puddle that's an inch deep but a mile long.
Not like the audience is unable to enjoy games like Farcry huh?
Be careful, people have received bans for using similar words.
Sea of Thieves will do well over time as well. It will drop next month but probably pick back up in May with the content drop and the weekly events will help it as well. It's definitely a long haul type of game. I'm happy for Rare with the accomplishment and looking forward to the content drops throughout the year. Weekly events with 6 major content drops (May, June, July...which has been said on the podcast, don't know when the fall one begins) for the rest of the year will definitely keep people interested in the game and will flesh out the content concerns that many have. I think it will continue to sell and bring in more gamepass customers, especially with other gamepass games dropping in the coming months.
But who's going to do a new Banjo-Kazooie game that isn't (for the love of god) Playtonic?
Meanwhile in the real world 9 out of 10 games on NPD show PS4 gamers playing titles available on other platforms, so why wouldn't Xbox One owners also be playing a lot of those titles? Oh wait, they are. It's hilarious to see these attempts to portray the Xbox One having nothing to play when they get a bunch of new games each month and also BC titles.
To me it's awesome to see Rare have a hit title because it means they will indeed keep supporting it. I stopped playing but will renew Game Pass when State of Decay 2 comes out.
Congrats to Rare! I was totally off base about the sales of this game (which is fantastic news).
Congrats to Rare, they needed a hit. Now they need to pump out content. Game is great, but shallow.
I think I don't have to explain why I'm not counting that.
It was release software for a peripheral that failed miserably. It wasn't marketed as a game by rare but by Microsoft Studios. Besides that it doesn't come anywhere near the usual stylistic charm or subject matter that Rare is known for.
So because it didn't fit your category as a title by Rare...so basically nothing. Ok.
I have no idea about their Nintendo games, but I believe Kinect Sports had the strongest first month sales out of their Microsoft games. It did 323K in its first month.
A huge WTF to all of those, but hey, knock yourself out.
MS wasn't playing with SOT.
I see the SOT commercial like 10 times daily in YouTube advertisement.
I see the SOT commercial like 10 times daily in YouTube advertisement.
People needed something besides Adventures with the Kinect launch. The Wii sports "killer".
kinect failed on the X1
kinect was forced as part of the X1 because it was wildly successful during the 360
As of 2013 Kinect for Xbox 360 had sold 24 million units. That's twice as many Kinects as there are Switch consoles in the world. I wouldn't say the peripheral failed miserably... Kinect Sports was a massive game.
Dance Central did even better than Kinect Sports, and both Xbox 360 Kinect Sports games did really well, selling 8 million copies.
I bought the game for 60 while a lot of my friends/xbone owners ive met played it using game pass.
I can safely say the sales are undeserved. Havent played it in a while especially with other games out right now.
May Rare swiftly get content updates out or theyre going to put these sales to waste.
I can safely say the sales are undeserved. Havent played it in a while especially with other games out right now.
May Rare swiftly get content updates out or theyre going to put these sales to waste.
That's right. I even had that game lol
DC actually was good for the Kinect. It actually worked decently.
When you mention those sales, no wonder MS put all their eggs into the Kinect basket. They really thought they had gold with this gimmick.
Yup, and so did Kinect Sports, it was one of the best Kinect games. In fact, I've experienced more issues with Kinect Sports: Season Two, although that still performed well most of the time, especially compared to some lower grade Kinect software.
Sold units are not the same as a successful periphery.
Most of the Kinects were sold in bundles and lord knows the quality of games released specifically for it was sub par (Yes, that is an opinion).
Back on the Rare subject. It's just my opinion that a range of sports mini games can hardly be called an IP.
It's not what I would judge Rare on when it comes to "best new IP".
Most of the Kinects were sold in bundles and lord knows the quality of games released specifically for it was sub par (Yes, that is an opinion).
Back on the Rare subject. It's just my opinion that a range of sports mini games can hardly be called an IP.
It's not what I would judge Rare on when it comes to "best new IP".
You mean good word of mouth I think?
Right before launch everyone was saying Ms borked the marketing of this game, and there were no hype for it.
Good to see that SoT did well, but man I'd be lying to say I wasn't disappointed. Hopefully the planned content will actually be good to reel me back in. Still rooting for Rare though, I feel like they can bring this back. Time will tell.
I haven't had a problem getting a four-person crew among friends at any point since launch, and there are more people I know playing it now than the first two weeks. It's exciting seeing that it's a broader success. The game structure not being about blocking playability or zones based on how long you've been on the hamster wheel is absolutely core to why people in my circle have been engaged by it.
True. Forgot about that. :p
Still sad that the rest of their IPs are left lying around though.......
How interesting. A game that was made available on the game pass right at launch and it is also one of Rare's biggest game debuts as well? I wonder if this means that the plan with game pass was onto something and how other future MS games that follow this may be just as successful? or if it was just fans who were that interested in the game itself. Either way though, kudos to Rare on their success and hopefully they will continue to support the game and add more stuff in.
A remake of Conker, a mediocre PD game, and a Banjo game that barely even resembles the gameplay of the old games doesn't exactly scream "trying" to me. I don't think that anybody can deny that they should've done a whole lot more with their IPs these last 15 years.
Where's a proper Banjo platformer? Where's an actual Conker sequel? Where's Perfect Dark? Not every sequel or franchise revival has to be radically different from the originals.
Yeah. They should never have listened to people wanting endless sequels and focused entirely on new ips. Thats how we got kameo and viva piñata.
But 15-20 years is an awful long time in this industry. I'm sure you'll have excuses, but Yooka-Laylee was basically Banjo, and it didn't set the world on fire. In fact, many peope complained about it feeling archaic.
I mean, I really feel for fans of old games, I would also love to get faithful sequels to MDK or Little Big Adventure or Gabriel Knight, but in today's market they just wouldn't fly as high profile releases, not without some significant changes.
So I'm about 90% sure that standalone Kinect sales were over 8 million at one point. Even barring that, someone insisting that the Kinect (360) was a retail failure isn't particularly worth listening to. Those units and a lot of the games flew off shelves in a way that showed people were happy with what they were playing. The first Kinect Sports sold 3 million standalone units as of the time the sequel launched, and the franchise total was past 6 million by september of the next year. Dance Central moved 2.5 million by 2011, which the sequels blew past within their first years on the market (I don't have data confirming that last assertion about the sequels, for the record).