Vice: Furi Dev’s Xbox Struggles May Show How Game Pass Is Already Changing Games [If the DLC does well, it might still come to Xbox]
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Considering they said Haven didn't sell at all outside of Game Pass, they might consider Game Pass a failure for them too.
MS may give money upfront for a lot of indie Game Pass title, but highly doubt unless you're one of the top prestige ones that they shell out to make exclusive/promote, the money from GP on its own is enough to be worth the cost. Most of these indie devs probably need the additional sales outside of GP to continue to justify putting them on Xbox, and GP is supposed to give them that visibility.
Who says Capcom was even open to MS offers? Most Capcom games have been slowly leaving GP, so perhaps it's just not a venture they're interested in anymore.
I wish I were as strong as you two soldiers. Enjoy the game, it looks fantastic. I will hold the line. 🫡
Apparently they tried getting it on GP, but Microsoft wasn't interested because it was an older title.
Look at the sales splits of Furi without PS+ compared to Haven without GP though, the only real differences are Furi came 6 months later to Xbox and the games are different genres. Obviously it's not 1:1 but really nothing is going to be
They have the same problem with Furi for PS, without PS+, the PS4 version is above the Xbox version only by two percent.
I've had time to reflect and believe that they should do best for themselves and their company. Though, stuff like this isn't cool to see:
Stuff like this makes no sense. If you believe you need to make good business moves to stay afloat, why would you release dlc on a flop platform just because it was a success on others?
Please, just leave Xbox users alone, you've told them were you stand on this matter and there's nothing wrong with that.
I've had time to reflect and believe that they should do best for themselves and their company. Though, stuff like this isn't cool to see:
Stuff like this makes no sense. If you believe you need to make good business moves to stay afloat, why would you release dlc on a flop platform just because it was a success on others?
Please, just leave Xbox users alone, you've told them were you stand on this matter and there's nothing wrong with that.
True. But this franchise needs all the support it can get imo, a Xbox fanbase would help a lot to bring old games/make new ones
It being older, I get the decision. Leadership must have a standard on what they pay for and what they don't.
Two observations, as someone who bought Furi on PS4 by getting the Limited Run version...It seems like PS4 sales are just 2% more than on xbox?
But I guess they're banking on the larger install base (because with the PS+ sales the number is 75%) on buying the dlc?
- I'm genuinely surprised the Switch number is so high.
- Considering the gap in time after Furi's PS4 release, including Limited Run units sold (which Xbox had zero participation in at the time), the 2% gap between PS and Xbox sales is actually smaller than I'd expect, but I also don't know how many copies LRG sold.
Didn't the collection sell significantly the worst out of every platform on Xbox?
Can't blame Capcom for giving up there.
I bought fury when it released on xbox but never played it. Probably wont play it, with elden ring, I guess I already have enough hard games.
I played haven a month before it left gamepass because I liked the premise but didnt like it. Would have probably bought it at some point beucase I liked the premise however, gamepass helped me dodge it.
I played haven a month before it left gamepass because I liked the premise but didnt like it. Would have probably bought it at some point beucase I liked the premise however, gamepass helped me dodge it.
I think a big part of Game Pass increasing sales is that it gives your game a much larger change of catching the zeitgeist of the moment. Haven wasn't a game I heard a lot of podcasters or streamers really bumping, which means it just wasn't catching on with the right people. It may not speak to the audience of the platform or the game itself, just a matter of bad luck in catching a wave.
So speaking purely anecdotally here as someone who plays the majority of their games through Game Pass these days.
Despite devoting the majority of my playing time to the service, if I decide to buy a game (where it's one that's been on Game Pass or not), I'm buying it on Steam or perhaps Switch if I want the portability. I just don't see the Xbox or PlayStation ecosystems as services worth investing in outside of the occasional PS exclusive which I'll buy on disk and then trade in.
Despite devoting the majority of my playing time to the service, if I decide to buy a game (where it's one that's been on Game Pass or not), I'm buying it on Steam or perhaps Switch if I want the portability. I just don't see the Xbox or PlayStation ecosystems as services worth investing in outside of the occasional PS exclusive which I'll buy on disk and then trade in.
I'm surprised at so many non-Steam sales. I'm assuming Steam keys bought on other sites still count as Steam.It seems like PS4 sales are just 2% more than on xbox?
But I guess they're banking on the larger install base (because with the PS+ sales the number is 75%) on buying the dlc?
Furi came out before gp and according to the devs ms is more focused on new games launching on it. According to their numbers for furi and their new game they don't see the ability to recoup their costs on Xbox.
So the developer had a 73 MC-rated game that didn't didn't sell well on Xbox, and they blamed Game Pass? Cool.
Surely the point the developer is making is that they don't think releasing Furi's DLC on Xbox would be profitable because Game Pass is monopolising the attention of Xbox users. Game Pass is going to affect the games not on it just as much as the games that are.
I remember it being pretty universally panned, which is why I didn't play it. Ironically I've always been interested in Furi, and if it was on Game Pass I would have definitely played it. The game also NEVER had sales on Xbox - I know this because it was always a game I was waiting for a sale on to play. Wonder if that contributed to its lack of success.
Yeah, I'm still unsure of how much this opinion holds water. Before Game Pass, people would buy more games. But that doesn't mean they would necessarily buy your game. If you run the numbers, I bet overall game sales on Xbox have declined because of it, but that doesn't mean that more money would be funneled to one particular game if it didn't exist.
You missed the thread where a bunch of people were accusing them of screwing over the Xbox fans...
I can get why you may perceive it that way, it definitely got hit with some low scores from big sites like IGN and Game Informer, but other sites like Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and EGM were pretty positive on it. It probably just depends on where you go for most of your gaming news. Furi makes some very bold choices, so it is naturally going to be a bit more divisive.
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No, not at all. They are saying if they could have gotten Furi on Game Pass, bringing the DLC to Xbox might have been feasible
They're not blaming anything on anyone. It's literally just "we have a limited amount of time/money and we don't think we'll make our money back porting the game and dlc to Xbox unless it is included on Gamepass"
It sold on other platforms
Plus this is about the DLC for Furi they couldn't bring, Haven was just a comparison
Must have. I genuinely thought it was common practice to release/update content where your player base is when your dev team is tiny.
in regards to indies, game pass definitely means I'll play significantly more of them. which means I might throw money at dlc.
To be fair, there were a bunch of people who were very reasonably disappointed, but understood the reality of the situation. Others stated that they shouldn't release the update on any platform if they can't release it on all of them, or that they were devaluing the Xbox version by releasing the update for other consoles. It was all pretty unfortunate.
Their experience with Haven is thus:
- 75% of the people that played Haven played it via Xbox
- 97% of the people that played Haven on Xbox played it via Game Pass
- Haven sold 10x as many units on PlayStation as Xbox
On the other hand, as someone with no real interest in Haven, I only played it because it was on Game Pass.
You shouldn't exclude your players on a specific platform bc they picked the "wrong" platform that you put your game on.
The broad implication of the title doesn't really match the reporting.
Basically Furi sold more on PS than Xbox back in 2016. Between that fact and not being able to secure a Game Pass deal for their new DLC (which would be a good for promotion), they decided to deprioritize the port for Xbox. Simple enough, and makes sense for a small dev that has to make those kinds of choices.
I'm not really clear on the point of the pie charts, because they're for two different games and yet also still show basically the exact same results save for a 2% discrepancy in sales. Game Pass appears to have had the same "effect" on Haven that being on PS+ did for Furi.
Basically Furi sold more on PS than Xbox back in 2016. Between that fact and not being able to secure a Game Pass deal for their new DLC (which would be a good for promotion), they decided to deprioritize the port for Xbox. Simple enough, and makes sense for a small dev that has to make those kinds of choices.
I'm not really clear on the point of the pie charts, because they're for two different games and yet also still show basically the exact same results save for a 2% discrepancy in sales. Game Pass appears to have had the same "effect" on Haven that being on PS+ did for Furi.
They are pushing the notion that it needs to be successful on other platforms so they could port it to Xbox in the near future.
Releasing on a flop platform because the other ones were successful makes no sense.
It probably leads to better sales of AAA games that aren't on GP. For example, you can just save your money for the next Call of Duty instead of spending it on an indie game that might end up on GP anyway.
Yeah, a lot of the posts are pretty embarrassing in here, but this is an article from a news source that is hated here plus is about Game Pass that isn't feverish praise. Never had a chance lol
The argument is that games that come to Gamepass lead to more sales overall for that game. How do the "numbers" dispute that?
I guess the question really is, are there enough people like you that will buy it if they want instead of waiting on gamepass. I would venture to guess that there are way more people that will just wait because of the amount of games already on gamepass at any given moment and this will most likely affect indies that don't take a gamepass deal or are refused.
You need to plan to leverage the exposure being on GP gives you. Have DLC that is separate and releasing after your game is off GP for instance. You also can't ignore that being on GP can help your sales on another platform if your game is good, due to word of mouth. People playing games post about those games online, maybe stream them, make videos, etc.
I think you'd need a ton of data points to draw big conclusions, but the business of GP for developers is not super straightforward. They also give you a check.. which is partly done BECAUSE it is expected you'll get less sales out the gate, because.. of course you will.
I think you'd need a ton of data points to draw big conclusions, but the business of GP for developers is not super straightforward. They also give you a check.. which is partly done BECAUSE it is expected you'll get less sales out the gate, because.. of course you will.
This aligns with the concern other indies have voiced a few months ago that there might come a time when indie games will need to be on Game Pass to be successful because otherwise they won't even appear on people's radars anymore.
Can't find the article and I'm on mobile right now. Sorry.
Can't find the article and I'm on mobile right now. Sorry.
Yeah, let's use one studio and ignore what other studios have said. Of course it wasn't going to be universal to all games.
- Haven sold 10x as many copies on PlayStation as Xbox
- Furi sold 0.7x as many copies on Xbox as PlayStation
In the case of Haven the statistics provided here make it very clear that Haven's inclusion on Game Pass didn't lead to more Xbox sales. 10x as many PlayStation sales as Xbox sales.
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Couldn't they just bundle it with the dlc and it would be considered a new release?
It seemed like a relaunch to me anyway.
It seemed like a relaunch to me anyway.
It's fine that they don't have enough money to support an xbox version, that's the everyday struggle of being an indie developer. And people shouldn't really blame them. We would all do it in their position.
But not sure what gamepass has to do with it. Indie games are not expected to have success, let alone success out of the gate with an instant playerbase (which still might not make it a success). Add to that the smallest market share out of the 3 platforms. This seems more like wishful thinking.
But not sure what gamepass has to do with it. Indie games are not expected to have success, let alone success out of the gate with an instant playerbase (which still might not make it a success). Add to that the smallest market share out of the 3 platforms. This seems more like wishful thinking.
Haven just wasn't a good enough game to consider buying after trying it on Game Pass. I was very hyped for it before it came out but dropped it after a few hours. I don't think you can blame game pass subs for not buying a game that the majority of players thought was average at best.
Wasn't Haven seen as a huge disappointment? I think the arguments that people will buy a copy of your game after it goes off Game Pass, or word of mouth will help drive non-Game Pass sales kinda assume that the players liked the game, so this wouldn't be too surprising to me.
Gamepass for them is mentioned in the article because they wanted to put furi on gamepass to get easier access for players to try it who may have not have back in 2016 and then sell the new dlc to make the numbers work for them. Microsoft isn't interested in furi being on gamepass due to it being older and they want to focus on newer releases for the service. The devs don't hate gamepass from what I can tell and outright want to be on the service to help the cost and risk of updating and making the new dlc for the platform.
