Pentiment and Grounded are such odd choices. They are SO low key, they're barely going to move the dial on Microsoft's finances.
Sea of Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush definitely could though.
Xbox Game Studios + Bethesda + ABK | OT29 | The Temple of Doomers
- Thread starter Andrei Rublev
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Sea of Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush definitely could though.
Pretty sure Grounded is bigger than Hi-Fi Rush, at least at Steam
I think Grounded sold really well on PC. They have over 13 million players last I read. Hi-Fi Rush is one of those darlings that the enthusiast crowd loves but never breaks out.
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Grounded sold more than Hi-Fi Rush tho
Way bigger, too. (>10 million players)
On Xbox too.
Pentiment I agree, but I think that's more about showcasing the diversity and calibre of MS' studios. You gotta have a few prestige, art-bait, or niche-tailored titles in your repertoire.
Though I disagree with you on Grounded. Had Grounded been fully multi-plat from the start, I genuinely reckon it would have been a little phenomenon; maybe not quite to the degree of Helldivers 2 or Palworld, but its got the bits and DNA to be a social media and streamer. Even on just PC/Xbox, it was managing to pull some decent Streamer numbers at times.
It's such a charming, well-crafted game, with a lot of elements that resonate with modern audiences (co-op survival, base-building, etc.). Hell, ideally they should even consider a mobile port imo.
Regardless, anything that increases MS returns, you'd hope will in-turn be partly reinvested into said studios. If Hi-Fi going multi-plat gives rise to Hi-Fi 2, if SoT gets a second wind with its player-base and years of more meaty content, and if Pentiment going multi-plat is conducive to Josh Sawyer Bike Shop RPG, fucking bring it.
Surely Grounded is going to be huge on other platforms? It's already got 15 million players on Xbox and PC.
It's more about comparing with performance on Xbox, in that sense the size of the game doesn't matter. And after the 4 games are out they have 4 data points to decide what other games will be ported.
Extreme grain of salt but the sale estimates on Steamdb (taking the lowest of the bunch) has around 2M for Grounded and around 425K for Hi-Fi RUSH, 150K for Pentiment, and 7M for Sea of Thieves.
These are all probably very inaccurate, but gives an idea.
300K reviews for SOT
69K reviews for Grounded
23K reviews for Hi-Fi RUSH
5300 reviews for Pentiment
These are all probably very inaccurate, but gives an idea.
300K reviews for SOT
69K reviews for Grounded
23K reviews for Hi-Fi RUSH
5300 reviews for Pentiment
It's also about starting with games that won't piss off the fanbase as much as the bigger games would right off the bat.
Indeed, with these games they can control the narrative a bit
Can't really predict how well will Pentiment do, but I'm sure other games will do exceptionally well.
I don't see why Pentiment would do any worse on Switch than on Xbox. It might even do better on Switch on account if it being an ideal handheld game. I think it's going to do well.
I think that's exactly what this initiative is about, increasing the profitability of the games/studios in question (and the visibility of the IPs which will likely get sequels, like Grounded and HFR).
Honestly Grounded is a great pick. It was probably not a "buy an Xbox" level game for people but also sold very well on Steam and now will get a smaller second wind. Would be great to pair with a major update.
I think "well" in Pentiment's case is likely a few hundred thousand extra copies, which is easily doable on a system with like 140 million units out there.
I really don't think that's going to happen. What's more likely is them not getting physical releases at all than only skipping Xbox. The only reason ADF is skipping Xbox is because it's not being published by Xbox, whereas these games will be.
I don't think they will get physical, but if they do, it'll be like Psychonauts 2 (or Ori or the Minecraft spinoffs) where all platforms get it.
Yeah exactly. It's milking the most out of their investments and output.
Going forward, every release is going to have smarter bean counters than I, doing big calculations on the benefits vs. caveats of making a then exclusive multi-plat. With 40+ internal studios now, their output is going to be so prolific that they'll both need to find more ways to generate steady income streams to sustain it, but also, they'll be producing so much that they can comfortably let a few titles go multi-platform and still retain heavy-weight exclusives. This initiative not only gives them greater returns, but also a safety net and means for recouping investments on titles titles that don't move the needle like they hoped.
Pentiment is going to bomb for sure. It's extremely niche.
What is bombing, exactly? The game already did well enough according to Josh, and surely will do well on more platforms. Considering it's costs and manpower, the game did not bomb at all.
This probably isn't the right thread to ask in (Xbox bias and all, pre-established users already, etc.) but can someone help me understand what the current state of the Xbox app is, and why so many shit on it online? I'm sure their reasoning isn't totally unfounded, but I'd be interested to hear what the actual remaining problems are, and what if anything MS can do to fix them.
I game on PC, though haven't really had any issues with it personally. Hell, it's my main gaming client as someone who's invested into the Gamepass model, and I easily use it more than Steam these days. Though admittedly I don't really buy games any more, so the actual storefront portion of the Xbox app is pretty moot to me.
I game on PC, though haven't really had any issues with it personally. Hell, it's my main gaming client as someone who's invested into the Gamepass model, and I easily use it more than Steam these days. Though admittedly I don't really buy games any more, so the actual storefront portion of the Xbox app is pretty moot to me.
It's still more copies than it's sold right now though. Did it "bomb" on Xbox and PC? I highly doubt they expected it to be a multimillion seller. Sawyer basically said that Xbox saw it as an art project and didn't care about sales.
Eh, that's actually not always true. There are many games that don't do good on PC in general, but do exceptionally well on consoles or just do better. Pentiment maybe finds success on Switch, you never know.
Exactly. Also, to first parties like Sony and Xbox, critical prestige is very valuable too. And Pentiment definitely has that.
pentiment did well on steam, people.
doesn't mean anything tbh. people don't know how to adjust their expectations to smaller stuff.
nowadays it's pretty chill, although it leaves a lot to be desired in certain functionalities. people shit on it mostly because how bad it was in the past (and then they never tried it again)
It's fine of all you want to do is launch a game and play it and not much more. It still isn't perfect, but has improved a lot over the years.
However, it still falls behind in terms of features and usability vs Steam (obviously). It has mod support for a lot of games, but not all, and even then you don't have full mod support bc you can't modify the exe due to the windows app packaging and all that or the drm or whatever.
Then you have windows funkiness or other inexplicable problems only the ms store has. A perfect example is the latest patch for Sea of Thieves today. Over the weekend or since last week, if you bought SOT on the pc app or went to download it from gp you couldn't. They said it wouldn't be fixed until todays patch.
No other games downloader straight up will not let you download a game until a fix is in afaik. Steam worked fine and it only affected the pc storefront.
Personally i have only had one snafu with Redfall installing. I think it isn't some dumpster fire a lot make it out to be. It does its job of being a game pass launcher. I wouldn't really invest in full on there vs Steam or EGS but im not really a purist. Id buy play anywhere titles perfectly fine if i were to no longer sub primarily.
I wish my Dark Souls and Elden Ring purchases were Play Anywhere! Lol
In the near future, I do think some smaller Microsoft games could do well on the Switch. Sea of Thieves makes sense for this Partners showcase.
But yeah... it seems like Phil Spencer is trying to wish an exclusiveless future into reality. Playstation and Nintendo have no business porting killer apps to such a small userbase. Phil says 5-10 years, I say 20+ years, if ever. But yeah, after that noise port-begging will reach new heights.
But yeah... it seems like Phil Spencer is trying to wish an exclusiveless future into reality. Playstation and Nintendo have no business porting killer apps to such a small userbase. Phil says 5-10 years, I say 20+ years, if ever. But yeah, after that noise port-begging will reach new heights.
Their output is not that prolific from the console's perspective and saying that it will be, sounds a lot like "wait for next year". Reality is their console is being massively outsold and is in danger of being removed from stores in much of Europe. It's presence is shrinking as we speak.
If their output was so prolific, that wouldn't be happening. They cannot "comfortably" let go of anything. Every single title they give away will make things more difficult for the console and it's already trending below Xbox One, being outsold 3 to 1 last year.
There's nothing in the console's current position that suggest they can comfortably give titles away.
Their margins are what is wishing it into reality. A decade ago Sony releasing their games on PC would have even unthinkable, let alone day and date. Now look at Helldivers. Things change, and they can and will change more.
I wouldn't be so quick to downplay Grounded tbh. It's had something like 15 million players and sold moderately well on Steam, while also being developed extremely cheaply. I could see it having some pretty solid success, especially since the survival genre is pretty big and Grounded is also a family friendly survival game.
And it's arguably the same thing with Pentiment, game was developed super cheaply and while it hasn't had significant player numbers, it could really find its way into being a stealth hit on Switch.
Hi-Fi is much more low key than Grounded. We even had Spencer say the console version of Age of Empires 2 had more engagement than Hi-Fi. What makes Hi-Fi seem bigger is because it matters more among core outlets and gamers, in places like Era.
You have a point about Pentiment (Microsoft never even commented on Pentiment's numbers at all). But Grounded had 15 million players across PC and Xbox last year and was played by many major live streamers/content creators on Twitch and YouTube. It's nowhere near as low-key as you think it is.
Hi-Fi Rush had 3 million players, way below Grounded's numbers. Hi-Fi Rush definitely had a bigger budget than Grounded but in terms of player counts/sales, Grounded was more popular.
Hi-Fi Rush:
Grounded:
The Backyard is Home to Over 15 Million Players - Xbox Wire
The Grounded team and Obsidian Entertainment are very happy to announce that over 15 million players have entered the backyard. When Grounded hit its full release just a couple of months ago, the backyard was swarmed by players looking to see what life was like on a micro level. Whether you’ve...
news.xbox.com
Things change, sure, but porting games to PC is obviously very different from porting to the direct competitor. There is nothing indicating that you would see Mario on Playstation or God of War on Xbox anytime soon.
If anything, Xbox losing exclusives makes fewer people want to buy an Xbox (it's already happening as we speak), which makes Xbox user base a smaller market share, which makes porting anything even less worth it.
What it will all look like in 20, 30 years is hard to say, of course!
I bet that we'll see PS games in Xbox/Nintendo consoles in less than 10 years.
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