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[Tobimacoss]

Maybe it could be that the whole "conditioning" thing to not buy games is just an invention of rabid fanboys because their brand's gamepass doesn't have day one games and they have to justify paying $80 per game... Just maybe...

And if there was any conditioning, it applies to MS first/2nd party games, not AAA third party games.

AAA third party won't join Gamepass for 2-4 years after release, and will only join for a limited time contract.

 

[LoyaltyIsDead]

Great. Too bad I already requested a refund since the game is so poorly optimized on Xbox.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Damn, they went from 500K to 500,490.

Awesome.

 

[bighugeguns]

You call a few hundred thousand purchases a sales surge?

You don't follow game sales numbers at all do you?

Someone may have retard face here but it's not me mate

If you take this game's performance in the context of AA, then it's really freaking good, but yes, you're right, some of these AAA titles go into tens of millions.

 

[Halo is Back]

Wow, that's actually crazy.


Playstation's multiplatform console strategy is starting off with a bang.

Wow, who would have thought releasing good games on multiple platforms would mean bigger profits!?

 

[archangelmorph]

One wonders why NBA, FIFA and Battlefield aren't just skipping Xbox since nobody bought the previous games



This one thinks 'concurrent users' = 'number of units sold'. Man, what are we really doing here?

But yes, hundreds of thousands of units sold in a day is a surge indeed.

I know very well how CCUs correlate with game sales.

I think you lot are confusing me with some kind of console wars dumbo who actually gives a shit about Sony releasing games cross-platform.

Genuinely think this move is good for Sony & the HD devs (if a little confusing strategically in terms of the timing). I'm just not sure yet what it means in terms of wider PS releases coming to Xbox and my point was that Sony's marketing & publishing teams will be watching sales figures carefully as they roll out to assess whether this is a strong enough signal to green light (or at least to dictate the roadmap of timing for) bringing more titles over; especially those that may not be historically the bread and butter of the Xbox consumer demographic.

Also: I'm a ex-game dev w/ very close relationships with decision-makers in the industry, so genuinely have a clue about what's going on more than most.

 

[archangelmorph]

If you take this game's performance in the context of AA, then it's really freaking good, but yes, you're right, some of these AAA titles go into tens of millions.

Not really contextualising relative to HDs.

I'm looking at this through the lens of Sony marketing and publishing teams trying to observe and assess whether there's a strong enough signal here in the data to justify more releases. See my last post.

 

[Donald mac Ronald]

Maybe it could be that the whole "conditioning" thing to not buy games is just an invention of rabid fanboys because their brand's gamepass doesn't have day one games and they have to justify paying $80 per game... Just maybe...

Or we can just look at games that launch on all platforms and see the sad numbers on Xbox...

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

This one thinks 'concurrent users' = 'number of units sold'. Man, what are we really doing here?

But yes, hundreds of thousands of units sold in a day is a surge indeed.

The number in the OP isn't even all Xbox users. A big chunk will represent returning PS5 and PC users. So, you're wrong and the other guy is pretty spot on, tbh.

 

[yurinka]

Third party ones.

First party games like MLB, Destiny 2, Helldivers 2 and Gran Turismo 7 too.

You call a few hundred thousand purchases a sales surge?

These aren't sales, it's CCU. Meaning, the amount of players who are playing it at the same time on a given moment.

That number doesn't count the people who bought it but aren't playing it at that exact moment. Like people who is working, sleeping or doing something else.

MLB was forced to go multiplatform by the league lest they lose the license. Destiny was already multiplatform when Sony bought Bungie. I'd like to know about your etc.

Sony published games for NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Game Gear, Mega Drive, PC-Engine, Saturn, etc. before MLB. Even Xbox or Switch.

Regarding MLB, if was agreed by both MLB and Sony in 2019 when they renewed the license that it would go multiplatform. If Sony wouldn't have wanted to make it multiplatform and MLB had it as condition to renew, Sony could have decided to stop working in this IP. MLB can't force

Same goes with Destiny (published by Sony in Japan since Destiny 1 and 2 launches) and the rest of Bungie games: when Sony acquired the 100% of Bungie, so getting full control over it, said that wanted to keep Bungie full multiplatform with all features day one everywhere as part of the expansion on their multiplatform side.

Sony has them multiplatform because they want to make more money, that's all.

 

[archangelmorph]

First party games like MLB, Destiny 2, Helldivers 2 and Gran Turismo 7 too.


These aren't sales, it's CCU. Meaning, the amount of players who are playing it at the same time on a given moment.

That number doesn't count the people who bought it but aren't playing it at that exact moment. Like people who is working, sleeping or doing something else.

You lot can't read. See my posts above.

 

[Tobimacoss]

Not really contextualising relative to HDs.

I'm looking at this through the lens of Sony marketing and publishing teams trying to observe and assess whether there's a strong enough signal here in the data to justify more releases. See my last post.

So what is the average ratio of Game Sales to Concurrent users, 10:1? 5:1?

 

[Unknown?]

MLB was forced to go multiplatform by the league lest they lose the license. Destiny was already multiplatform when Sony bought Bungie. I'd like to know about your etc.

Twisted Metal 2 had a PC release.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

Plantation fans what say you, you sardine eating muffins?

 

[archangelmorph]

So what is the average ratio of Game Sales to Concurrent users, 10:1? 5:1?

Depends on a few factors.

Lifetime average is meaningless.

New releases will see narrower ratios over the first 1-3 months but absolute values vary based on genre (i.e. a co-op MP game like this will see much higher CCUs relative to game sales over the same period), but they widen out considerably after the first 3 months for nearly all games besides only a few very high engagement exceptions.

Also the release calendar window factors into this too, typically by an influence margin of between 5-15% (e.g. if a proportion of gamers have small backlogs due to a slate of fairly recent releases, that can depress both/either purchases & CCUs during the release window).

Either way, as has been mentioned already, these CCUs are all platform, not just Xbox figures.

We can presume the returning PC/PS5 player figures might be material given the Halo ODST content update, but we won't know until the actual sales figures (w/ per platform breakdowns) come out.

 

[adamsapple]

Plantation fans what say you, you sardine eating muffins?

 

[Tobimacoss]

Depends on a few factors.

Lifetime average is meaningless.

New releases will see narrower ratios over the first 1-3 months but absolute values vary based on genre (i.e. a co-op MP game like this will see much higher CCUs relative to game sales over the same period), but they widen out considerably after the first 3 months for nearly all games besides only a few very high engagement exceptions.

Also the release calendar window factors into this too, typically by an influence margin of between 5-15%.

Either way, these CCUs are all platform, not just Xbox figures.

We can presume the returning PC/PS5 player figures might be material given the Halo ODST content update, but we won't know until the actual sales figures (w/ per platform breakdowns) come out.

So Destiny 2 had roughly 1 million concurrent at peak, Steam had 250k, Stadia had 5k, PlayStation had 375k, Xbox had very close like 350k. This was back in 2022 when the Witch Queen DLC was releasing and Devs gave update. I could be misremembering but the numbers were very close. Xbox had higher attachment rate for sure.

So out of the 500k concurrent, even if 100k or so are from Xbox, with a 10:1 ratio, that would mean one million copies sold.

With a 5:1 ratio, that would mean 500k copies sold.

I personally think the game could easily sell 2 million on Xbox, so these numbers would be in line with those lifetime sales.

 

[yurinka]

You lot can't read. See my posts above.

I know how to read, and prefer to don't laugh at you when saying things like this:

I know very well how CCUs correlate with game sales.

CCUs don't correlate with game sales.

6 games can have the same sales but very different CCUs. Let's say you're in a working day:

• One game can have super low CCU because it's mostly played during weekends
• Other game can have super low CCU because a ton of people played it but it's old and people no longer play it
• Other game may have low CCU because has their players pretty evenly distributed across all timezones
• Other game may have low CCU because a huge chunk of their recently active players are in a timezone where their daily peak hour is at another moment of the day
• Other game may have high CCU because a huge chunk of their recently active players are in a timezone where their daily peak hour is now
• Other game have a high CCU because a lot of inactive players went back because they released a new game update that added something these players wanted

And well, CCUs increase or decrease over time, while sales only grow.

 

[archangelmorph]

So Destiny 2 had roughly 1 million concurrent at peak, Steam had 250k, Stadia had 5k, PlayStation had 375k, Xbox had very close like 350k. This was back in 2022 when the Witch Queen DLC was releasing and Devs gave update. I could be misremembering but the numbers were very close. Xbox had higher attachment rate for sure.

So out of the 500k concurrent, even if 100k or so are from Xbox, with a 10:1 ratio, that would mean one million copies sold.

With a 5:1 ratio, that would mean 500k copies sold.

I personally think the game could easily sell 2 million on Xbox, so these numbers would be in line with those lifetime sales.

I probably wouldn't use Destiny as the anchor data point but your math probably isn't that far off overall.

I agree with your overall conclusion, with the caveat only that I don't know how much overlap there is with Xbox vs PC demand (i.e. gamers owning both platforms), but I assume that's grown quite a bit over the years.

It's likely that your target Xbox sales would be undercut by existing Xbox owners that are already playing on PC and aren't keen to double-dip. Cross-play support cements this too.

 

[archangelmorph]

I know how to read, and prefer to don't laugh at you when saying things like this:


CCUs don't correlate with game sales.

6 games can have the same sales but very different CCUs. Let's say you're in a working day:

• One game can have super low CCU because it's mostly played during weekends
• Other game can have super low CCU because a ton of people played it but it's old and people no longer play it
• Other game may have low CCU because has their players pretty evenly distributed across all timezones
• Other game may have low CCU because a huge chunk of their recently active players are in a timezone where their daily peak hour is at another moment of the day
• Other game may have high CCU because a huge chunk of their recently active players are in a timezone where their daily peak hour is now
• Other game have a high CCU because a lot of inactive players went back because they released a new game update that added something these players wanted

And well, CCUs increase or decrease over time, while sales only grow.

Read my posts.

Yes they do correlate.

If you have enough data and run the analysis with sufficient dimensionality then they cement pretty well.

Again, there are teams that do this professionally in publishing houses all day long. There's a lot I wish I could share here tangibly (in terms of methodologies + example insight data sets) but it's not my IP.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

The game peaked at 450k players during release on PC alone. So unless PS5 only had 50k (which it didn't) i dont' get what record is there.

That said, for a game that came out in February last year, i was checking those steam CCU and honestly great legs:

With each release the game gets a bigger peak and then never goes down as much as during the previous low.

 

[mayham2199]

Plantation fans what say you, you sardine eating muffins?

As a playstation fan I don't give a shit. As long as the PS division is performing well so that I know they aren't going away they can do whatever they want with these games. I'm not moving to PC because I think it's shit and there's no reason to move Xbox. I can't stand Nintendos games and their 3rd party support is garbage.

 

[reinking]

As a playstation fan I don't give a shit. As long as the PS division is performing well so that I know they aren't going away they can do whatever they want with these games. I'm not moving to PC because I think it's shit and there's no reason to move Xbox. I can't stand Nintendos games and their 3rd party support is garbage.

 

[mckmas8808]

I'm sure theres some xbox players but I'd say it more thanks to the Halo crossover boosting returning numbers.

Also the numbers in the OP make no sense, there was 450k on steam alone on release.

The title in the OP is A LIE!!!! I'm not sure why everybody in this thread isn't pointing out how that article is mixing numbers INCORRECTLY on purpose to LIE to you all!

 

[Kacho]

The title in the OP is A LIE!!!! I'm not sure why everybody in this thread isn't pointing out how that article is mixing numbers INCORRECTLY on purpose to LIE to you all!

What? A mod already edited the title

 

[Germuso]

So after all, halo killer arrived.

 

[clarky]

The title in the OP is A LIE!!!! I'm not sure why everybody in this thread isn't pointing out how that article is mixing numbers INCORRECTLY on purpose to LIE to you all!

We need adamsapple in the sin bin for a week for this blatant propaganda.

 

[mckmas8808]

What? A mod already edited the title

And yet, the article in the OP and what is being said is leading people into believing a lie. It's amazing that with the more technology we get as humans....the dumber we seem to get overall when it comes to communicating things.

 

[Kacho]

And yet, the article in the OP and what is being said is leading people into believing a lie. It's amazing that with the more technology we get as humans....the dumber we seem to get overall when it comes to communicating things.

What is the lie? The person you quoted was talking about the thread title pre-edit. They removed the part about a new record being achieved and is now factual based on what the CEO said.

As shared by the CEO of Arrowhead, the developers of Helldivers 2, it was revealed that the total player count for the game hit 500,490 players.

 

[adamsapple]

What is the lie? The person you quoted was talking about the thread title pre-edit. They removed the part about a new record being achieved and is now factual based on what the CEO said.

The CEO of Arrowhead is a BLATANT LIAR.

 

[mckmas8808]

What is the lie? The person you quoted was talking about the thread title pre-edit. They removed the part about a new record being achieved and is now factual based on what the CEO said.

Did you not read the OP or something? They are mixing up average of players on Steam with peak numbers on every system. Why? Why mix numbers up that are apples to oranges?

The CEO of Arrowhead is a BLATANT LIAR.

I'm really talking about the article you posted, not the CEO you goof! And you know that. Now I'm wondering if you posted this badly written article on purpose.

 

[Kacho]

Did you not read the OP or something? They are mixing up average of players on Steam with peak numbers on every system. Why? Why mix numbers up that are apples to oranges?



I'm really talking about the article you posted, not the CEO you goof! And you know that. Now I'm wondering if you posted this badly written article on purpose.

You specifically called out the title of the thread, not the content in the OP. Are you just bitching for the sake of bitching?

 

[yurinka]

Read my posts.

Yes they do correlate.

If you have enough data and run the analysis with sufficient dimensionality then they cement pretty well.

Again, there are teams that do this professionally in publishing houses all day long. There's a lot I wish I could share here tangibly (in terms of methodologies + example insight data sets) but it's not my IP.

In half an hour I have a meeting to review a marketing plan of one of the different gamedev teams I mentor. I'm one of those do these things professionally, since a couple decades ago.

I worked in top companies and have friends and former coworkers in many other top companies.

CCUs are a very bad source to make good sales estimates because they don't correlate due to the reasons I mentioned to you and other ones more. There are better methods including free ones.

 

[clarky]

The CEO of Arrowhead is a BLATANT LIAR.

Quit passing the buck. This is your thread. Own the lies.

 

[mckmas8808]

You specifically called out the title of the thread, not the content in the OP. Are you just bitching for the sake of bitching?

I also called out the article too. I literally said........


"I'm not sure why everybody in this thread isn't pointing out how that article is mixing numbers INCORRECTLY on purpose to LIE to you all!"

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Maybe it could be that the whole "conditioning" thing to not buy games is just an invention of rabid fanboys because their brand's gamepass doesn't have day one games and they have to justify paying $80 per game... Just maybe...

I have never seen anyone complain that games on PS5 aren't on PS+ day 1.

 

[splattered]

As a playstation fan I don't give a shit. As long as the PS division is performing well so that I know they aren't going away they can do whatever they want with these games. I'm not moving to PC because I think it's shit and there's no reason to move Xbox. I can't stand Nintendos games and their 3rd party support is garbage.

That's exactly where i landed after MS made the same moves...

And i sleep at night just fine.

 

[PurePlatinum]

The big question here is how many of these are on Xbox vs other platforms. I cannot imagine that many Xbox only players picking this up, that didn't already just have it on PC.

 

[sainraja]

The helldivers community is one of the best communities out there. Thus far the experience with PC and PS5 divers is an amazing one. I'm addicted.

I have joined games where players are role playing a bit, talking like the guy in the intro. It is great and hilarious!

 

[Mr Moose]

The big question here is how many of these are on Xbox vs other platforms. I cannot imagine that many Xbox only players picking this up, that didn't already just have it on PC.

Steam was 170k, so 330K between PS5 and Xbox Series (unless it's also sold on other stores, doesn't seem to be on Epic).

 

[Ebrietas]

So how many Xbox players are there?

 

[Mr Moose]

So how many Xbox players are there?

 

[Roberts]

The big question here is how many of these are on Xbox vs other platforms. I cannot imagine that many Xbox only players picking this up, that didn't already just have it on PC.

I wanted to learn the ropes a bit more today before playing with my friends again, so played a few quickgames. Majority were xbox players. Anecdotal obviously but still…

 

[cireza]

Xbox gamers have been conditioned not to buy stuff

 

[GymWolf]

Forced democracy always win.

 

[Lightbreak]

Keeping live service titles exclusive makes 0 sense and it never made any sense to do so. Helldivers 2 is the perfect example as to why.

Basically this, 100%

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Keeping live service titles exclusive makes 0 sense and it never made any sense to do so. Helldivers 2 is the perfect example as to why.

Exclusivity matters when there's direct competition.

PC isn't a direct threat to Playstation and neither is Xbox anymore.

 

[archangelmorph]

In half an hour I have a meeting to review a marketing plan of one of the different gamedev teams I mentor. I'm one of those do these things professionally, since a couple decades ago.

I worked in top companies and have friends and former coworkers in many other top companies.

CCUs are a very bad source to make good sales estimates because they don't correlate due to the reasons I mentioned to you and other ones more. There are better methods including free ones.

You're simply wrong but you do you my friend.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

 

[Icymanipulator]

Always happy to see this games continued success, welcome Xbox bros !