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[Belthazar]

To put this genre into perspective, Bayonetta has basically never sold over 1.5 million. DMCV sold 6 million on multiple systems, and is a much more well known IP. I think they're probably happy about it based on everything they've said. I think they'll let Tango do anything they want as long as they stay working there.

Those copies were sold, tho. That's a very different metric.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

How much do you think this game cost to make?

15-20 million would be my guess.

 

[Punished Miku]

Those copied were sold, tho. That's a very different metric.

Obviously. Why would this triple Bayonetta 3 and its a new IP and its on the smallest install base? Well it's a sub. They're different. But you can still get an idea of how popular this genre is. It's not that mainstream.

 

[Ozriel]

They should change 3 million players to 3 million downloads, it'd be much more honest but of course the word players sounds much better.

I played it for about an hour before I opted out, it's a very nice game but it isn't for me . I'm still counted as a "player" though which is not really representative.

Wouldn't be a thread about player count of an Xbox game without a comment from someone talking about how the metric is inflated since he only played a few minutes.

Every damn time.

Even though it's a fair assumption that this doesn't describe most players, and retention for a game as good as HFR is bound to be better than most.

Yep. You don't even need to "play" it. Just start the game from the Xbox menu and you are considered a "player". It's all a joke.

…and there's always someone along to amplify this.

 

[Ozriel]

15-20 million would be my guess.

Most certainly lower than that. John Johanas said in an interview that the core production team was around 20 members at some points. It was also developed in parallel with Ghostwire Tokyo which undoubtedly took more budget and resources.

I'd be surprised if this exceeded $10m

 

[Katatonic]

Wouldn't be a thread about player count of an Xbox game without a comment from someone talking about how the metric is inflated since he only played a few minutes.

Every damn time.

Even though it's a fair assumption that this doesn't describe most players, and retention for a game as good as HFR is bound to be better than most.



…and there's always someone along to amplify this.

But they're both right.
Just complaining about what they're saying doesn't make it untrue.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Most certainly lower than that. John Johanas said in an interview that the core production team was around 20 members at some points.

I'd be surprised if this exceeded $10m

That's fine.

It's polished to perfection and was developed over a long period time. Even if it costed at higher end, it will be profitable by now. Or close to it.

 

[Ozriel]

But they're both right.
Just complaining about what they're saying doesn't make it untrue.

Completely untrue that this is a 'worthless' stat or a 'joke'.
Certainly seems to be of great value to the studio, at the very minimum. And it's 1 million over the previous mark from March, so it shows there's steady interest.

 

[NickFire]

Wouldn't be a thread about player count of an Xbox game without a comment from someone talking about how the metric is inflated since he only played a few minutes.

Every damn time.

Even though it's a fair assumption that this doesn't describe most players, and retention for a game as good as HFR is bound to be better than most.



…and there's always someone along to amplify this.

If it's bothersome when people don't accept PR without critical analysis, you should blame the company who hides traditional metrics by touting vague ones in my opinion.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Yep. You don't even need to "play" it. Just start the game from the Xbox menu and you are considered a "player". It's all a joke.

Yeah, I'm sure people are downloading it to not play it. Makes sense.

 

[Ozriel]

If it's bothersome when people don't accept PR without critical analysis, you should blame the company who hides traditional metrics by touting vague ones in my opinion.

Nothing really 'vague' about the player count. It's a metric they measure. And they use this as a tracker for both first and third party titles. There's nothing more useful they can provide in the world of Day 1 GP releases, where sales as a metric doesn't tell the whole story anymore.

It doesn't translate to sales, but it's not meant to do that.

 

[mckmas8808]

15-20 million would be my guess.

Not a bad guess.

Completely untrue that this is a 'worthless' stat or a 'joke'.
Certainly seems to be of great value to the studio, at the very minimum. And it's 1 million over the previous mark from March, so it shows there's steady interest.

It's a worthless stat to us as consumers because it means "nothing" to us. Are any business decisions made by a game being "launched" by 3 million people?

Yeah, I'm sure people are downloading it to not play it. Makes sense.

Yo bruh......people do that all the time lol. But MS doesn't consider it a "play" until you click on the game and start it once. So just downloading it isn't enough.

 

[SenkiDala]

3 millions with Steam, Gamepass PC and Gamepass console ? So basically "free" if you sub ? In 7 months ? For a service that has 25 millions subscribers ?

That's a... total failure ? Or not ? I mean even the people who downloaded the game and launched it once are counted. It sounds very very low no ?

 

[Ozriel]

It's a worthless stat to us as consumers because it means "nothing" to us. Are any business decisions made by a game being "launched" by 3 million people?

Must be worth something since someone opened a thread here, right?

But in all seriousness, yes, business decisions can be taken based on engagement levels on GamePass or retail sales.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

A younger me would have loved this game, but it felt kind of odd, the timing aspects I mean. They don't really seem to align with actual beats per minute like actual music, so that throws me off a bit. Just feels kind of obnoxious to me after a while. Kind of meh.

 

[DrFigs]

it's was a pretty mediocre game. not surprised player count is that low.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Yo bruh......people do that all the time lol. But MS doesn't consider it a "play" until you click on the game and start it once. So just downloading it isn't enough.

I get it, it's a weak stat that doesn't compare to sales. But more people playing could translate to growing the audience in the future for a sequel. That seemed to happen with Pikmin.

 

[NickFire]

Nothing really 'vague' about the player count. It's a metric they measure. And they use this as a tracker for both first and third party titles. There's nothing more useful they can provide in the world of Day 1 GP releases, where sales as a metric doesn't tell the whole story anymore.

It doesn't translate to sales, but it's not meant to do that.

I would suspect it means accounts who started the game and got to the splash screen myself. But all I can do is suspect. Maybe they mean accounts who played in game for at least 1 second. Maybe they mean accounts who played for at least 5 minutes. Plenty of room for interpretation IMO.

Also - my point is more general. The company has created these kind of debates by touting non-traditional success metrics for years to avoid discussing traditional ones. So now these kinds of claims get far more critical analysis by the gaming community. Comments critical of critical analysis seem misplaced IMO.

 

[Roxkis_ii]

Three out 25 mil sounds low to me, but if the devs who made the game are happy, who am I to complain.

 

[Ozriel]

3 millions with Steam, Gamepass PC and Gamepass console ? So basically "free" if you sub ? In 7 months ? For a service that has 25 millions subscribers ?

That's a... total failure ? Or not ? I mean even the people who downloaded the game and launched it once are counted. It sounds very very low no ?

To put things into perspective, Wo Long Fallen Dynasty hit 3.8 million players 2 months after release, and that's a title that received WAY more marketing than HiFi Rush, had a Demo and released on GP day 1.

Ghostwire Tokyo hit 5 million players after a year's sales on PlayStation + released on Gamepass and PS Plus extra.

In that light, 3 million players for HiFi Rush is respectable, and the game had to have been made on an AA budget.

Makes you see how respectable Forza Horizon series is when FH5's hitting 30 million players. It's not just about being on a subscription service…people actually have to want to play them.

 

[fallingdove]

To put this genre into perspective, Bayonetta has basically never sold over 1.5 million. DMCV sold 6 million on multiple systems, and is a much more well known IP. I think they're probably happy about it based on everything they've said. I think they'll let Tango do anything they want as long as they stay working there.

Bayonetta was ONLY pay to play. This game was free to 25 million people. I can't imagine that Microsoft sees this as a success. If this is what success looks like for GamePass, the service is in trouble.

 

[Connificent]

Still need to play this. Only did the first level but I did buy it. My honky ass isnt one for rythm games

 

[Ozriel]

I would suspect it means accounts who started the game and got to the splash screen myself. But all I can do is suspect. Maybe they mean accounts who played in game for at least 1 second. Maybe they mean accounts who played for at least 5 minutes. Plenty of room for interpretation IMO.

And all of those have as much merit as the days of discussing how many of Gamepass active users were using $1 trials.
They exist, but represent only a small fraction of users. Same way we can assume - based on its quality - that more often than not, people stuck with HFR.

Also - my point is more general. The company has created these kind of debates by touting non-traditional success metrics for years to avoid discussing traditional ones.

It isn't about 'creating debate'. In a day one Gamepass world, it makes absolutely no sense to discuss 'traditional success metrics' as you call it. Their games enter a subscription service day one, so focusing on retail sales alone does not tell a reasonable story.

So now these kinds of claims get far more critical analysis by the gaming community. Comments critical of critical analysis seem misplaced IMO.

'Critical analysis' means copy-pasting the same comments in every thread when metrics are released for a GamePass title?

 

[Punished Miku]

Still need to play this. Only did the first level but I did buy it. My honky ass isnt one for rythm games

Tap your foot while you play. I'm a drummer and I still do that. Mostly it's just on the down beat in 4/4. Only on a few QTEs it's on the up beat, extremely rarely. And it's super forgiving if you don't stay on beat. Just less score / damage. Doesn't really do much.

 

[NickFire]

And all of those have as much merit as the days of discussing how many of Gamepass active users were using $1 trials.
They exist, but represent only a small fraction of users. Same way we can assume - based on its quality - that more often than not, people stuck with HFR.



It isn't about 'creating debate'. In a day one Gamepass world, it makes absolutely no sense to discuss 'traditional success metrics' as you call it. Their games enter a subscription service day one, so focusing on retail sales alone does not tell a reasonable story.



'Critical analysis' means copy-pasting the same comments in every thread when metrics are released for a GamePass title?

Oh, I get it. We should say good job or stay silent. Point taken.

 

[mckmas8808]

Must be worth something since someone opened a thread here, right?

But in all seriousness, yes, business decisions can be taken based on engagement levels on GamePass or retail sales.

Business decisions "could" happen based on this number, but we haven't seen it happen once yet.

 

[Ozriel]

Bayonetta was ONLY pay to play. This game was free to 25 million people. I can't imagine that Microsoft sees this as a success. If this is what success looks like for GamePass, the service is in trouble.

That's…not how this works. At all.
It's a library. There's something for everyone. Not everyone's going to play everything. You imagine every Netflix show gets watched by the approx 250 million subscribers?

MLB the Show 21 launched on GamePass and had 2 million players…out of 18 million GP subscribers. And yet MS renewed the GP deal for the next two years.

The content put into the library helps to keep 25+ million people engaged, each paying money to stay subscribed.

HFR was made for a small budget and probably made that back from Steam sales alone.

 

[Ozriel]

Business decisions "could" happen based on this number, but we haven't seen it happen once yet.

How many business decisions at MS and Sony are you privy to?

We already know MS elected to renew the deals for MLB The Show, so it stands to reason they were happy with the engagement from GamePass.

 

[mckmas8808]

I would suspect it means accounts who started the game and got to the splash screen myself. But all I can do is suspect. Maybe they mean accounts who played in game for at least 1 second. Maybe they mean accounts who played for at least 5 minutes. Plenty of room for interpretation IMO.

Also - my point is more general. The company has created these kind of debates by touting non-traditional success metrics for years to avoid discussing traditional ones. So now these kinds of claims get far more critical analysis by the gaming community. Comments critical of critical analysis seem misplaced IMO.

Cog has stated publically that it's the bolded. He said it on his Youtube show with Matty less than a month ago.


I even started right where he says it. But that full section of them talking abou this VERY subject is about 5 minutes long.





Again, these are two hardcore super Xbox gamers and media heads and even they are realistic about this type of "stat".

 

[Black_Stride]

It's part of a service that has 25 - 30 million subscribers and was called an early GotY candidate by tons in the games media.

But I'm sure the completion rate is great because it's such a good game.

I think its kinda weird we tease the Square Enix execs for being angry that their western studios arent doing ~15 million plus per release like Uncharted.
But then GAF users are sitting here looking at a game with a minimal budget thats pretty niche, with no advertising doing 3 million and commenting that its low.

You guys really need to have a grasp of expectations that certain games and developers have.....fuck the execs!
The reason these guys are proud of their 3 million is because they likely thought shadow dropping was gonna have a million max in a few months and over time it would be a nice game show off Gamepass.....but for real 3 million is an achievement for this B-side of the studio and this game size.

No, its not going to do 10 million players ASAP.
And no one should have ever even expected that.




Im legit trying to understand what in your SquareEnix exec mind would be a good number for this game?

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

It's a surprising game. I'm enjoying it even if I suck at action games. Having to follow the rhythm actually helps me get into the flow, unlike Bayonetta and all those actions with a gajillion moves where pushing the stick half a degree in the wrong direction will result in a totally different outcome. I don't care about good scores, and I'm still getting some good ones.

That's the game's problem with the general public, though. Having to follow the music's tempo surely feels limiting to fans of pure action games, and it's too complicated for those who enjoy pressing A to Awesome. HFR is irredeemably niche, as good as it is. But after trying it, I stand by my stance: the market needs games like this.

 

[mckmas8808]

I think its kinda weird we tease the Square Enix execs for being angry that their western studios arent doing ~15 million plus per release like Uncharted.
But then GAF users are sitting here looking at a game with a minimal budget thats pretty niche, with no advertising doing 3 million and commenting that its low.

You guys really need to have a grasp of expectations that certain games and developers have.....fuck the execs!
The reason these guys are proud of their 3 million is because they likely thought shadow dropping was gonna have a million max in a few months and over time it would be a nice game show off Gamepass.....but for real 3 million is an achievement for this B-side of the studio and this game size.

No, its not going to do 10 million players ASAP.
And no one should have ever even expected that.




Im legit trying to understand what in your SquareEnix exec mind would be a good number for this game?

Because the game did "do" 3 million. That's my personal issue with this number being pushed out there. It's confusing some of you guys.

 

[fallingdove]

That's…not how this works. At all.
It's a library. There's something for everyone. Not everyone's going to play everything. You imagine every Netflix show gets watched by the approx 250 million subscribers?

MLB the Show 21 launched on GamePass and had 2 million players…out of 18 million GP subscribers. And yet MS renewed the GP deal for the next two years.

The content put into the library helps to keep 25+ million people engaged, each paying money to stay subscribed.

HFR was made for a small budget and probably made that back from Steam sales alone.

Uhh, that's exactly how it works. 3 million is a combination of Xbox store and Steam purchases plus anyone who downloaded through GamePass and made it to the title screen.

It's one of the highest rated games on Xbox and a sub 10% fraction of subscribers that even cared to even boot it up. Multiply the cost by every other game that MS are paying for to develop or host on the service and it feels an awful lot like Xbox is fighting a loosing battle.

 

[Mr Hyde]

Ghostwire Tokyo hit 5 million players after a year's sales on PlayStation + released on Gamepass and PS Plus extra.

5 million for Ghostwire makes me happy. Loved that game. Tango getting much love recently with their latest releases. Bodes well for the future.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I think its kinda weird we tease the Square Enix execs for being angry that their western studios arent doing ~15 million plus per release like Uncharted.
But then GAF users are sitting here looking at a game with a minimal budget thats pretty niche, with no advertising doing 3 million and commenting that its low.

You guys really need to have a grasp of expectations that certain games and developers have.....fuck the execs!
The reason these guys are proud of their 3 million is because they likely thought shadow dropping was gonna have a million max in a few months and over time it would be a nice game show off Gamepass.....but for real 3 million is an achievement for this B-side of the studio and this game size.

No, its not going to do 10 million players ASAP.
And no one should have ever even expected that.




Im legit trying to understand what in your SquareEnix exec mind would be a good number for this game?

I would argue that if you asked people what kind of numbers Hi-Fi Rush would do during launch week, nobody would say "3% completion rate and 3 million players in 6 months."

It came out during a lengthy drought, recieved surprisingly high critical acclaim, and was the talk of the town on podcasts + social media for about a week.

The only reason I'm interested in it is because it's yet another example of "the industry" whiffing on a game.

 

[Forsythia]

Fantastic game, and although I suck balls at it, I managed to finish it. Highly recommended!

 

[Ozriel]

Uhh, that's exactly how it works. 3 million is a combination of Xbox store and Steam purchases plus anyone who downloaded through GamePass and made it to the title screen.

It's one of the highest rated games on Xbox and a sub 10% fraction of subscribers that even cared to even boot it up. Multiply the cost by every other game that MS are paying for to develop or host on the service and it feels an awful lot like Xbox is fighting a loosing battle.

And yet tens of millions of people keep stay actively subscribed to play games from that library. For some, they're there to play HFR. For others, it's MLB. Some play Forza Horizon. some High on Life. Some played Wo Long. Some, Atomic Heart.

I'd say the service is working exactly as intended. I'm willing to bet a large percentage of GP subscribers didn't play Super Lucky's Tale, but my kids enjoyed that.

Percentages don't always tell the full story.

 

[Zekra Dezivad]

It's a good game and it's included in a subscription service, I'm slighty mad that so many people didn't even bothered to try it. Welp, vote with your download button, I guess.
I believe that the game did well on Steam anyway

 

[NickFire]

I would argue that if you asked people what kind of numbers Hi-Fi Rush would do during launch week, nobody would say "3% completion rate and 3 million players in 6 months."

It came out during a lengthy drought, recieved surprisingly high critical acclaim, and was the talk of the town on podcasts + social media for about a week.

The only reason I'm interested in it is because it's yet another example of "the industry" whiffing on a game.

We should all make a truce. One side promises to not pretend every indie exclusive is a GoTY candidate. The rest of promise not to judge indie exclusives based on things that would make stock holders happy.

 

[Ozriel]

We should all make a truce. One side promises to not pretend every indie exclusive is a GoTY candidate.

Ah. this explains things quite nicely.

Not sure how a game made by Tango and published by BGS is 'indie' anyway…

 

[Clear]

Number of players just isn't a useful metric.

If you don't know units sold or amount of revenue generated then there's no way to really understand if its done sufficiently well to establish itself as an ongoing franchise.

When a title is added free of charge to a pre-existing established service with millions of subscribers, you can't even gauge interest generated by it as a concept because there's such minimal investment required on the part of the users to simply check it out. Were they genuinely intrigued or did they download out of idle curiosity? And even then, what does that say about its intrinsic value as an IP versus overall level of interest for all content bundled into the service contemporaneously?

Here's the key issue: If success is "black boxed", with the audience unaware of whether the things they love are seen as worthy or unworthy of continuation/expansion on financial grounds, how can they have a say in the future direction of programming?

 

[NickFire]

Ah. this explains things quite nicely.

Not sure how a game made by Tango and published by BGS is 'indie' anyway…

You're making the 3 million downloads sound pretty bad when you put it that way.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

It's still surprisingly low, considering it was a first party title that was VERY well received critically and also had very good WoM. With it being part of gamepass, which had upwards of 25 million subscribers last time it was reported, it's quite frankly shocking that less than 1/7 of gamepass subscribers bothered to even test the game to see if they liked it or not.

And it becomes even weirder when you consider that, even with the rhythmic gimmick, it still is a third-person action-adventure game through and through... a genre with very broad mass-appeal.

Shadow dropped a digital only title with no fanfare and they still managed to get 3 million players.

Congrats to them.
Hopefully MS will be more trusting of them to do more of their own side projects

Excellent for a game with zero marketing, puts many AAA games too shame.

 

[bender]

I *think* it is still my favorite game this year. For as much as I enjoyed my time with Pikmin, it did start to feel formulaic towards the later levels. Brevity is definitely on the side of Hi-Fi Rush.

 

[Punished Miku]

I *think* it is still my favorite game this year.

Well that truce didn't last long. Way to blow it.

 

[bender]

Way to blow it.

Stop sharing your dad's poems to your mother.

 

[systemr123]

Wouldn't be a thread about player count of an Xbox game without a comment from someone talking about how the metric is inflated since he only played a few minutes.

Every damn time.

Even though it's a fair assumption that this doesn't describe most players, and retention for a game as good as HFR is bound to be better than most.



…and there's always someone along to amplify this.

Maybe the metric is just inflated and should be called something else. They did the same thing with Netflix before where you were a watcher if you watched a big percentage of the media, and they changed it to being a watcher if you put on something even on accident for about 2 minutes.

It's the companies being shady with their metrics because this way they can market something like a big success even when the actual player/viewer number is very low.

This is not a critic to MS alone, everyone does this nowadays and it makes it very hard to determine if anything is really a success so it's easiest to assume it's not really.

And then MS specific, almost all their metrics nowadays are crap on purpose so they can shadow hide their much less than stellar performance. That's just a simple fact and it's not because I hate Xbox. I own a series x and a series s myself.

 

[Roberts]

It is still my GOTY and I think 3 million is a pretty good number. Despite my recommendations a few of my xbox buddies didn't even install it because they basically said: "I'm rhythmically challenged so this is not for me"

 

[lh032]

how long they stay in the game? its on gamepass.

 

[damidu]

To put this genre into perspective, Bayonetta has basically never sold over 1.5 million. DMCV sold 6 million on multiple systems, and is a much more well known IP. I think they're probably happy about it based on everything they've said. I think they'll let Tango do anything they want as long as they stay working there.

are you for real,
you are aware this is a gamepass freebie right?