I think most of us can agree that while a 78 metascore is a perfectly acceptable metascore for a game, the expectations of most people who voiced an opinion about what they thought the metascore for Quantum Break would be was somewhat higher than 78. With a lot of people predicting 85+. In the predict the metascire thread no one predicted less than 80. 

I don't know what the predictions for The Order 1886 were before it came out, but the rather muted expectations after hearing some less than amazing preview impressions put my expectations into the mid 70s. So the fact it ended on 65 is not too far away relative to expectations from the lower than expected score for Quantum Break.

What's very interesting about this comparison is that depite the over 1 year difference in release date the install base the Quantum Break is releasing into is pretty much the same as the install base that The Order: 1886 released into. Funny that. So really it's a not unreasonable comparison.

Clearly The Order was a critical AND sales disappointment. And most people would say that The Order's sales (at least as far as the VGC estimate can be relied on) are either about what could be reasonably expected for how the game was ultimately received, or perhaps a bit higher than deserved. All things being equal a game that metas in the high 70s in roughly the same genre ballpark should sell better than a game that metas in the mid 60s with the same player base. So we should expect QB on Xb one to wind up with a better LTD than The Order:1886.

Is it fair to compare these games in any way? I think in terms of what the respective fanbases wanted these games to represent they fit in a similar niche. Both fanbases wanted these games to be showcase 8th gen new IP that would help the respective platforms establish or maintain solid sales momentum. Turns out PS4 really didn't need The Order, but arguably Xb one would benefit from a strong critical and commercial performance from QB. But in both cases the fanbases really wanted to be able to crow about the awesomeness of these games that turned out to be less awesome (critically) than hoped for. 

What do we have to go on right now? USA pre-orders. The Order had pre-orders over 200K and wound up with a week 1 about the same. So probably those pre-order numbers were a bit inflated, but maybe not too much. Probably with disappointing reviews not many people went out and bought the game who hadn;t already pre-ordered. QB pre-orders are under half at ~95K. Possibly low, possibly not far wrong, but unlikely to be high. Week 1 for QB should end up reasonably higher than the pre-orders because the game has decent reviews and thus there should be relatively more walk-in buyers compared to the people who stayed away from The Order and didn;t lift pre-orders much at all. Still, in the USA it looks like week 1 will go in favour of The Order, but the difference could be less than 100K, a gap that can be easily overcome with better legs.

The problem is the rest of the world outside the USA. When the Order launch, the PS4 install base was 7.2 million in the USA with 13 million PS4s outside the USA. The situation is basically reversed for Xb one. QB is launching into nearly 12 million Xb one's in the USA and a bout 9 million outside the USA. The Order got almost 2/3 of its sales outside the USA on a bigger install base than what QB has right now. So even if QB sells better in the USA than The Order, can it match The Order outside the USA to achieve a higher LTD. And if it can, how much higher? If it still sells less than 2 million does that mean it earns a flop tag the same as The Order. Does it mean MS loses confidence in Remedy in the same way as Sonly lost confidence in RaD?

Do you think this is a crazy comparison and that QB will blow The Order away in terms of sales?

I think QB probably deserves better sales, but I lack confidence in the Xbox userbase to deliver those sales to a game of this nature. I think about how disappointing the sales for Sunset Overdrive are (a much better game by all accounts than The Order, and probably better than QB, and yet it's still sitting 600K short of The Order's sales and only just managed to squeak past 1 million. So I think sales are going to be closer than they shoud be.

I don't think QB will outsell The Order 1886.

Remedy packs punch. And QB has much wider appeal than sunset. People love 3rd person story driven games. The order story was bad, while the QB is moderately good.

I expect QB to sells 50% more than The order lifetime on Xbone.

I'm pretty much in the same wheelhouse of thinking that Quantum Break certainly deserves better sales than The Order. (Just to quickly explain why, The Order irritated me because it felt like a 60$ equivalent to Ground Zeroes, and was designed more to tease at a FUTURE 60$ game than to actually deliver a fully satisfying experience. Now, cliffhangers or setting things up for a sequel isn't a bad thing if the experience it DOES deliver is in and of itself satisfying, but... it felt more like a prologue than a proper title. By comparison, even though Quantum Break's own story ending has been criticized in some outlets for feeling rushed, from what I understand it seems more a case of just trying to wrap things up too quickly, not leave a gaping hole to be filled with a 'Part Two.') But you raise good points with regards to the specifics of the Xbox One's install base, and how it might affect the demographics interested in the title.

I think it might come down to marketing and how far Microsoft intends to push the title, i.e. how long it will remain in the public eye as a 'must have' piece of software following release. Up here in Canada at least, I never saw that much of Sunset Overdrive in terms of ads as soon as a week or so after it came out, and beyond 'Good game, looks cool!' its public hype seemed to fizzle out not too long after it came out. (Which was a shame, because it's easily the number one currently released Xbox exclusive that I have my eye on, though either Crackdown or Scalebound may eventually dethrone it.)

Coupled with reviews that overall are quite positive, I think we've got a good chance of having a steadier tail on Quantum Break's sales that could eventually overcome whatever initial lead that The Order starts off with.


I'm admittedly more curious about PC sales, as even if the rumored reports of performance issues on PC turn out to be false, I'm interested in seeing how being both a Windows 10 exclusive, AND exclusive to the Windows Store as a Universal App will impact its potential sales. In theory its storefront exclusivity shouldn't be a major problem, as anyone interested in the game could simply opt to buy it on the Windows Store and then never touch that storefront again, buuuuut on the flip side if Microsoft still hasn't properly updated the featureset to include the various technical touches that take advantage of PC hardware, some people might opt to wait until such a time as those updates are made before jumping in.

The Order is overtracked by about 200k in the US, and probably another 200k in the rest of the world.

Quantum Break! (Metascore dissapointment? puh)

From a certain point of view it is a disappointment. I (some might say hype driven) predicted 90. After Alan Wake, I expected remedy to hit us with an absolute masterpiece.

The meta had no bearing on my purchase and won't have one on my experience though. Game feels and looks absolutely excellent and the story so far is well written and thought out. I'm hoping for atleast 400k ww fw. 

Alan Wake that is 0.4 points above QB on Metacritic. I think some critics simply doesn't get it with Remedy, and that's okay. Givin that, Microsoft is pushing the game givin away Alan Wake and all DLCs with QB, and promoting it moderately. Maybe 78 was not expected for QB and maybe is underwhelming but is way better than a 63, with less mixed reception, and way less bad reviews. 

A 78 means that for critics QB is not that great, a 63 is most that The order was not that good.

PS: I don't care about Metascore, Sunset Overdrive is an absolutely gorgeous game.

I think you can still enjoy both Games; ok they have flaws, but this doesn't mean they are broken; for the sales, I have no idea; maybe they will end up with comparable figures.

Might be pretty close, I don't think Quantum Break has a lot of hype. Sony fans were really excited about the The Order.

Word of mouth will be better for Quantum Break though, so maybe that will help.

People thought QB would score higher? Called high 70s well over a year ago. Didn't disappoint.