Metascore disappointments sales battle The Order:1886 vs. Quantum Break (Xb one)

[binary solo]

Mr Puggsly said:

binary solo said:

I think you're overstating things there. Take out Fifa anf Forza and the list of games where Europe is a more important market than the USA is very short indeed. There are some games where you can say Europe is of almost equal importance to success as USA, but in those cases floppage in one territory will not be made up by sales in the other. By and large the sales profile of Xb one games backs up my statement that to achieve sales success QB needs to do well in the USA.

Of all the games that VGC has recorded as selling >The Order (interestingly that's only 22 games right now), only Fifa 15 and 16 have sales <1 million in the USA and >1 million in Europe. All other games have sales >1 million in the USA and Europe sales are substantially lower than the USA, and in many cases less than 50% of USA sales.

Am I overstating or have you COMPLETELY misinterpreted?

Even if Europe only accounts for 20%, 30%, or 40% of a game's sales that's still a significant number of sales in many cases. I shouldn't have to explain this to you, those sales are what help make X1 releases financially worthwhile.

In a nutshell, the additional sales from Europe help X1 games succeed. That's a fact.

But you are paingint a picture in a context of one game (QB) suggesting that Europe might be the difference between success and failure, when clearly the facts show that the far more games that are considered sales successes would be sales successes if Xb one didn't exist in Europe at all than good selling games that depend on Europe to achieve a good level of sales. The facts of Xb one sales strongly suggest that the USA is the main determinant of whether QB sales will be good, or will be disappointing, and specifically fall short of The Order.

There is no doubt at all that Xb one needs to be in Europe and that Europe gets Xb one millions in revenue. That's not the question here. The question is what are the determinants of QB becomming a sales success. In my view, and based on sales patterns for most Xb one games, if QB sales disappoint in the USA then there's almost no chance that any other markets are going to make it into a sales success. Are you suggesting the facts indicate otherwise?

For argument's sake let's assume QB only sells 500K LTD in the USA. What does Xb one sales history tell us about the global picture for QB? No Xb one game that has sold between 500 and 600K in the USA has ended up with >1.5M global LTD, with the exception of Fifa, and most have barely made it past 1 million or not even achieved that. So if QB only achieves 500-600K LTD in the USA then we are looking at an LTD <1.5 million and thus disappointing sales. Europe helps to make the game not a total sales failure, but it's not going to give it an air of success.

MS NEEDS QB to succeed in the USA, otherwise the QB franchise is sunk and MS might even start looking at Remedy as more of a liability than an asset.