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hiccupthehuman on 12 May 2021
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Kyuu said:
hiccupthehuman said:

1. Why would you expect Xbox to NOT have a similar rapid growth of digital sales? The entire industry is moving towards digital, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that this momentum towards digital would have suddenly slowed or stopped only for Xbox in 2018-2020. Xbox has been at the forefront of pushing digital: Xbox Play Anywhere (buy a game once and own it across Xbox, PC and soon Xcloud - only for digital games), the first manufacturer to produce a digital-only console, Game Pass, the Microsoft Rewards program that gives credit for game purchases (only for digital purchases), Quick Resume (digital games only), promotion of digital game sales at retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy, and XCloud. And of course, the pandemic, which has accelerated the shift to digital for everyone. 

2. Once someone makes the switch to digital, they are likely to stay digital. The shift to digital has been onesided; the average customer goes from physical -> digital, not digital -> physical. Also, funny you mentioned RE8 and Nier: Replicant because the Microsoft Rewards program I mentioned earlier actually did have special deals for those games (it only applied to digital purchases, of course)

From their Q3 2021 earnings: "Xbox content and services revenue grew 34% driven by strength from third-party titles, Xbox Game Pass subscriptions, and first-party titles"

Xbox Q3 Sales Show 232 Percent Growth Thanks To Xbox Series X And S, Huge Boost For Minecraft - Game Informer

From their Q2 2021 earnings: "We exceeded $2 billion in revenue from third-party titles this quarter for the first time."

Microsoft surpasses $5bn in gaming revenue for the first time: Nadella | Business Standard News (business-standard.com)

Sales revenue seem pretty good to me.

As I said, RE8 physical is down 40% from RE7. This should mean that RE8 is having a catastrophic launch, yet no one makes that argument. Why? Because everyone knows physical sales alone don't speak about a game's performance. Yet, those same physical sales are enough to talk doom and gloom about Xbox game sales performance. Hmmm... interesting.

Because how much higher can you get than 79%? lol. You said it yourself, the entire industry is moving towards digital, hence PS5 has a Digital Edition that undercuts the standard model by $100 without sacrificing specs. You'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that MS has a commanding and universal digital ratio lead for titles that aren't on Game Pass. The burden of proof is on you. I'm giving you hard data, you're responding with wild assumptions. We aren't stuck in January 2019 (to put things into perspective, Playstation's FY2018 digital ratio only grew by 5%~ over FY2017, the rapid growth began with FY2019).

Nintendo and Playstation are growing as well, and unlike Microsoft, they don't shy away in reporting their gaming profits. "Losing market share" and "declining" aren't mutually inclusive. Even if we assume RE8 UK is representative of what's to come throughout the generation in every region and every game and every week (which it's NOT!!! Duh!), that wouldn't automatically disqualify Xbox + Game Pass from being a better selling and more successful and profitable platform than it was last generation. Sony's dominance in hardware and software doesn't tell the whole story.

You're the one who implied that Xbox game sales were declining, and that Sony would secure more exclusives because of it, specifically JPN games. The burden of proof is on you to prove that Xbox game sales have plummeted. I have provided evidence that Xbox game sales were healthy.

Not to mention that the 79% split includes ALL DIGITAL CONTENT, which includes digital-only releases and add-on content. This is misleading data. Full game sales are not 79% digital. Concrete data from Games Industry for full game downloads for select PS games in the UK in 2020:

The Last of Us Part 2:

Total sales: 543,218

Total digital: 198,927 (36.6% digital)

Ghost of Tsushima:

Total sales: 373,472

Total digital: 180,949 (48.5% digital)

Spider-Man: Miles Morales:

Total sales: 400,636

Total digital: 127,007 (31.7% digital)

It's nowhere near 79%. None even reached 50%. And by the way, even Ghost of Tsushima had higher digital sales than normal, seeing as how physical printing of the game fell right during the peak of the pandemic and faced shortages. "PlayStation Japan has advised customers to buy the digital version of Ghost of Tsushima."

PlayStation Japan warns of Ghost of Tsushima stock shortage | GamesIndustry.biz

Not that hard to see the ratio of digital being greatly in favor of MS.

With regards to JPN games, I feel optimist that Xbox will have more JPN games than the previous gen. Weird coincidence that the best performance for the franchise comes from when it also releases simultaneously on Xbox.

Last edited by hiccupthehuman - on 12 May 2021