Lets start with Hi-Fi Rush.
Mike talks about disliking the "marketing" and Grubb's response is "I disagreed with you at the time but based on what I've heard, it straight up didn't make the money it needed to make" and that's basically all there is to that. Okay, so where did you hear this from? Heard it from Xbox? From Bethesda? From Tango? Heard it from outside of Xbox? NPD?
Hard to make a judgement when I don't know where he heard it from and who he heard it from, for all we know it could be some pencil pusher looking at numbers on a sheet of paper and not thinking about the bigger picture (I.E. Game Pass). Punishing Hi-Fi Rush for Halo Infinite's sales doesn't make sense either, Hi-Fi Rush will be judged on its own metrics, not having to make up for Infinite's losses unless I misinterpreted that part.
There's also a number of reasons why his claim looks a bit shaky.
1. Bethesda themselves said in an internal company wide email that "Hi-Fi Rush is "one of the most successful launches for Bethesda and Xbox in recent years" and in addition to that, John Johanas seems very pleased with its performance. They also announced publicly the 2m players number which they seemed happy with, if they weren't, they wouldn't announce the numbers, they don't announce numbers for everything they release.
2. It looks like it was a success on Steam sales-wise at least, based on it being in the top selling (by revenue) for a number of days, we can also compare its Steam performance to other Bethesda titles in recent history. Hi-Fi Rush has 13,283 reviews on Steam, more than Ghostwire Tokyo at 7,903 and only 3k less than Deathloop at 16,401 so based on Steam alone, Deathloop and Ghostwire look like atomic bombs on PC if Hi-Fi Rush isn't successful.
We can use Steam reviews to get a rock bottom minimum estimate of revenue as well. 13,000 x $30 = $390,000 - Steam's 30% Cut = $273,000.
If Xbox does actually think (although Grubb doesn't say who) that "it didn't make the money it needed to make" then I question what the hell sort of expectations that (whoever) had for it? And those expectations? They need to change them. It would be their fault for having Square Enix expectations.
What sort of sales expectations would they have for a niche rhythm based AA title made by a small team, from a lesser known studio, who has released multiple underperforming titles, which was shadow dropped into a subscription service with zero marketing? They literally made it the perfect subscription drop title, "hey you subscribers, we've just dropped a game straight into your service for you, right now!"
Would Amazon be unhappy if nobody bought a DVD of a TV Show that everyone streamed on Amazon Prime? Lol. I don't buy it, there is no chance Xbox thought Hi-Fi Rush would push large numbers. It launching into Game Pass was literally the main draw. I'm going to label this rumour as really suspect...Simply doesn't make sense...Unless his source is Phil Spencer or Todd Vaughn then, Lol.
Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 21 April 2023
