Outriders

Retail figures. 52% PS5, 31% PS4, 17% Xbox Series. But as you rightly observe, Game Pass will likely mean a strong player base on that platform

— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) April 4, 2021

Apparently, its 52% PS5, 31% PS4, 17% Xbox Series/Xbox One.
Thats over 83% of retail sales are on Sony side.

Gamepass, litterally killing retail sales for this title on xbox side.
Makes you wonder if the trend continues, theres still value in retail stores, selling xbox consoles+games.
You could imagine it reaches a point, where the profits for the retail side, are so small, its not worth it (because gamepass took it all from them).

Digital stores & services, killing the physical ones...

I wonder if retail stores will think about seriously stop selling hardware if platform holders keep pushing for things like Gamepass. Why would they sell products that will enter in such clear competition with themselves? Retailers make most of their profit from software sales, after all...

Do they?  Gamestores changed from 95% being about games to 40% games and 60% merchandise and other stuff. Why sell only digital consoles anyway especially when physically sales seem to shrink on average year by year;..

Oh right, merchandising, I forgot about that. I was thinking mostly about software and hardware themselves. Still, they are selling products that are competing more and more with them, so that still sounds like a poor proposition for them.

I wouldn't think they make most their money from the crappy merchandise, that's to supplement sales. 'Game stores' don't exist anymore. GAME exists and is a good mix but it's mostly games they also sell digital product codes for game but not all (how they are still in business after the last year I do not know). Online stores exist for most purchases, big retails like Tesco or Sainsburys for bigger titles. CEX only exists because physical games exist. :P

If retail is to survive in the long run Sony, MS and Nintendo need to allow digital code sales for all it's games to be purchased from them. This will in turn form the digital storefronts to actually have competitive prices (which they don't). Many games on the digital stores remain RRP when physical retail from used or online stores has reduced the price of said games to £15-20, the a digital store front sale appears and the game is only reduced to how much you can get it in physical anyway.

If Overwatch was reduced to what I can buy it as used, from ebay, on the digital store, I would have bought it ages ago to get rid of the disc but it's still £16 even on sale. I bought it in 2016 for £25.

Its hard to make this determination without knowing the userbase for Gamepass within the UK.  Is there a chart where you can see how many subs are in the UK compared to console sold.  It really could be that the game doesn't perform very strong on the xbox platform.

Seems to be quite huge on Game Pass.
Already 63k people on TrueAchievements played the game.
To put that into perspective, some other shooters that are or were at one point on Game Pass:

Wolfenstein: Youngblood: 47k
Metro Exodus: 86k
Doom Eternal: 105k
Anthem: 118k
World War Z: 120k

Depending on the pace, 100k shouldn't take too long.

Then you missed the point of my OP.

Retail sales of the games, are way down on xbox, due to gamepass.
This isnt about the game devs makeing money, due to contracts with microsoft, or if gamepass makes MS any money.

The perspective Im looking at here, is just from the data of retail sales we have.
If gamepass, hits retail sales hard, and digital stores keep growing.... theres little insentive to stock them in your store.
Basically physical game sales, and stores are struggleing with the growth of digital.
Gamepass is another massive attack, on physical sales, and how profitable it is to sell games (physical copies) in stores.

but its not new, we had a similar thread in 2010? 2009? how it is going to be hard for stores because Tomb Raider Anniversary became the first digital (AAA) game on consoles (360 I believe). At that point game stores should have started to adept to the changing climate.  At this point the majority of video game stores are nothing more than overpriced annoying post collection points. The biggest group of customers are now children who are not allowed to have a Credit card and have to get a 15$ fortnite redeem card in the stores. Except for retro themed I barely ever go to game stores anymore and just like those CD chain stores I will not miss them :s.

I understand your point.

Sales for Digital and Physical copies for PS4/PS5 Versions Will make Way more profit for the Publisher than Sales on Xbox Consoles and money coming from Gamepass.

Is not that is Gamepass is bad but is clearly which platform is making more money for the publisher than the other.