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shikamaru317 said:
Ryuu96 said:

Seems like an odd statement to make by Matt Booty. I don't see how you can set an arbitrary number like 10m players needed for a game to be a success when each game has a different budget. For a small indie made by a single digit sized dev team, only a few hundred thousand sales and let's say 2m players thanks to a Gamepass release is a massive success bringing in enough revenue for the devs to live comfortably for many years and still have enough leftover to budget their next few games, whereas for a $100m+ budget AAA, only 10m players (not sales, but players) on a Gamepass release seems low and unlikely to turn a profit on the game. VR games tend to be on the cheaper side, no true AAA VR game has been made as of yet, save for VR ports of AAA games that first released on PC/console like Skyrim, Fallout 4, and LA Noire, actual original VR games tend to be AA budget at the largest, due to the fact that the VR market hasn't grown enough to support AAA VR games as of yet, and many have more single A budgets. I don't think you need anywhere near 10m players to be a success on a single A or AA budgeted VR game.

Worse though, Booty stating an arbitrary 10m players needed for success number like that is going to make the Xbox fanbase sweat, as quite alot of Xbox IP's did less than that, meaning that a sequel for them would be unlikely if Booty really means 10m is needed. Ghostwire Tokyo just hit 5m players 15 months after release, while HiFi Rush's latest update was 2m players in March, which likely means it hasn't yet hit 3m players. Quite a few other recent 1st and 2nd party titles are also below 10m players, including Pentiment, Psychonauts 2, Gears Tactics, Tell Me Why, and Battletoads. Even The Outer Worlds only hit 5m sales as of the last update (no player information) and that was a multiplat release on Playstation and Switch, the sequel will be Xbox and PC only. 

See above, the question was specifically about VR's success, he's making a comparison that the VR market is niche and they're instead focusing on a path which gives them multiple 10m+ player base successes which VR won't. He's not saying every single Xbox IP has to achieve 10m+ but that their market and focus is currently way bigger in potential than the VR specific market.

I don't think there's any worry needed, you even mentioned a title (The Outer Worlds) which had less than 10m players but is receiving a sequel, it took State of Decay 2 around 3 years to reach 10m players and State of Decay 3 was in development before that even happened. Hellblade never reached 10m players but is receiving a sequel.

Anyone can see as well, some of the titles they've greenlit in very recent history, very clearly won't receive over 10m+ players but they greenlit them anyway, stuff like Pentiment, As Dusk Falls, Tell Me Why, Gears Tactics, etc. It doesn't take a genius to say that none of those were likely to reach over 10m+ players due to their nicheness, maybe Gears Tactics at a push could have but the others definitely not.

Sawyer also confirmed Pentiment was considered a success by internal metrics and I doubt that is even 2m players, Lol.



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Wonder if CMA will approve Vodafone merging with Three, Lol.



Ryuu96 said:
EpicRandy said:

10 million players to be successful? 

Here's the actual quote :

"“We have 10 games that have achieved over 10 million players life-to-date, which is a pretty big accomplishment, but that’s the kind of scale that we need to see success for the game and it’s just, it’s not quite there yet with AR, VR.”"

I am not sure I like Matt's statement here.

It's very hard to extrapolate anything from this it's too generic. Of course, when applied strictly to VR strategy it makes sense but we know a certain crowd will be using this opinion as fact without any nuance on and on to paint Xbox as unsuccessful most of the time.

What are your thoughts on the expansion into AR, VR? Other studios have been really diving head-on into that, but based on the showcase that we saw, that’s feeling more on the back burner [for Xbox].

I think for us, it’s just a bit of wait until there’s an audience there. We’re very fortunate that we have got these big IPs that have turned into ongoing franchises with big communities. We have 10 games that have achieved over 10 million players life-to-date, which is a pretty big accomplishment, but that’s the kind of scale that we need to see success for the game and it’s just, it’s not quite there yet with AR, VR.

---

It feels like editorializing to me on VGChronicles part.

Question is specifically about AR/VR. He basically said the market was tiny, bragged about their own achievements outside of AR/VR and essentially said that is the kind of audience they're after rather than a niche VR market. Success will ultimately depend on the budget of the title, 10m for Grounded is not the same as 10m for Forza Horizon 5 but they're unlikely to achieve these numbers on a consistent basis with VR.

He also says the 10m number is a "pretty big accomplishment" which to me, is a larger threshold than borderline success.

I know I'm just pointing out that this will absolutely get twisted to paint every title that does not achieve a 10m player base as a failure by some crowd. It'll be also wrongly used as an extension to asses game pass success/profitability. I'm sure we're going to see something akin to "This game X has not been successful since it did not achieve 10m players" or "MS has already said that with Gamepass their game needs 10m players to be successful"  sooner or later without providing the actual quote and without any nuances ( scope (budget), mix of users by platform, acquisition medium (subscription vs buy), user retention/expansion). 





Last edited by DroidKnight - on 19 June 2023

...to avoid getting banned for inactivity, I may have to resort to comments that are of a lower overall quality and or beneath my moral standards.

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DroidKnight said:

Did you put that beauty on a "toilet paper roll stand"? DID YOU?...



Imaginedvl said:
DroidKnight said:

Did you put that beauty on a "toilet paper roll stand"? DID YOU?...

I call it my Kleenex role when it's not in the lavatory.

edit: It's also Ultra-Soft



...to avoid getting banned for inactivity, I may have to resort to comments that are of a lower overall quality and or beneath my moral standards.

DroidKnight said:
Imaginedvl said:

Did you put that beauty on a "toilet paper roll stand"? DID YOU?...

I call it my Kleenex role when it's not in the lavatory.

edit: It's also Ultra-Soft

Fair enough :) If it is ultra-soft, I guess it should be fine! the controller should not get hurt

Are you going to open it? I got both (headset+controller) and will keep them unopened until September and open/use them when I will launch the game for the first time on release day :) (well, 4 days earlier :D) 



I will be waiting for launch day as well. As hard as I'm playing Diablo IV, I'll be ready to retire my second controller by the end of it, and I'll be looking forward to nice new clicky buttons and responsive joysticks for Starfield.



...to avoid getting banned for inactivity, I may have to resort to comments that are of a lower overall quality and or beneath my moral standards.

After playing Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart (probs my fave PS5 exclusive so far). Man I really need Xbox to put out a 3D platform game.



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