Forza Horizon sold gangbusters? Yet that link says "
highest launch month dollar sales in Forza franchise history, and is the biggest launch for a racing game on any Xbox platform in history. Forza Horizon 4 was the seventh best-selling game of September." Once again Microsoft obfuscates things by not giving actual sales numbers like Sony and Nintendo do.
Interestingly if you look at the list of top selling Xbox One games (all games with over 1m sales), Forza Horizon 4 isn't on the list so once again Microsoft is hiding these "gangbuster" numbers. I wonder why that might be...
en.m.wikipedia.org
Forza Horizon 3 sold 2.5m. Pretty low numbers for a big name AAA. In fact for most those numbers would be considered a failure. All we know is Forza Horizon 4 had a
bigger launch in terms of dollar sales, and was a whopping
7th in the sales charts for September.
Gears 5 you even admit we don't know the digital numbers. So once again they're hiding the numbers. Instead we got 'number of people playing' and we both know damn well that most people played via GamePass. I have the game on PC and it's fair to say the servers arent exactly overflowing at the seams lol. No.1 on Steam for its releases week? Who cares if it's no.1 in a list of low sellers.
In reality it appears Gears 5 was a sales flop:
If we look at how the game stacks up to rival PlayStation exclusives – things don’t look too peachy. God of War, arguably among the best PlayStation 4 exclusives from this generation, sold over 3.4 million copies in the first three days after release.
Now, compared to Gears 5 purported 3 million players, this doesn’t seem like much. But we have to remember that many of the gamers playing are doing so via a monthly subscription rather than buying the game outright.
By way of example, Gears 5 sold roughly 25% less hard copies that Gears of War 4 as players opted for the digital subscription service route to play the game.
They are buying into a steady stream of games rather than a single title. In terms of actual sales, Gears 5 was outclassed by NBA 2K20 and even stalwart 6-year-old Grand Theft Auto V last week for the EMEAA region.
Additionally, Gears 5 widens the pool of potential players considerably as its available on both PC and Xbox One, while God of War only on PlayStation 4.
With these factors in mind, God of War’s launch massively overshadows Gears 5 and firmly maps out how Sony has dominated the exclusive game this generation despite Microsoft’s best efforts.
Gears 5 lands coveted title as the best launch game for an Xbox Game Studio effort shattering previous Microsoft records.
www.ccn.com
GamePass had this amazing impact according to that Microsoft PR statement you linked:
- 20 percent increase in playtime.
- 40 percent increase in number of games played.
- Whenever new games enter Xbox Game Pass, active players double.
- 25 percent increase in preorders.
- 10 percent increase in franchise sales.
This is virtually meaningless with no actual benchmarks and reference points. Notice the things that might actually be significant are the bottom couple, and yet Microsoft still won't release their sales numbers.
sales for Descenders have tripled since it was added into Xbox Game Pass.
Wow,
The Descenders has tripled it's sales? Wow,
so it sold triple of what exactly?? More than likely it flopped at launch on Xbox, and GamePass gave it a boost, with the dev giving a little PR statement after extending his deal.
It's blindingly obvious Microsoft is using smoke and mirrors. Most people can see straight through their bullshit - but in your case they tell you to eat shit, and you respond by asking 'What flavour?' It's like having a conversation with Frankenstein. If you want to play the GamePass spin doctor, just don't expect anybody with more than 10 braincells to believe you.