Starfield is probably going to be the biggest new Xbox IP since Halo, I could definitely see Starfield alone easily surpassing that 7 million number. But a steady flow of quality games like Redfall, Forza, Starfield, and Deathloop is what will attract new subscribers and keep current subscribers. Xbox should finally be hitting their stride now with first party games, so we really shouldn't be seeing any large gaps going forward.I do think MS are benefitting a ton from PS5 (and now potentially Switch) shortages for sure, but they also deserve some credit for some of the things they've been doing well just on their own, too. Mainly, in this period of the year where people are probably short on cash after the holiday season, and before tax returns come through, MS having stuff like the All-Access program and, yes, GamePass (including the various deals) are probably giving them a boost in addition to lack of supply from competitors.
That will most likely change relatively quickly and suddenly going into the second half of the year, but for now and April, possibly even May, I can see Xbox being the higher seller in pure hardware between it and PS5 in US & UK markets. That will probably start changing beginning around June, though, since Sony probably wants enough stock to go around once they relaunch PS+ and also to ride off momentum gained from their June E3-style showcase.
Also I just took a look and yeah, PS5 resell prices have actually gone down a bit. Like a month ago I would see Disc models going new for $900+, a bit before that some going for as much as $1200. There must've been some big drops for PS5 in April after all.
Are you saying PS's numbers will be down 33% globally for the quarter, or am I misreading that? I know their hardware sales have been quite low in US & parts of Europe due to lack of chips, but haven't they been trying to get a good spread of supply to other foreign markets at the same time?
Or is that 33% down based on their reduced shipment forecast? I could believe that; PS division as a whole I don't think would be anywhere near that far down. At worst, they should just remain flat quarter-over-quarter.
Isn't there another vampire co-op game coming for PS5 (and maybe PS4) this year? It was shown in their September showcase last year.
Anyway about Arkane & Redfall...I'm optimistic on Redfall, but some of the latest rumors are it's less like Borderlands and more like Back4Blood, which came and went pretty quickly. I also doubt a game like Redfall (or Deathloop, for that matter) is going to bring in a big influx of new GP subscribers on its own. We saw something of what peak of new subs 1P games could bring in with FH5 and Halo Infinite late last year, and total growth in sub base that year from the one before was 7 million.
So realistically, how many new subs do you think RedFall will bring in? Does anyone have any guesses for how many the combination of RedFall, Starfield and Forza Motorsport 8/reboot could bring in (since those are the only 1P MS games that will most likely release this year)? Do you think it will be more or equal to the 7 million we saw the previous year that also had Forza Horizon 5 (keep in mind the FH series is more popular than the mainline one) and Halo Infinite (which is basically MS's marquee IP....if only in name and maybe not for much longer by the time some of these other big IP have new releases)?
In regards to console sales in the US, I wouldn't really expect the PS5 to start taking over the sales charts long term. The Xbox One still managed to be very close to the PS4 in the US, so I think the PS5 is going to have a tough time outselling the Series X and S this gen.
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