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Atomic Heart is 2023's most popular Xbox launch so far, first week data suggests

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Atomic Heart launched into Xbox Game Pass last week, and according to first week player data, it's 2023's most popular new Xbox release to date, surpassing the likes of Hogwarts Legacy and fellow Game Pass heavy hitters such as GoldenEye 007 and Hi-Fi Rush.

Here on TrueAchievements, which now has a healthy sample pool of over one million registered and tracked players, the first week numbers show Atomic Heart sitting pretty with almost 120,000 people having stepped into the boots of P-3 to go take on some out-of-control robots. That's around 20k more than Hogwarts Legacy picked up in its first full week (and that even had the benefit of a few extra days of early access players prior to its official launch date), and well ahead of GoldenEye and Hi-Fi Rush, both of which had around 70,000 tracked players in their first week.

Late last year, High on Life quickly became the most successful third-party Game Pass launch ever, and while Atomic Heart isn't exactly close to the 160k week-one TA players that Squanch Games' comedy shooter picked up, it's still well ahead of every other big Game Pass drop of 2022. Last year's top Game Pass launches (aside from High on Life) came in tens of thousands lower than Atomic Heart in their first week, meaning Mundfish's newcomer has trounced the likes of PowerWash Simulator, Deathloop, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Tunic, Scorn, and the rest. Not bad for the studio's first game, huh?

 

phant0m

Member
not surprising, releases in the immersive sim genre are few and far between these days since they don't exactly lend themselves to mtx, lootboxes and always-online CCU #s.

what was the last one? Dying Light 2? Prey (2017)?

game is really fun once you start getting better weapons and abilities, despite the writing.
 
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ANDS

Banned
Those numbers for HWL are ANEMIC relative engagement on STEAM. Holy shit. I always thought STEAM numbers were the LOWER bound of what a game was doing on other platforms. Jesus. Though, AH seems to be doing much better on consoles than on STEAM (though the concurrent numbers on STEAM were as high as 40K so maybe not much better).

not surprising, releases in the immersive sim genre are few and far between these days since they don't exactly lend themselves to mtx, lootboxes and always-online CCU #s.

what was the last one? Dying Light 2? Prey (2017)?

game is really fun once you start getting better weapons and abilities, despite the writing.

DL2 is lousy with MTX, though it isn't as bad (yet) as its predecessor.
 

Mr Moose

Member
The story painted by the article seems to be a bit messy to me. But is the author suggesting only 100k people played Hogwarts week 1 on Xbox? That's how I read it, and there's just no way that can be true. At least I don't think that's possibly true.
Out of their 1M members. Doesn't even mean sales, since Atomic Heart is on GamePass. Pretty useless info they are sharing.
 

phant0m

Member
Those numbers for HWL are ANEMIC relative engagement on STEAM. Holy shit. I always thought STEAM numbers were the LOWER bound of what a game was doing on other platforms. Jesus. Though, AH seems to be doing much better on consoles than on STEAM (though the concurrent numbers on STEAM were as high as 40K so maybe not much better).



DL2 is lousy with MTX, though it isn't as bad (yet) as its predecessor.
tbh i was on the fence on even calling DL2 an immersive sim. it kind of is, but is also kind of more open-world RPG. but i recognize i'm probably splitting hairs here
 

Thief1987

Member
The story painted by the article seems to be a bit messy to me. But is the author suggesting only 100k people played Hogwarts week 1 on Xbox? That's how I read it, and there's just no way that can be true. At least I don't think that's possibly true.
I think they are similar to psnprofiles site, so they are gathering data only from those who are registered and linked they xbox live accounts there.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
The story painted by the article seems to be a bit messy to me. But is the author suggesting only 100k people played Hogwarts week 1 on Xbox? That's how I read it, and there's just no way that can be true. At least I don't think that's possibly true.

100k copies at $70 or 120k players for $10? I wouldve expected high numbers tbh.




the 100K is the number of registered True Achievements users.
 
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AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
Certainly not going back to it myself but glad it's found an audience. Piles of jank aside it's a cool, weird thing.
 

Flabagast

Member
It's really good and even 100% worth a full price imho.

Critics were oddly harsh with it, we get one of those games only once every 2 to 3 years, and this one is very good and stunning to look at. One of the best art directions I've seen in a high budget game in the last few years.
 
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Hugare

Member
Probably my favorite release of the year so far

For Mundfish's first game, its incredibly ambitious, and they nailed so much on their first try, with such confidence

It looks incredible, plays incredible, and the art design is some of the best around. The writting sucks, sure, but everything else is great and the game is so fun.

It scratches that Bioshock itch and then some.

I want a sequel ASAP. Anything from those guys, really.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
So more people tried a "free" game via Gamepass than what paid full price for a new release?

Isn't this the very idea behind Gamepass?
But this also indicates another important trend.

Games, that are on Game Pass, sell less. MS has confirmed this. But this indicates that because of Game Pass (Atomic Heart), games that are not on Game Pass (Hogwart's Legacy) may also sell less.

Hogwart's Legacy is one of the biggest games of 2023. It's even bigger than Elden Ring was in 2022 (!). If that game (based on a world-renowed IP) is not selling on Xbox, what game would?
 

Magic Carpet

Gold Member
Games, that are on Game Pass, sell less. MS has confirmed this. But this indicates that because of Game Pass (Atomic Heart), games that are not on Game Pass (Hogwart's Legacy) may also sell less.
This is the way I use Gamepass, If Atomic Heart was not available I would have bought Hogwarts Legacy. This happened about this time last year when nothing was on Gamepass I bought Elden Ring, A game I thought I would hate but ended up finishing to my surprise.
 

Kvally

Member
But this also indicates another important trend.

Games, that are on Game Pass, sell less. MS has confirmed this. But this indicates that because of Game Pass (Atomic Heart), games that are not on Game Pass (Hogwart's Legacy) may also sell less.

Hogwart's Legacy is one of the biggest games of 2023. It's even bigger than Elden Ring was in 2022 (!). If that game (based on a world-renowed IP) is not selling on Xbox, what game would?
But what about games on Game Pass that sell more because of Game Pass?
 
But this also indicates another important trend.

Games, that are on Game Pass, sell less. MS has confirmed this. But this indicates that because of Game Pass (Atomic Heart), games that are not on Game Pass (Hogwart's Legacy) may also sell less.

Hogwart's Legacy is one of the biggest games of 2023. It's even bigger than Elden Ring was in 2022 (!). If that game (based on a world-renowed IP) is not selling on Xbox, what game would?
I think the vast majority of people who buy Gamepass feel they have "enough" games and wont buy games like Hogwarts but will still buy the COD, Fifa and stuff

Just my opinion here obviously
 

yazenov

Member
But what about games on Game Pass that sell more because of Game Pass?

What about those games? Do they even exist?

You're confusing played more with sold more. I guess if your game is a free-to-play model, then you want as many people to play your game to buy MTX. However, for single-player games with no MTX or DLC, it doesn't make sense for your game to be played by millions of players for "free", unless you are being compensated by MS to do so, as I'm sure is with this game.

This however is not sustainable for every game, hence the lack of 3rd party games released on Game pass day one.
 
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Damn, I am as dumb as they get. I didn't realize there were two Heisenbergs here. I was like, why does he keep changing from Eva to a shadow jazz face???
Not sure if Heisenberg007 Heisenberg007 talks a lot via PMs here but one day I logged in to several PMs from another member telling me how wrong my take was on this one subject.

We went back and forth a few times and I told them I honestly don't even remember saying that and they linked me his post so don't feel bad we have tricked a few people inadvertently
 

Kvally

Member
Not sure if Heisenberg007 Heisenberg007 talks a lot via PMs here but one day I logged in to several PMs from another member telling me how wrong my take was on this one subject.

We went back and forth a few times and I told them I honestly don't even remember saying that and they linked me his post so don't feel bad we have tricked a few people inadvertently
Ok, so that makes me and the other member the TWO stupidest people in GAF! 😂 At least now I know. I was very confused. Goes to show my attention span didn't go to the END of your names. We can chalk it up to Norwegian naivety. 😎
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
But this also indicates another important trend.

Games, that are on Game Pass, sell less. MS has confirmed this. But this indicates that because of Game Pass (Atomic Heart), games that are not on Game Pass (Hogwart's Legacy) may also sell less.

Hogwart's Legacy is one of the biggest games of 2023. It's even bigger than Elden Ring was in 2022 (!). If that game (based on a world-renowed IP) is not selling on Xbox, what game would?
Yeah, if true, that's a concern for other publishers. Hogwarts sold 12mil copies. If it can't beat AH on Xbox platform, that's a pretty big indicator that even AAA titles aren't selling there.
 

yazenov

Member
Atomic Heart splits in the UK (boxed sales)

PS5 87% , Xbox: 13%

 

Ozriel

M$FT
Amazing to watch in real time how people have jumped to the illogical conclusion that HL isn’t selling well on Xbox.

More and more Series S systems sold over Series X?

Not to mention that discussing ‘splits’ for a day one Gamepass title is quite strange.
 
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