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Circana October 2024: #1 Black Ops 6 #2 Sparking Zero #3 Silent Hill 2 #5 Metaphor ReFantazio #6 DA: Veilguard; PS5 #1 Units + Rev, XBS #2 Units + Rev

Posting here more Piscatella screenshots for people who don't want to go to bsky

H8Twpxc.png


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If it boosted subscription spending it must not have been by that much, otherwise Microsoft would've came out and made a more bold & direct claim to such. I'm just actually more surprised that more PS owners decided to buy the game vs. in the past.

Like, I'm of two minds on that. On the one hand, it shows that PlayStation is absolutely the preferred platform for COD; 82% while including Steam sales is massive. On the other hand, it's like PlayStation gamers want to subsidize Xbox gamers getting the game "for free" in Game Pass. Not the casual or mainstream ones; they don't care about this stuff and probably know nothing about MS & ABK now (or forgot since mainstream news hasn't talked about it in months).

But the hardcore ones who've been making fun of Game Pass and apparently were so against MS buying ABK? They're still out here buying the damn game, they're basically saying "Good job, Microsoft. Take my money!". These usually be some of the most toxic console warriors, too; they talk one thing but are the first to act like hypocrites. If you're a PS gamer who talked shit the past year or so about MS buying ABK, or Game Pass, and you went out and bought the new COD anyway, I think you need to be quiet. You're literally rewarding Microsoft and subsidizing Game Pass to exist.

Outside of that though, great placements for Sparking Zero and Silent Hill 2, especially the latter since it kinda shuts up the false narrative that exclusives don't sell well. Looks like as with multiplats, it always comes down to the game itself. Metaphor's done pretty well but I think the lack of Western marketing for it mentioning PS has hurt its sales; it only placed 7th on the PS charts while placing 8th on the Xbox ones. With multiplats like that, usually the PS ranking is quite higher relative the Xbox one. I think with Western marketing that actually could mention the PlayStation version, it would've beaten Undisputed and maybe even edged out Silent Hill 2 for the #3 spot overall in the month.

Although, there's also Jamboree. Frustrating that Nintendo doesn't share their digital numbers but with those included, I think Jamboree would definitely be in the Top 5. So, if Metaphor had more PS marketing, and Jamboree sales included digital, I think the Top 5 would've looked like:

1: COD BO6​
2: Dragon Ball Sparking Zero​
3: Metaphor​
4: Super Mario Jamboree​
5: Silent Hill 2​

with Jamboree just edging out Silent Hill 2.

82% is madness. Gamepass completely cannibalized sales on Xbox and PC.

I wonder if the overall sales are up or down.

Looks like PlayStation gamers really showed up for COD this year, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're up. Then again, wouldn't take a lot to beat MW3.

"Non-mobile video game subscription spending increased by 16% when compared to a year ago. The release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 as part of Xbox Game Pass was the primary growth driver."
"Excluded Add-on spending"


-The Vault Upgrade ($30) has been top 1 on the Xbox Store for the entire month. The game is in the Top 3 and the Vault Upgrade (€100) is in the Top 5.

-Gamepass subscriptions have grown.

-Sales of the game (even with the effects of Gamepass on Xbox) are performing quite well.

It certainly hasn't been a disaster for MS but It remains to be seen if the new subscriptions + DLC upgrades vault have met MS' expectations to compensate.
The answer will be whether COD will be on Gamepass next year.

And by how much have those Game Pass subs grown? 1%? 5%? 10%? More?

There's no way to know and the fact Microsoft hasn't given a firm number suggests that the growth wasn't very strong. They might've already started seeing churn since the game's launch, so some of that growth will have been eroded.

They're lucking PlayStation owners came out in droves to buy the game because the overall numbers for BO6 would be pretty dismal without that.
 
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jm89

Member
I don't care about politics when i'm on social media and that's literally why i left twitter. Most of my algorithm was crap for 1 or 2 years. I'm not even american and trump was everywhere. Elon as well. Comment sections are bot-infested and when they are not, it's unrelated comments everywhere. That wasn't the case just 2 years ago (or 3?)

Twitter is a mess for a while now (1 or 2 years) and it's not getting any better.

Bluesky is clean af. It's what Twitter was like 10 years ago.
Basically what you can do is just continually choose tweets that you aren't interested in and set them as don't recommend. I use to get spammed by stuff i wasn't interested in, eventually it starts recommending stuff that your interested. Although not completley.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Basically what you can do is just continually choose tweets that you aren't interested in and set them as don't recommend. I use to get spammed by stuff i wasn't interested in, eventually it starts recommending stuff that your interested. Although not completley.
i did this over and over again, and it still wasnt perfect. politics i can understand, they kept feeding me violent shit. thanks but no thanks.

also, you cant do anything about the comments. there is zero point clicking on a tweet to see the comments. its all ads, bots, only fan whores and other accounts boosting their own accounts. it is awful.
 

Darsxx82

Member
CoD 3rd best selling YtD in just one month.

Metaphor in the top 5.

Undisputed at 4.



hindenburg GIF by Adult Swim

These are two big surprises.

Sega was already boasting about the success of Metaphor but it's becoming obvious now why.
The fact is that it's working well on Xbox. That's what happens when you build expectations in a new user base for a while... you start to get results for the good of your IP.

Undisputed is also being a success. There was a lot of desire for a boxing game. Congratulations to the Studio for its successful gamble.
 

Elios83

Member
There is no big jump.
You could already tell by the lack of fanfare and announcements that are not PR fluff but we just had an indirect confirmation:



16% increase in subscription spending for the month yoy driven by GP.
This is obviously just an increase in a single month spending, it's not an increase in their subscription base and even then given it's the launch month it's highly disappointing.

I also forgot about the price increase that GP had compared to last year.
So basically this 16% increase in subscrition spending points to an even worse scenario.
 

Mr Moose

Member
It says 82% of console dollar sales, no?
It's the same price on PC/Xbox. Should be roughly the same % sales.
So CoD is selling really well on PS and the Xbox platform has the majority of players, is a win win situation for Microsoft. Microsoft quarter financial report is going to be fun to watch here.
Define Xbox platform.
 
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Rockman33

Member
We have no idea about this. Only when they reveal their quarter results. I'm sure Gamepass had a considerable jump tbh. But is that enough to forget about their own game sales?
I am 99% confident this quarter is THE ultimate test for Gamepass. If COD isn't enough to give them the results they want, nothing will.

They will probably monitor if people are staying withing Gamepass or just cancel their subscriptions after 1, 2 or 3 months tbh.
Also would be interesting to see how many people bought the $30 upgrade. If many people bought that and stayed on GP for 2 months that alone equals $70.
 

Zacfoldor

Member
I don't care about politics when i'm on social media and that's literally why i left twitter. Most of my algorithm was crap for 1 or 2 years. I'm not even american and trump was everywhere. Elon as well. Comment sections are bot-infested and when they are not, it's unrelated comments everywhere. That wasn't the case just 2 years ago (or 3?)

Twitter is a mess for a while now (1 or 2 years) and it's not getting any better.

Bluesky is clean af. It's what Twitter was like 10 years ago.
It's a flash in the pan. Remember Mastodon?

I'm off topic, damn. Anyway, I do hope it works out for you over there, not sure how long it is going to stay politics free for you.

Super hyped about Metaphor and of course MY GAME sparking zero selling gangbusters. Fuckin' right.
 

Zacfoldor

Member
SH2 date is from a months' worth or sales. DA date is from 2 days.
Boy, Veilguard really shat the bed with its release timing.

First I'm told that the game didn't get any noms because people didn't have time to play it between release and the end of the voting period.

Now I'm told that it didn't get any sales because it launched with only 2 days of sales figures.

Honestly, I think both of those things are excuses for a game that underperformed and is more actively disliked with every passing day, which will actually kill the IP for a decade or longer.
 
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Darsxx82

Member
I also forgot about the price increase that GP had compared to last year.
So basically this 16% increase in subscrition spending points to an even worse scenario.
??

That 16% up (thanks primarily to Gamepass) is on the total revenue of all existing subscription services together (Gamepass, PS+, Ninonline, Ubi+, EA+, Rokstar etc....

That is, it does not specifically mean ~16% more revenue GP YOY, it is much much more because the base is the total revenue of all subscription services.

Example: 16% on 1000 (total suscription services) is much more than 16% on 300 (Gamepas only). This ~16% on total suscription services also can be traduce as a 30+% Gamepass YOY. The Game Pass increase should.
 
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"Non-mobile video game subscription spending increased by 16% when compared to a year ago. The release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 as part of Xbox Game Pass was the primary growth driver."
"Excluded Add-on spending"


-The Vault Upgrade ($30) has been top 1 on the Xbox Store for the entire month. The game is in the Top 3 and the Vault Upgrade (€100) is in the Top 5.

-Gamepass subscriptions have grown.

-Sales of the game (even with the effects of Gamepass on Xbox) are performing quite well.

It certainly hasn't been a disaster for MS but It remains to be seen if the new subscriptions + DLC upgrades vault have met MS' expectations to compensate.
The answer will be whether COD will be on Gamepass next year.

If it's close enough I'm sure it will be accompanied by a price increase right before launch.
 
iIS72f9.jpeg


This is what corporate cheerleading looks like.

??

That 16% up thanks primarily to Gamepass is on the total revenue of all existing subscription services together (Gamepass, PS+, Ninonline, Ubi+, EA+, Rokstar etc....

That is, it does not specifically mean 16% more revenue than GP YOY had, it is much much more because the base is the total revenue of all subscription services.

Example: 16% on 1000 is much more than 16% on 300. This 12-16% on total suscription services also can be a 30+% Gamepass YOY.

You're guessimating using GP numbers from the last time MS even reported them as a base. Given the price increase across all the sub tiers (except PC Game Pass IIRC), I'd suspect a decent percentage dropped their subscriptions over the time between the price increase and now.

So if subs are up 16%, that could mean subs are still at the exact same number MS last reported, due to churn, or are even lower than that even with the boost factored in. Without hard numbers it's basically meaningless as a statistic, as are most of these percentage-based data points from them overall. And we're talking about a subscription service where they still don't report the profits, in a gaming division where profit numbers are also obfuscated.
 
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Elios83

Member
??

That 16% up thanks primarily to Gamepass is on the total revenue of all existing subscription services together (Gamepass, PS+, Ninonline, Ubi+, EA+, Rokstar etc....

That is, it does not specifically mean 16% more revenue than GP YOY had, it is much much more because the base is the total revenue of all subscription services.

Example: 16% on 1000 is much more than 16% on 300. This 12-16% on total suscription services also can be a 30+% Gamepass YOY.

It's just an indicator that you have to offset for the fact that other services might have had small growth as well, that it's spending based so the same increase in price of GP has an impact.
It's still absolutely clear that COD on Gamepass didn't do anything for Xbox hardware sales and it doesn't seem to have done miracles for the number of subscribers as well.
 
October 2023's combined total of 759K is extremely close to the estimate of 770K. Also Matt Piscatella says for 2024 Switch is ahead of XBS in units by 1% which lines up nicely with the estimates i use from Installbase.

InstallBase estimates October 2024

PS5: 290k
XBS: 165K
NSW: 130k

October 2023 for comparison

PS5: 360k
NSW: 210k
XBS: 200K


Estimations for 2024

MonthPS5XBSNSW
January425,000210,000250,000
February410,000195,000220,000
March525,000205,000235,000
April240,000105,000140,000
May220,000110,000130,000
June330,000165,000180,000
July370,000250,000145,000
August230,000135,000115,000
September280,000150,000165,000
October290,000165,000130,000
Total3,320,0001,690,0001,710,000
Lifetime21,980,00015,240,00045,890,000

Full Estimations for 2023

MonthPS5XBSNSW
January430,000200,000280,000
February560,000240,000290,000
March660,000280,000340,000
April340,000170,000420,000
May260,000160,000450,000
June430,000240,000350,000
July270,000160,000240,000
August390,000210,000200,000
September480,000300,000200,000
October360,000200,000210,000
November1,050,000580,000560,000
December1,520,0001,110,0001,230,000
Total6,760,0003,850,0004,770,000
Lifetime18,660,00013,550,00044,180,000

Lifetime Sales (millions of units)

6D8EQ0j.png

*Estimates
 
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Humdinger

Gold Member
3 days

This data is from Oct-6 to Nov-2, see the original post

Thanks for clarifying. I was thinking it was just one day (for Veilguard). Three days is a semi-decent sample of the immediate launch results. November numbers will give us a better picture of the initial launch period.

I also forgot about the price increase that GP had compared to last year.
So basically this 16% increase in subscrition spending points to an even worse scenario.

Good point. I'd forgotten about that too. Since MS raised GP prices across the board, much of the y-o-y revenue jump could be attributable to that, rather than to increase in number of GP subs.
 
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Nydius

Member
“Did COD increase Game Pass subscribers” is the wrong question, IMO. The real, meaningful, question is: “Did COD increase recurring Game Pass subscribers?”

Most people I know these days don’t keep a constant Game Pass sub anymore unless they already had years stacked. They wait for a game they’re interested in, sub for a month, play it that month until they beat it or are bored of it, and cancel. Then they don’t resub until another game they’re interested in shows up.

Game Pass’ success depends on people staying subscribed. A temporary bump in subscription numbers means nothing if most (or all) of them disappear in a month or two. Someone who subbed to GP Ultimate for one or two months will still pay significantly less than if they had bought the game outright at launch. That’s not a bright long term financial strategy.
 
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kaizenkko

Member
We have no idea about this. Only when they reveal their quarter results. I'm sure Gamepass had a considerable jump tbh. But is that enough to forget about their own game sales?
I am 99% confident this quarter is THE ultimate test for Gamepass. If COD isn't enough to give them the results they want, nothing will.

They will probably monitor if people are staying withing Gamepass or just cancel their subscriptions after 1, 2 or 3 months tbh.
Subscriptions increased only 16% compared with last year:

https://bsky.app/profile/matpiscatella.bsky.social/post/3lbk5ahxxgc2w

Gameprice has a price hike this year, so this percentage don't looks that good considering they have put the biggest possible title day one on gamepass.
 

GHG

Member
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Darsxx82

Member
You're guessimating using GP numbers from the last time MS even reported them as a base. Given the price increase across all the sub tiers (except PC Game Pass IIRC), I'd suspect a decent percentage dropped their subscriptions over the time between the price increase and now.

So if subs are up 16%, that could mean subs are still at the exact same number MS last reported, due to churn, or are even lower than that even with the boost factored in. Without hard numbers it's basically meaningless as a statistic, as are most of these percentage-based data points from them overall. And we're talking about a subscription service where they still don't report the profits, in a gaming division where profit numbers are also obfuscated.
It's not a true indicator, but it's certainly not speculative, or at least less speculative than determining based on that data only 16% for Gamepass
as was being indicated.

It's just an indicator that you have to offset for the fact that other services might have had small growth as well, that it's spending based so the same increase in price of GP has an impact.
It's still absolutely clear that COD on Gamepass didn't do anything for Xbox hardware sales and it doesn't seem to have done miracles for the number of subscribers as well.


The comparison is about last year's total revenues versus this year's.

That is:

1: It's not the 16% on Gamepass YOY as you said (that is what I intended to correct you). It's about total subscription revenues. The base of that 16% is much, much higher.

2: That 16% is mainly thanks to Gamepass (10 up to-15%?).

3: Definitely the % increase in Gamepass revenues is much higher than 16% by pure logic.

And yes, the price increase can come into play there, and also the drop in revenues in other subscriptions that already last year also fell or were flat vs Gamepass. We do not know that information, but the basis on which it is applied is the same.
 
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And yes, the price increase can come into play there, and also the drop in revenues in other subscriptions that already last year also fell or were flat vs Gamepass. We do not know that information, but the basis on which it is applied is the same.
Also fencing CoD behind the highest tier.

It might have done wonders for revenue, not so much for subscribers figures. They are just shuffling the same install base.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
Lmao. Or maybe just maybe it’s not ruined by crappy ads, a dumb company in general, and not trying to do everything in their power to control everyone’s algorithm with dumb ish. Doesn’t always have to be political.

If folks go to bluesky for non-political reasons then that's fine, but I'm not going to pretend it isn't left leaning when it absolutely is.
 

Humdinger

Gold Member
“Did COD increase Game Pass subscribers” is the wrong question, IMO. The real, meaningful, question is: “Did COD increase recurring Game Pass subscribers?”

[...] Game Pass’ success depends on people staying subscribed. A temporary bump in subscription numbers means nothing if most (or all) of them disappear in a month or two.

Right, but we're just working with what we have for now. We won't have the info you're talking about for many moons.
 

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69
iIS72f9.jpeg


This is what corporate cheerleading looks like.



You're guessimating using GP numbers from the last time MS even reported them as a base. Given the price increase across all the sub tiers (except PC Game Pass IIRC), I'd suspect a decent percentage dropped their subscriptions over the time between the price increase and now.

So if subs are up 16%, that could mean subs are still at the exact same number MS last reported, due to churn, or are even lower than that even with the boost factored in. Without hard numbers it's basically meaningless as a statistic, as are most of these percentage-based data points from them overall. And we're talking about a subscription service where they still don't report the profits, in a gaming division where profit numbers are also obfuscated.

Are you really gonna accuse people of corporate cheerleading? You just told me like a month ago that it was a bad thing that games like Monster Hunter and Persona no longer being defacto PS exclusives was a bad thing and never explained your reasoning. You can be a corporate cheerleader, just own it bro.
 

Nydius

Member
Right, but we're just working with what we have for now. We won't have the info you're talking about for many moons.
I know, I was commenting on all the first page questions about whether COD increased subs and how, IMO, that’s only half the question.

That said, I agree with those who believe it didn’t have a massive increase in overall subs because Microsoft would be yelling it from the rooftops if it had. They wouldn’t be able to contain themselves, especially given how much they love to talk about engagement metrics.
 

Darsxx82

Member
That's just a 16% increase in revenue right?

On the total revenue of all existing subscription services on the whole, not just Gamepass. That is, logically, that % applied only to Gamepass YOY must be higher.

Is there any indication/confirmation that this also resulted in an increase in subscribers for the same time period?

No, it would all be speculation when it comes to determining what % of new subscriptions translates into % increased revenue. It would have helped to know the % increase in revenue only specifically from Gamepass, which is definitely higher than that up to 16%.

Also fencing CoD behind the highest tier.

It might have done wonders for revenue, not so much for subscribers figures. They are just shuffling the same install base.
When you have increased the subscription price by an average of 25% in the last year...... maintaining the number of subscriptions is already good news. If you also manage to expand a bit, that would be an achievement.

It remains to be seen if or how much. With this data, determining the real % in subscriptions is not possible because it only talks about income and we do not have the real %.
 
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We have no idea about this. Only when they reveal their quarter results. I'm sure Gamepass had a considerable jump tbh. But is that enough to forget about their own game sales?
I am 99% confident this quarter is THE ultimate test for Gamepass. If COD isn't enough to give them the results they want, nothing will.

They will probably monitor if people are staying withing Gamepass or just cancel their subscriptions after 1, 2 or 3 months tbh.
I agree.
 
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