How do you define a “flip” or hit in Game Pass days?

“Xbox is Doomed” has been a registered trademark for years and years, but this week it appears that it has found a new push, amid controversy over Redfall’s 60fps, and low sales of the Xbox Series X | S compared to the competition and, just today, the fact that Hi-Fi Rush was a “fail”. Rejection arrived by Greenberg soon after, who stated that Tango GameWorks had instead proven to be a game Successful in all respects, even compared to Microsoft’s expectations. In fact, the initial news, which Jeff Grubb reported during one of his podcast ruminations, can’t really be based on concrete data, considering how Microsoft hasn’t released any sales numbers or differences in Game Pass metrics and how the game (like many other by Xbox Game Studios) in the retail version, and therefore there are no estimates, even unofficial.

However, behind all this, what makes you think is definition itself Who flops, for a surprise game released directly on the subscription service. On what parameters can such a definition be used in the new context? Are we talking about sales? How many downloads? Total duration of sessions in the game? From changes in the amount of new subscriptions or active users per month? Unknown, and this suspicion is interesting because it reflects all the mysteries that surround this paradigm shift Xbox Game Pass brought to the gaming market. Just to be clear, we still often discuss gaming success based on sales data provided by UK or North American stores when the market moved to the digital front for years, which might give an idea of ​​the confusion that is out there about it. The indisputable fact is that Xbox Series X | S as hardware sells for a lot (but a lot) less than the PS5, but even that can say little about the actual success of Games and Game Pass in general, given that the service aims to expand on a number of devices and ways of use beyond standard consoles.

According to Grubb, games launched on Xbox Game Pass are still part of a plan that includes Sales targets, as an additional revenue channel with respect to the ability to increase or maintain active subscriptions. It would, if confirmed, be an affirmation of placing a Microsoft service in its own territory compared to other subscription services, such as video services, where individual selling of the product is not even considered. While such record sales-focused projections are likely to be present, since Xbox Game Pass also allows you to purchase games the traditional way, it’s hard to think such targets were particularly high for Hi-Fi Rush, which launched In the service using “Drop Shadow” quite surprising. It is true that the same thing was done with Metroid Prime Remastered and led to great success, but in this case we are talking about a game that is not included in any subscription service and has an already famous name, which is very different from the new unpublished intellectual property.

In short, other than denial by directly interested executives, which obviously could mean little even to those who in the absence of certain data, the idea is that assessing the success or otherwise of a product designed for use digitally and especially through a subscription service must necessarily be Associated with standards other than those we have been accustomed to for years. On the other hand, there are some elements that can be shared in Grob’s discourse: in the face of diverse productions, which can go from three-way experience to different experiences, with different narrative games, single-player and self-contained, it is true that the pressure on Game Pass must be It is also backed by securities capable of a certain guarantee monetization. In that sense, Microsoft’s subscription service’s hybrid approach could potentially provide a certain amount of games that could guarantee additional revenue, perhaps through microtransactions (as Halo Infinite would have been in the initial projects) or paid DLC (as we’ve seen) with Forza. Horizon 5 and various others).

For these reasons, it’s reasonable to believe that some of the first-party production or third-party agreements will relate to games that are able to perform this type of monetization, something Sony also seems to be sharing with its current plan for the various live gaming services in development.

Let’s Talk It is a daily opinion column that offers a starting point for discussion on the day’s news, a small editorial written by a member of the editorial board but which does not necessarily represent the editorial line of Multiplayer.it.