Xbox Game Pass Boosts PS4's Share of The Outer Worlds' Sales in the UK

That's how I got it: Xbox Game Pass on PC. Only paid a $1 this month and I get to play one of the best games of the year. I almost feel horrible taking a deal that good.

"The Xbox maker has argued that including games for “free” as part of its Xbox Game Pass initiative leads to increased software sales"

That's the bit I don't get, why would anyone play it on Gamepass and then decide to buy the full game immediately?
I can only imagine if it was rotated out at some point and I really liked it then maybe, but then it would be fairly old and probably picked up when massively discounted."

I can't see it helping anything but Microsoft selling more Game Pass Subscriptions. It may help sell more 'extra' content as people may not feel that they have spent money on the game in the first place and maybe a friend or 2 would buy the retail version because of recommendations but I think its more likely to sell more Game Pass Subscriptions.

Whether its worth it or not, I don't know. Publishers don't have the overheads of all the physical copies I guess and with more and more buying Digital, they are maximising their 'profit' per game. It doesn't take many sales for a game to be profitable - at least not the majority. Numerous Devs celebrating 1m sales and that being enough for some games to get sequels...

I guess it shows quite a lot of people are happy to 'borrow' games for a monthly subscription....

regardless of the 78% split, i'd be surprised if it really sold that many retail copies at all, especially considering it sold less than a crappy WWE game, and only just more than a nostalgia trip on a single platform.

@BAMozzy For most people, games like this are "once and done." If you're not some sort of physical collector, then GamePass is an amazing deal.

@roe having a physical copy or actual ownership means something to some people. Any how PS games and Xbox games install are totally different. I was playing outer worlds within 5 minutes on PS. Would have been hours on xbox

@Futureshark I don't understand it either. I've just subbed a month for a quid and knocked it off straight away. For the next 4 weeks though I'll play Outer Worlds and Gears 5 at a minimum, and then leave them be. That's £80-£90 they've lost, and that's just me. I know a few mates who open new XBL accounts habitually to take advantage of the £1 joining fee... where is the money actually coming from for them to be profitable?

The UK is also PS4 country, so that also skews the numbers.

I wouldn't worry about Obsidian though. Microsoft's money ends up becoming Obsidians money in the end.

The publisher on the other hand...well, I am sure some kind of financial deal has been struck to allow The Outer Worlds to become a Day 1 release on Game Pass. I doubt it will be permanently on Game Pass , though, since it isn't a Microsoft-published title. Time will tell.

I do NOT want PS to ever adopt a Game Pass subscription service.
I cant help but to think in the long run it will lower budgets for the games under it. Think of all the Xbox gamer's who will sign up for $1 and play Outer Worlds then cancel the subscription till the next big title hits the service.

@leucocyte i went to purchase physical because i was out and about. Gamestop said outside preorders they got 3 ps4 copies and ZERO Xbox1. Outside CoD, GTA, EA and 2K sports they are pushing preorder only for Physical which is bs

I did PC Game Pass for Outer Worlds. Use the cash I saved for Cold Steel 3.

@Ralizah I certainly don't disagree that for some gamers it represents an amazing deal but I was questioning whether or not it works out to be worthwhile for Devs, Publishers and/or MS.

When you look at a yearly subscription charge and the number of new games that you get access to, its clearly a good deal for the subscriber. If, however, it is affecting the sales of these games, then you have to wonder what those on the other side of the fence get out of it. The Outer Limits isn't published by MS either so how many sales has that game lost to Game Pass subscribers and how has that affected the profitability. If Sony implemented something similar, how would these devs/publishers get their money?

Selling Digitally does allow for maximum profits - no manufacturing of physical items and no shipping/distribution costs as well as a monopoly meaning that they can charge full RRP whilst retailers have to compete with each other for the sale and charge less. I guess that profitability is higher in general thanks to an increase in Digital purchases and that also has a knock on effect to the used market.

For games that are 'play once and done', Game Pass must work for publishers too. At least those games will not be played once and flood the used market with physical games that must impact on their sales long term. However, if Sony adopted the same system with more and more people Subscribing to the point that sales (both digital and Physical) are significantly reduced on ALL platforms, how would 3rd party publishers/Devs recoup investment? Sony and MS are able to offset losses of sales with hardware sales and of course Subscriptions to those services.

From a gamers perspective, they may not care as long as the price of Subscription is better value to them than purchasing games over that same period. I guess they could get you hooked on a game and remove it relatively soon afterwards so you have to buy to finish it off and/or maybe encourage people to buy DLC because they feel they haven't already spent £50+ on the game to increase the profitability of those games.

Either way, the point I was trying to make though was that its more likely to encourage more to subscribe than generate more sales long term - not unless they take games away and that forces people to buy to finish playing that perhaps wouldn't have bought the game it the first place - not at launch. Also I was trying to say that the loss of sales doesn't seem to be of benefit to the devs/publishers either - even if its great value for the gamer. At the moment, a lot of that maybe offset by digital sales and other (PS4) formats and the decline in used sales too...

I bought mine digitally from PSN. Just thought I'd share that with you all. Cya.

@Futureshark in order to make a sale you first need to get the customer 'through the door'. In this case being a virtual door in the form a (allmost) free subscription. You only need a certain percentage of customers to not bother ending the subscription to make it profitable in the long term. I'm sure they've done the math on this

My only question is do the game developers get any money out of this? Its a great deal but i dont wont the developers too get pushed too release their games and next too nothing for it.

Played two hours on Game Pass for PC fell in love and bought it on PS4.

I use gamepass pc $1 promotion with 2 years of microsoft gold service, coupled with epic game store free games I don't think I'll buy another pc game again lol.

Of course people wont buy single player games if the game is "free" on gamepass, the only way gamepass is sustainable is if the games is full of mtx like gears or halo series now.

I'm hoping PS now learns a thing or two from Xbox. The number and quality of both platforms are no match. I agree that God of war and uncharted are good offers for PS now but they are still quite behind.
I paid for the 1st month just to try it out, but i wont be putting any more money until they offer more and better games.

@fabisputza00 PS Now offers way more so silly comparison.
some gamers are blind MS is hoping to sucker people in & hopes they will stay when the price goes up they are losing money this is not an option that will make money at the price it is for a brand new game.

@roe there is no profit in it! what they are doing is hoping to hook you in & pray you stay this is not a moneymaker & market share is not something that will make sense for a year or so.

@roe They are not making profit from Gamepass. Its impossible. Netflix does not even make a profit. These types of services are a money pit, which is why Sony is selling PSVue and PSNow will shutdown eventually. The writing is on the wall.

@Flurpsel It will never be pofitable in the long term. They will never make a profit unless the sub cost is sky high, which would kill any chances of increasing sub count. They still lose money from not selling games which includes third party as well. GOW has made more money than Gamepass and PSNow combined. Now how does a subscription service make up for the that financial loss? It doesn't. Some of you really don't understand how this all works. Money has to be put right back into a service, while selling games amd hardware the company keeps more of its revenue as profit.

@David187 Exactly. They only made Gamepass because they could not compete in the console space or the PC space.

@Flaming_Kaiser They don't get any money. How could they? When games sell a certain amount the devs get bonuses and it funds their next game. It also makes the devs more valuable, which is why both Guerrilla and Naughty Dog expanded due to the success of their games. Player count does not equal prfit. Only sales equal profit. Gears 5 has already fallen off a cliff and it has MP. Gears used to be one of the Xbox's biggest games, while Uncharted and GOW continue to have monster sales. Even GT Sport outsold Gears and Halo. Sony would be idiots to mess up their success by giving their games away.

I prefer owning my games regardless of any other deals. I recently been wanting to play the entire Panzer Dragoon series, including Orta despite how much everyone else hated Orta, but can't because 3/4 of that series is impossible to play now due to Sega's reckless behavior with all of their data.
If I had physical copies of those games this wouldn't be an issue which is more of a greater reason why physical is very important.
When it comes to service based streaming you will lose access to every game sooner or later depending if the service provider decides to remove games due to licensing issues, hello Scott Pilgrim vs the World, or the devs shutting down, or even service provider deciding to shut their services down and moving on if they feel as though they aren't making the profits they want ect.
off topic, I hope Sega is remaking the entire Panzer Dragoon series the same way the entire Yakuza series was reworked because that series deserves better treatment than it got from Sega.

Its 'eye-watering ' ? Haha

I hope all the Xbox fans are paying attention to this release. Or do they actually think Microsoft doesn't have total sales of this game for bother consoles. Remember, these PS4 sales are the type of sales they have to sacrifice if Obsidians next game skips PlayStation.
And if Xbox fans are failing to buy, OR play for 5 seconds on game pass, the Outer World's, Microsoft has a big decision to make going into next gen.