UK Sales Charts: Lost Judgment the Latest Game to Sell Best on PS5

This isn't on Game Pass, is it?
I get that PlayStation has more users and maybe more Xbox users have fully transitioned to digital but 90%? Weird.
Made sense for Hades (because GP) but not this.

@Voltan If you go all out advertising a console from a subscription service, the result it seems is that your games sales pretty much die. If we assume Xbox is making up in digital sales, we have to assume ps is doing the same. I don't see how the industry can just ignore this alarming statistic. UK was a good territory for Xbox, one of the better ones in the world.

I just started Friday and somehow already got around 19 hours in on it. To say I'm addicted would be an understatement.😅

So far I think it might at the very least have my favorite side activities of any previous RGG studio game. I'm on break at work just dying to get back to it.

@Voltan ...and Microsoft will maintain the radio silence regarding the issue.

@Voltan This would be a good time for Sony to update their third party game release timings contract. If ms is going to try and hold the industry ransom for putting games on gamepass, then Sony need to remind the industry that the lion share of the profits are because of Sony's platform. A nice little 'If you want to put a game on our platform, fine, but there will be complications if you choose to release said game on rival format on subscription at launch.'

The market share is reassuring. Despite the formerly exclusive Yakuza series having plopped all its entries - save for Dead Souls and the Japanese-only titles - far and away most of its players are in the Playstation ecosystem. I don't see a reason to believe that XBox digital sales are significantly higher than their counterparts on PS either.

With all the rumours of SEGA being sold to Microsoft... well, I hope they think twice about ever going exclusively XBox.

NMH3, Ninokuni2 and DB: Kakarot all sent out to die on Switch one after the other. Everyone busy playing a Kart game and MineCraft. And Xbox is now a no show.

Basically Sony keeping the lights on for publishers.

Not had a chance to play Lost Judgement yet. Glad for F12021, great game and fantastic F1 Season 🏁

@Golem25 I don't see any evidence that Xbox digital sales are anywhere near ps digital sales full stop. Microsoft have done a phenomenal job in convincing its customers to absolutely stop funding the industry in any real way.

@KayOL77 @Voltan Most XB users are definitely digital, it's really focused on its digital ecosystem first and foremost (I.E. if I were still physical only, I probably wouldn't own an Xbox still, but after going digital and buying an Xbox, I buy anything on Xbox first, and only buy exclusives on PS because their ecosystem is just friendlier for digital consumers than Sony.)

Plus for this particular series, Yakuza has a long, long history for PS fans and is only fairly recent on Xbox, so I'd assume most of the game's built-in audience is on PS.

But in a broader context, GP matters, in that, it's not that people "stop funding the industry." (Both MS statements about GP subscribers buy more, not less games, and anecdotally regarding myself and conversationally other PXB participants, confirm we still buy lots of games.) What GP changes though is HOW we tend to buy games. It just alters the spending habits, not the amount spent necessarily. We're more likely to try various different things on GP, and that tides us over more to wait for sales for other things we want, etc. We're still going to end up spending the same amount (or more!) into the storefront, but we're less likely to play the "pay top dollar and buy it opening weekend at the box office." It's a budgeting tool. It helps keep our dopamine shots going with new content, and stretching the dollar, so instead of spending $350 on 4 games at launch day I'll end up spending $360 on 9 games on sales. (oh, who am I kidding, it'll be $400.....frequent spending in small amounts is easier than occasional spending in large amounts!)

The industry loves their opening day sales, and fans love the metrics and console wars, but $300 in games is $300 in games. Doesn't matter if they're opening day or a year later. Sega really doesn't care if you buy Judgement for $60 or buy Kiwami 1 & 2 for $30 each on sale, years later. They get your $60 either way.

@NEStalgia Your implying a lot of ps owners are not only digital. I am only digital. Where are the statistics from Microsoft? Even the NPD counts digital AND physical, and ps games were vastly outselling Xbox equivelents. I can't agree with your viewpoint because there is no backup evidence. 20% extra gp purchases? Fine. Where? Show me the numbers. Have the balls. Otherwise it's not very believable your 'You don't need to see my identification.' reply.

@NEStalgia Just to be clear - I’m not trying to bash Xbox users in any way, I was just genuinely surprised.

@KayOL77 tbf, looking at comments on this site you could get the impression that a lot of PS gamers are “physical only”.
Personally I get my games both ways. I like my boxes and price is a factor (physical games are still cheaper 90% of the time over here) but I get some digitally too.

It's almost like Microsoft is conditioning their gamers to not buy things and just wait for it to come to Game Pass. It's a good thing Microsoft doesn't need the money from gaming. They can do things like Game Pass.

@Voltan I too am not bashing Xbox. I'm not convinced gamepass is good for the industry. In regards to physical Vs digital, I would ask what is the amount of unique posters on this site over say the last two months? And then I would ask, are they a good demographic to scale up and make that assumption? Anecdotal evidence:. I bought quake on ps5. It has crossplay and most of my friends managed to get xboxes on launch. They gamepassed the game briefly for crossplay multiplayer. They stopped playing after it. I am 80+ hours in and 64% trophies. They didn't buy quake. None of them. 1 ps owner, 4 series X owners. Anecdotal yes. But just as relevent as your own anecdotal evidence(NEStalgia).

@KayOL77 No, of course the majority of PS & Xbox owners are digital these days, but there's also a big physical market on PS still, while XB is almost Steam-like. Physical exists, but it's almost a periphery market now. The more "mainstream" priced console doesn't even have a disc-drive (I know digital-only PS5 exists (kinda) but it's clearly not the main product.)

As I said I was speaking anecdotally about myself and the PXB membership conversations, as well as MS' own statements that GP members buy more, not less. I never said 20%, but my own spend probably is like that, personally. (I can't point you to specific statements from Spencer interviews, I don't catalog them or anything, though I can state that the XO2018 event video contains a brief interview with him near the end where he mentioned it. Just happened to remember that one off the top of my head. He's said it since then as well.)

I'm not saying "XB sells more than PS" or anything crazy like that. Of course it doesn't, it has a smaller install base. But my point is that the buying habits are not going to be the same. In fact a different spending habit is the whole point of that disruptive model. Sony very my relies on "box office" type sales at launch, followed by a rapid decline in sales and eventual discounts. Jim's said as much in interviews over the past year. A lot of the industry has relied on that for a long time. But again, the XB customer is going to be following a different spending pattern. "Launch day" hype isn't going to be driving what they're playing as much. But if they buy older games on discounts and sales, it's not going to show up in these NPD charts so much. If we compare sales of an older game that's on an XB sale, or on GP, with what the sales are on PS, it's going to look different. We don't have the data to see that the actual income, cost, percentages are in the respective stores. But we can't go buy this "launch day sales" category so much. The incentives are different between the platforms.

Again, personally, anecdotally, I used to buy tons of stuff launch day, both PS and Nintendo. Recently with increased costs, and Game Pass, I buy next to nothing at launch (Metroid Dread will be a rare exception. It's been, what, 20 years coming?) But I haven't reduced spend into the industry. I probably increased it. But I definitely get more for my money. GP is "rented patience for the impulsive"

@KayOL77 Because of Game Pass I wouldn't expect Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite to be in the top 10 when they launch later this year. I'd guess top 10 in the charts around November/December will look like (in no specific order):

• FIFA 22
• Pokemon Brilliant Diamond
• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
• Animal Crossing New Horizons
• Mario Party Superstars
• Minecraft (Switch)
• Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart
• Spider-Man Miles Morales
• Battlefield 2042
• CoD Vanguard

With Ratchet and Spider-Man swapped out for Super Mario 3D World and GTAV if PS5 supply over the holiday season is poor.

@KayOL77 For the quake example, though, I game passed it, then bought it on Switch for motion controls and the gimmick of portable quake, though I haven't really played it much, since, but I have too many hundred hours in the 90's in that game already. And my reflexes are too trained for mouse...

Still debating buying MLB on Xbox. I don't buy sports games. Ever. Tried it on GP when it launched. Had a fun week with it. Would I pay $70 for it? Or $60? Or $50? Would I buy it at launch. Not a chance, ever. It's on sale for $25 and I tried it on GP...might I buy it? I just might..... Oddly Sony gets a sale on Xbox on a series I've never bought despite owning PS's since forever.... Going by the "charts" that would be low sales since it wasn't full price on launch week. But $25 is $25. Doesn't matter if it's months later, it's $25 they'd never have seen otherwise. In contrast, I still haven't bought R&C. And that's the game I stayed up all night preordering my PS5 for...

The way spending is augmented is absolutely notable, but not necessarily quantifiable into a particular pattern. Ultimately the industry cares about how much you spend on them total. Not when and what you buy. And GP definitely augments prioritization.

Sure your friends may not have bought Quake. But were they going to buy it sight unseen on PS either? Would they have bought it then forgotten about it? Did they spend that money on something else instead?

Who knows?

Bottom line is, comparing "launch week sales" between platforms isn't really a 1:1 comparison anymore. The sales model was disrupted in a way that "launch day" games don't have the same corresponding importance on both platforms necessarily anymore. But we'd need both companies total gross revenues on digital games sales, not individual title spends, as a function of total number active users, to really see who's spending more, where. And we'll never see those number unless we buy a lot of stocks....

I think it's safe-ish to say that the "box office" model is working for Sony, or at least in the way they track their sales data for their projections, and the total spend is working well enough for MS, and their carrot on a stick works well for what they want to see in encouraging more sales, spread over more titles in a more evergreen model.

I mean I remember a lot of whinging on this site when Psychonauts was only digital and saw a lot of comments about how it was too high a price to pay for digital. The reason i’m saying that is because on the Xbox side, buying a full price digital copy of a game is just what you do. I just think these figures are (fairly*) pointless when they don’t show the whole picture. I’m sure if it was just digital sales in the charts, that would be a bit useless too.

*I say fairly pointless as it doesn’t show you sales as a whole - but definitely does show an interesting statistic regardless. Xbox’s physical showing is pretty bad. And I don’t like the boxart as much. To be fair I didn’t like PS4 boxart design either but PS5 looks goood with the white.

@Grumblevolcano I call BS on your list. Lack of GTAV is a giveaway.

@NEStalgia I think we can't assume Xbox digital sales are greater than digital ps sales because their is next to no data, and Xbox isn't as popular as ps. Nor is it likely to really ever sell as much. And ps has those launch physical games dominating. Launch sales are good because they show the immediate flash of popularity of a title, and this shows the potential reverbations of future sales. There are games that start slow and then speed up but they are not numerable.

All I can say is I have gamepass and bought Lost Judgment digitally on Xbox and I’m not the only one in my group of friends to do that. I’ve gotten the impression that Xbox users embrace digital a lot easier than PS users.

@Sakisa Can you back up your impression?

@KayOL77 They should defintely do that. With how much more third party games are selling on Playstation i see more big third party willing to make their games ps exclusive

@uptownsoul At which point in the month is this data available? And does it seperate sales within formats?

@KayOL77 No and I don’t care to with someone making unbacked claims that Xbox users don’t buy games because of gamepass.

@NEStalgia Except it isnt only Games that are mainly associated with playstation that are selling . Pretty much all third party games sell more on Playstation

@Sakisa With the data that available to us so far, it does not look like games are selling as much on Xbox. I'm assuming most people on Xbox have gamepass which is not unreasonable. So I am linking the two. Also Microsoft is not posting figures, and those on gamepass seem to be NDAd to the hilt. Does this mean that there is preferential treatment if you are a higher status publisher? Is ea going to get more of each person's £120 per year per download of a game than say a smaller publisher who is just as prolific? If not, why isn't this information available?

@KayOL77 I couldn’t tell you why they aren’t releasing the data, but I do wish US data and digital sales data was compiled so people like you would stop saying ‘gosh, no one buys games on Xbox’ when Microsoft themselves say gamepass drives a lot of engagement across the entire Xbox ecosystem and console exclusives like Death’s Door sell well with indie developers praising the amount of visibility they get on Xbox. Among the community in the US that I talk to with people that have Xboxes, they do, shockingly enough, buy video games.

@KayOL77 Again, I never said XB digital sales are greater than PS's total digital sales. That wouldn't make sense since PS has a much larger total install base (in more countries.) I'm saying the ratio of digital to physical on PS is probably a lot closer to 60/40 or so, where I'd doubt more than 10%, if that, of Xbox sales are physical. The fact that they have a large minimum production run for physical means that only the biggest titles get physical releases at all, and are more likely to mean single print runs. There's also the question of how GP is monetized,which varies by title, where it doesn't count as "sales" but is still monetized, it falls into a gray area. It won't show up in these charts by may still be earning revenue for the publisher/studio. Charts are nice, but revenue split is the only figure that actually matters. After all, users are paying for their GP time, but how those revenues are divided is as closely guarded a secret as the formula for Coke.

I think there's some debate about the launch sales model. Clearly it's been working for Sony. It works for some 3rd parties as well. OTOH, Nintendo, REALLY pushes for those evergreen sales as a priority, even if a game has slow sales, such as Sushi Striker, they like to hold that price and rely on those long tail sales over years. It's really a different model. MS's model there seems a lot closer to Nintendo's + Steams, while not relying on holding high prices, they seem more focused on steadier, pricing, and long-tail evergreen sales across the library. And a greater spread of those sales into the indie market. Again, more Nintendo+Steam-like.

There's good and bad. You're right about the launch sales signalling popularity. OTOH the surge and sink model has never been a particularly healthy model. Steady sales are always more desirable for investors, and that debt-surge pattern has long been the bane of investors. Whatever company can show positive revenues and growth WITHOUT the sags and surges, will easily be popular with investors, and the box-office model will never provide that.

It just gets stale trying to compare two companies with very different business models/monetization models with different market sizes and say "A > B." Obviously PS has the larger market and thus the greater sales total. But it all comes down to how spending is spread in the digital storefront, and an assumption that "launch sales" is the only "right" way, which clearly is a notion MS is squarely challenging. I think the model very much works for MS as the storefront, no question. Whether it's working for publishers/devs is what I hope to be true, but I don't think we'll get straight answers, or any data at all on that.

Each game definitely has different terms. We've heard from some indies that the bargain is they get 100% of their development costs on signing, but no revenue. That's a massive win for them. It's a zero risk launch. They break even day 1 and any sales are pure profit. Sounds weak but for a small indie de-risking their release followed by massive free marketing with a huge AAA spotlight is the best thing that could ever happen to them. They could never afford that level of marketing otherwise. Is that the deal Square-Enix gets? Certainly not. But do they get per-active user money, per hour of egagement money, etc. etc? We don't know. A mix of all the above depending on the game I'm sure. Epic vs. Apple and the "Sony requires digital storefront share by player population" clause tells us just how complex these contracts go. And why it's not a straight-forward sales model to compare. I'm sure Sega's not leaving the entire Yakuza series up there because it's losing them money.... Even if it's marketing, marketing is far from free.

@Sakisa I don't say Xbox users DONT buy games full stop. Microsoft typically do not report non favourable statistics.

Xbox games aren't gonna sale well in terms of both the physical and digital front compared to Playstation. Everyone keeps bring up gamepass, but forgets that Microsoft also are just give Xbox versions of games away if you buy a PC copy, so if you own a PC and Xbox. You only have to buy 1 copy for both platforms, no double dipping. I'm pretty sure these free copies aren't counted in these sales charts.

@NEStalgia If you are saying investors would rather certainty than uncertainty that probably goes without saying 🙈. But we don't live in that world 😂

@Floki also how many gamepass subscribers are the £1 for 3 month brigade?

Great news. Hopefully the good sales will be incentive for Sega and the main character's talent agency to make nice and move forward with a third.

@uptownsoul dude in 2018 psn alone generates more than all the xbox gaming division combined
meaning digital,physical, console, subscription
today more ps fans switch to digital

@uptownsoul interestingly that says for Resident Evil Physical and Digital combined; 43% were Playstation and 31% were Xbox. And the Push Square article that just focused on Physical said 80% was Playstation. Now one is for a week and one is for a month but that basically sums it up. Playstation has the better sales but if you look at digital as well as physical; the difference isn’t anywhere near as big.

@uptownsoul The UK is one of the strongest markets for Xbox. I used to work in retail involving games and although playstation was on top, Xbox weren't really slouches. But 3 years later....I thought the 200+m target set by Sony was a bit much. But now I'm not too sure...

Congrats to RGG Studio. #4 is definitely nothing to shake a stick at.

@NEStalgia yea I agree with the digital stuff. It’s so many things. I am still a physical only gamer on PlayStarion and Switch, but on Xbox, GamePass gets their players just used to digital. Add to this that buying physical games on Xbox still will likely result in having to download the whole game, and buying physical on xbox just feels like a waste of shelf space, those disks are almost always just license keys.

Anyone that wants example on how xbox gamers embrace digital more than other consoles can simply look back at the recent indie controversy, where digital only indie games sell a minuscule fraction of their unit sales on PlayStation.

Also, it’s so much easier to go through these comments after using the ignore feature…

@uptownsoul my bad yea so it’s 58% to 31%. Any Dev would be happy to have that 31% from Xbox - it’s not quite the disaster all these articles make it out to be.

@uptownsoul Infinite physical does only come with the campaign though and co-op is delayed until 2022 (current target seems around March). There's plenty of people who only play Halo for the multiplayer so I think the combination of those factors and Game Pass would push it out of the top 10. As for FH5, I think there's too many releases nearby for the Game Pass effect not to push it out of the top 10 like from late October to late November these big releases are present:

• October 29th - Mario Party Superstars
• November 4th - Just Dance 2022, CoD Vanguard
• November 9th - Forza Horizon 5
• November 12th - Shin Megami Tensei V
• November 19th - Pokemon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, Battlefield 2042

Where FH5 is the only Game Pass game of the bunch so the others will benefit in physical sales chart positions.

@NEStalgia I think the fact the next gen version of GTAV is delayed to March 2022 means new releases will get a slight advantage this holiday.

@uptownsoul it’s not a disaster. Everyone knows Xbox has a smaller market share than Playstation. The fact that 31% (we are talking about one game here, but still) are on Xbox is actually alright! I’m actually quite impressed you can be dramatic all you want but I can imagine Capcom is glad it released on Xbox too.

@Tharsman Link please evidence digital only indie games sell miniscule amounts on ps. Or link evidence Xbox sales of digital indie games are above ps indie sales.

@K1LLEGAL I think it's safe to say that gap will only widen. Playstation sales are just too high and ongoing.

@Voltan xbox gamers don't like japanese games.

@Grumblevolcano you might be right about the Halo campaign popularity. “Only” 57.8% of Halo 5 players ever bear the first mission. 69.17% beat the first mission of Halo 4.

The achievement tracking website I always using started giving me errors now but Halo 5 had over 66% achievement earning on the easiest multiplayer achievement. Not can’t check Halo 4 right now, will update later if I remember.

I’m still curious to see how Halo Infinite charts. Between splitting the game from the campaign, and having it on GamePass, if that game charts at all, ir will be an incredible achievement, given how many would never have to buy it to actually play it.

More than which console Lost Judgment sells better on, I just hope it sells well in general. Can't get enough of RGG Studio's games.

@uptownsoul Okay but when I said it was 43% to 31% you said I was “wrong” because I wasn’t including PS4 at 15% - okay fair enough; but now I’m comparing PS as a whole to Xbox as a whole you’ve again told me i’m wrong and that actually we are just talking about PS5. I keep being “wrong” because you keep changing what you’re talking about.

Anyway I get it; PS is outselling Xbox. Very good for Playstation but let’s hope we don’t get too much of a landslide as that will not be a good thing. Thanks for the discussion 👍

@uptownsoul who knows? The UK loves Playstation I guess!

@uptownsoul And this is one of Xbox better markets too...

@K1LLEGAL Just face it man things are looking really bad for Xbox right now. you true Xbox fans should speak up and tell people on Xbox it’s ok to buy games and stop waiting for games their interesting in to come to gamepass before it’s to late

@uptownsoul Publishers need to (and hopefully do) look at sales data a lot more deeply than launch week single country physical sales charts. Like I said, different sales models for different titles. It's clear that launch day box office releases favor Sony heavily. Who's surprised by that? It's baked into the ecosystem's sales model. But a publisher isn't looking at just that. They're looking at their total quarterly and annual sales by platform. They'll look at franchise sales and active engagement by platform in YoY performance. If Sega rarely sells any volume, has low player engagement, and gets no split from Game Pass, then yes, they have a problem, and could end up pulling support. If Sega's sales perform excellently on older titles, engagement is high on Game Pass and/or monetizes well, they're going to be very happy with their performance on XB. They don't care about launch figures. Only a handful of companies boast about launch figures so much. Other's prefer steady state sales more.

Maybe you're right. Maybe Sega just can't make money and sees terrible sales across the board on Xbox, and doesn't see any reason to do business in that market. That doesn't seem that likely, but they're going to be looking at the performance of their spread portfolio. Maybe xbox gamers are more likely to buy older titles on sales which still shows good quarterly earnings from games being on the xbox store, simply with delayed returns per title and longer tail sales, maybe the digital storefront spread gives them a lot higher profit per sale negating lower sales volume. The reality is we just don't know, and will never know, what their returns are and how they're monetizing on each storefront. OTOH, how many people are playing Yakuza 4 on PS 5 right now, vs on Game Pass? Depending on how that's monetized, could that mean more revenue from that old title on Xb in September 2021 than on PS? We don't know.

It's entirely possible you're right, and it's a sales disaster for Sega, but the reality is we don't have the metrics that really matter. All we can do is trust that when the companies tell us or investors they're happy with the performance that they are, and however the behind the scenes bills are paid, they're turning a profit one way or the other.

I don't have a horse in the race. I'm happy to see Yakuza series on Xbox, and will continue playing it there if I can. If it goes back to Sony-only, I have a PS5, I'll play it there. And I'll still wait for sales to buy it, so I still won't be in the launch statistics (but I also am not buying used games so my sale still means more cash in their coffers.) I own the whole series except LAD and Judgement on PS. I also own it on XB. And I'm streaming it on xcloud because that's like 800 hours of video games and I can't fold space-time.

Now excuse me while I go back to playing Judgement 1 on PS Now where I can contribute to Sony's sales disaster where they train me not to pay for games....

@Grumblevolcano LOL, grateful for small miracles, I guess!

@Tharsman Yeah, the appeal and ease of use of digital on XB is almost a gateway drug. It was getting used to the idea there that actually made me convert to digital on PS and now Switch as well, after I swore I'd never do it!

Halo's a tough cookie. I do think it's more like CoD in that it's player base is more online than campaign focused more, but with a big split. Halo 5's campaign stats could just be because it was a notoriously terrible campaign, but I'd still be surprised if the campaign players are only 40% or so of the game's market.

@KayOL77 https://www.google.com/amp/s/gamerant.com/indie-games-playstation-store-xbox-game-pass/amp/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.gamesindustry.biz/amp/2020-06-30-descenders-weekly-unit-sales-increased-five-times-since-being-on-xbox-game-pass

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.windowscentral.com/moonglow-bay-interview-why-xbox-game-pass-ideal-indie-developers%3famp

Indies in general have embraced gamepass while PlayStation spurns them for more AAA cinematic experiences. And you bring up the UK as one of the strongest markets, but in my home territory, the biggest market for Xbox, it’s still doing quite amazing. And as far as I’ve heard the UK has always been more of a PlayStation territory anyway.

@4kgk2 But there's a big problem with telling Xbox users to buy games! A big part of the promotion of Xbox is that your getting all the good first party games nearly free! There would be a huge amount of surprised Pikachu faces if they are now told that buying games is important 🙈

@Sakisa Hmmm. What about rocket league and fall guys? Hugely successful metrics on ps plus helped sell those games across all formats. But in general I would agree that Sony should concentrate some more on Indies. But then they do use playstation promotional videos where only show indie games. There is always room for improvement.

@NEStalgia I still refuse to buy digital on PS and Switch if I can help it. For one, I don’t trust either to keep their stores open for two gens post discontinuation. Had it not been for a huge backlash they would had closed Vita stores despite being last gen and games still coming out!

As for halo campaign, looking at 5, seems only 28.41% of players have beaten the game. Halo 4 is at 34.85%.

Might be worth noting if you rented, borrowed, or simply anyone launched the game within your profile once, you are counted towards the total, so there is likely a margin of error from players that might simply had someone visit and launch the game on their console, but doubt that’s a large enough percentage.

@uptownsoul This is an article about sales of one particular game at launch, and the conversation broadened to the difference in market behavior between users on both platforms and what affects that difference, and whether that means a lack of profitability or simply a different balance in which products are sold (i.e. new games selling at launch versus steady sales of older games at discounts, digital vs physical, revenue share, etc.)

If you were just trying to do a "no games sell on xbox, xbox dooomed!!1" kind of thing, we have little to no insight as to how much revenue each publisher makes by platform save for those Ubisoft reports years ago showing Switch version of games making up 1% of total sales.

@Tharsman Absolutely, that's why I buy everything I can buy on XB on XB. They're not Steam, but I have a reasonable level of confidence it will be there for my lifetime, and probably improved 20 years from now instead of missing or worse. People say BC doesn't matter, but it's not just yesterday's old games today that makes BC important, but today's new games tomorrow. That's part of Steam's success, after all.

I figure Sony will screw me over on digital purchases, but since I'm only buying exclusives (or PS+Switch exclusives that I'd rather run well) I won't be losing a huge library, and I probably couldn't play the physical collection by then on hardware anyway. (I have a PS3 physical collection. Am I ever hooking up the last PS3 I have that doesn't have a broken BD drive, which happens to be the old phat one? Probably not.) Ironically if I'd bought digital on PS3 I could have 5 PS3s to play my library on.... now I have 1.

Nintendo I KNOW will screw my library over, no question. But...somehow....the portable format begs to be digital. I was the latest adopter with them.

For Halo, even during the main trilogy, by 3 it felt like it was a CoD-like online game that happened to have a campaign, but considering what 343 did with it for 4 and 5, those last two games even launched like online games with a bonus campaign. Probably not surprising. It's like Quake. Other than with this newest rerelease who last played the campaign in the last 25 years? It took on its own life as an arena game, and I'm betting MTX on the F2P multiplayer will have tremendously more revenue than the campaign. Which is bitter-sweet. I don't care about the online at all, but otoh the campaign has always been fun but hasn't been particularly special since ODST.

@NEStalgia Please explain why Sony will screw you over in digital. And maybe why you are omitting PS4 removing cbomb DRM while rival format still hasn't fixed that?

@NEStalgia For the record I'm not attacking you for wanting to buy on digital only Xbox third party games. I've bought tons of games on PSN and I've never felt any level of the piss being took out of me. My digital collection is alive and well and I buy stuff I like and I won't want to return. And now all ps4s can play physical and digital games without a CMOS battery OR internet connection/validation.

@uptownsoul Remember the ps5 hadn't reached 1M units sold at the end of April. So the divide between ps5 install base and total Xbox install base was more in Xbox favour. At this point that gap is closing.

@uptownsoul Oh, if you're talking just RE:V, didn't we talk about that a while ago in the article for that? It's a semi- niche game with it's history firmly rooted in PS and a marketing effort very closely associated with PS. Plus my own personal observation is that horror fans in general seem to be very prominent in the PS ecosystem. Add that to the existing market differences, etc on PS, and that really doesn't surprise me at all. You're right that it's a bad look, but I'm not really surprised. It's hard for established brands associated with one platform to pick up a new market in a new platform, when the existing one is already the market leader. And yeah, the series has been on Nintendo, but even there I still think of it as borrowing a "Sony series."

@KayOL77 A mix of PS history, Sony history, their approach to BC/content, and their seeming obsession with copying whatever Nintendo does. Even outside of PS Sony has always been quick to abandon product lines and support for them when moving onto the next thing. It's in their DNA. Then we had the PSP to Vita BC debacle. PS3 which was a special case. Recently the attempt to close the legacy stores, which, they never said would get rid of content access, but it feels, while they've been immitating Nintendo a lot, and we have Jim himself saying he's watching Switch OLED prices, and you can picture him stroking his white cat as he says it off camera, they're very much into offering the bare minimum they can get away with.

Nintendo, no question, they'll kill off their store and anything you didn't download will be unavailable. Sony seems to be demonstrating half-hearted interest in BC. Now that could change. I honestly expected when PS5 launched, Sony would commit hard to BC to counter MS, and I was surprised when it was so half-hearted. They under-performed my expectations there. So, no, I don't know they'll screw me, but I'm just expecting it. It's their history, company culture, and general attitude currently suggesting it. But more important, even if they don't cut off games on their native consoles, I really don't expect PS8 will be designed to run PS4 games, and certainly won't do much to improve upon them if it does. I think there's a reasonable expectation that the same generation of MS platform will offer across the board improvements and run the entire back catalogue. They've even stated they're focusing on future BC with new games now as a priority. It's mostly just about the company philosophy. They're building their brand on a long lived library, PC-style, which makes sense. It's their company culture to support legacy software indefinitely. Sony's very much a product of its time and I don't think the Tokyo management will ever quite adopt a PC-like approach.

When it comes to building a software library, I'm less interested in if my PS4 will be able to play my PS4 games in 2042. I'm more interested in if my PS8 will be able to play my PS4 games in 2042. With XB's policy, I have reasonable confidence that will happen short of a major hardware architecture upheaval. Obviously I'd like my old PS4 to be able to do it too, who knows if the economy collapses and I'll be living under a bridge with nothing but the digital video games I bought in 2017 to keep me sane by then, but if I CAN buy a PS8, I'd rather not hook up the PS4 to play the games I bought in 2017. I just have more faith in the one company to provide that, other than Steam.

But your point on the battery is certainly valid. And I'd be happy to be wrong. My library may be far bigger on Xbox for that reason, but it doesn't mean I have an insignificant library on PS that I very much don't want to get screwed on!

@uptownsoul Its not 1m ps5s! It's significantly less! That figure was nearly 5 months ago. 😂🙈

@NEStalgia I don't know if I can say the BC system on the ps5 is half hearted. I mean at a hardware level the ps5 is running the ps4 code! Half hearted would be a crappy emulator. Now I agree on PS1/PS2 emulation. There's been a lot of fan cooperation in bringing a great emulation scene for these 2...I think even the PS2 emulation offers trophy like features. Sony needs to step in and use this already existant tech and get the PS2 at least integrated into ps5. The PS3 is a different beast at this point. Even the most powerful pcs aren't running the best first party software through emulators properly. So I think PS3 emulation is a bit off, maybe ps5pro or ps6. Now it's interesting you are assuming ps8 won't run PS4 games. Sony is now firmly on x86 ground and that's going to be a huge plus for future emulation of older systems. The difference is that PS1/PS2/PS3 all used fundamentally different architecture from each other. And the PS3 could blitz the older CPU code because of its immense speed. I'd love PS1/PS2 games with trophies. Sony would make a lot of money out of me 🙈