Plenty of People Are Playing Expedition 33 on PS5, Despite Having to Actually Buy It 1
Image: Push Square

Whenever a game is included as part of a subscription, you’re always going to see it get a boost in players. That much is true of PS Plus, and it’s also the case with Xbox Game Pass.

But despite Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 launching as part of Microsoft’s service, plenty of players are paying for the game on Sony’s system.

Analyst firm Ampere (via The Game Business) reports that roughly 30% of the RPG’s players are on PS5, with 45% on Xbox Series X|S and the remaining 25% on PC.

It should be stressed that this data only accounts for “major European markets”, the US, Canada, and Australia, so it’s missing the entirety of Asia.

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One interesting wrinkle here, though, is that PS5 owners are playing the game for longer: an average of 4.4 hours compared to the 2.2 hours on Microsoft’s machine.

Obviously, the more players you have the lower the average is likely to fall, but it does suggest those who’ve paid full-price for the game are more likely to stick with it.

Of course, Microsoft also included The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered in its subscription last week, and it also has the highest share of players there as a result. 47% of players have played the Bethesda re-release on Xbox Series X|S, with 33% on Steam, and 19% on PS5.

Despite all of this, Circana analyst Mat Piscatella says US subscription spending has been stagnant since 2021, and Microsoft hasn’t provided an update on subscriber numbers in over a year.

The jury’s still very much out on the long-term viability of Game Pass as a service, then – but at the very least, consumers are still showing up to purchase plenty of software on the PS5.

[source thegamebusiness.com]