8.5 mil. players ARE NOT copies sold. Surely it was in early access for 1 mil. Also, compared to FH4, Gamepass subs were waaaaaay lower back then during FH4 launch Gamepass subs were few million compared to FH5s 20ish mil. subs.
You have the chain of causality backwards. Forza Horizon 4 is in part responsible for legitimizing GamePass, not the other way around.
It was the first AAA Xbox Game Studios title to launch day and date on GamePass, legitimizing its proof of concept. (The Outer Worlds was technically first, but not published by Xbox). Its the highest rated game to launch on the service. And the most played after Minecraft.
That game could have sold 10 million copies if they marketed it the traditional way. They took a huge risk, and were willing to look foolish in the short term, in favor of that sweet sweet long term reward. Of which they're reaping now.
Really? What is this? Am I feeling a shred of... ...hope? Hope for humanity?
"#1 is Call of Du-"
And there it goes again. Humanity can burn.
Anyway, good on them. So far, I'm very pleased with the game. They seemed to have toned down the live service nonsense that tarnished my experience with FH4. Of course, I've only been doing my usual thing: fire it up, play 3-5 races, exit, go do something else. I therefore haven't got very far into the game yet.
Give it some time. It was the #10th most played game when I checked just 2 days ago, then it jumped to #3 yesterday, now its #2 today. Its growing in interest everyday. And if its anything like Forza Horizon 4 (who's numbers this game is obliterating) this game is going to be an evergreen with a very long tail, over the next 3 years.
I bet Microsoft is kicking themselves for not re-upping the licenses because the first 3 games could be capitalizing on renewed interest too.
EDIT: AND DOWN GOES WARZONE! Forza Horizon 5 is now the #1 most played game on Xbox.
________________________
Forza Horizon 5 passes Fortnite, is now the #2 Most Played game on Xbox, behind only CoD Warzone.
It has shown its back to Fortnite, Apex Legends, Cod Vanguard, GTAV, Roblox, Cold War, Destiny, 2k, Madden, Fifa, and Minecraft. 👀
It is also:
The Top Selling game on the Xbox Store, both currently and for the past week, occupying the top 3 spots, showing its back to Cod Vanguard, GTA Trilogy DE, GTA 5, 2k, Madden, Fifa, Far Cry 6, Battlefield, Riders republic, Minecraft, etc....This obliterates the narrative that people are not buying the game. This game is absolutely going to chart high on NPD despite being free on GamePass.
It was the #1 Top Selling game on Steam globally for the past week. It was unseated by Battlefield, and now sits at a comfortable #2 on Steam Charts. It was briefly knocked down to #3 by the release of the Skyrim Anniversary Update, but only for a few hours, before bouncing back to its comfortable #2 position where it remains.
the #1 most popular game on GamePass (surpassing Minecraft, which to my knowledge no game has done on GamePass other than games like GTAV/RDR2). What is interesting about this.......is that Forza Horizon 4 (yes, FOUR) has rocketed back up to #3 on the most popular GamePass list, behind only Minecraft, and its own sequel.
More Stats:
1,400,000 paid players via Early Access prior to launch. At an average of $72 ($45-$100) the game made an average of $100,800,000 before its official launch.
It reached 4,500,000 players in its first 24 hours, as acknowleged by Phil Spencer. Call of Duty Warzone reached 6 million in 24 hours. Apex Legends 2.5 million. Before anyone mentions GamePass, this game is breaching territory only touched by free-to-play juggernauts, and games named GTAV 👀 Not even Playstation exclusives have reach like this.
Aaron Greenberg acknowleged 6 million YESTERDAY.
As of this writing I am 18 hours in, and have not reached the Hall of Fame yet (so I cannot see the leaderboard numbers yet, but as of 3 hours ago Timdog tweeted that its at 7,800,000 (as of 3 hours ago)https://twitter.com/XcloudTimdog/status/1459636984469770250
You can search on twitter for ramdom anecdotal screenshots of the updated numbers, or reach the Hall of Fame for yourself, but given the massive popularity of this game, even this thread may become outdated soon.
I'll tell you right now, I did not expect to be having as much fun with this game as I am, and no way in hell did I expect this game to be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with motherfucking Warzone and Fortnite. 👀
MS absolutely must be proud of PlayGround games, and that this franchise is finally getting mainstream respect. All I can say is, lawd bless these ponies when StarField drops lol.
Its worth noting that nobody can play the game via GamePass yet. These are "Sales". Either the $100 Premium Edition customers, or they purchased the $45 add on via GamePass.
RIP their servers next tuesday, because its going to obliterate that number after the official launch.
Im entirely convinced Sony sat on this acquisition for over a month+, for no reason other than "break glass incase the news cycle is talking about Xbox or GamePass (like their numbers shattering a new milestone), and we need an emergency influx of good PlayStation news".
So GamePass is already far ahead of MY (and no doubt their own) projection miletone of 30 million subscribers by January 2022.
This needs to be burned into the mind of anyone who believes GamePass is "unsustainable". In 3 years, GamePass will be a service that "prints" $10 Billion+ dollars annually.
At this late stage of the game, is there anyone left who still believes Microsoft is pressed about $7.5 Billion, or a couple hundred million they'll lose on Elder Scrolls/Starfield not being on PlayStation?
If 10 million people bought Elder Scrolls on Playstation (higher than any bethesda game has sold on PlayStation, but not Xbox) Microsoft gets $490 Million dollars. Once.
If those same 10 million become GamePass subscribers, they get $1.8 Billion annually ($15 x 12 x 10,000,000). Microsoft is playing a much longer game than Sony.
For the first time, Xbox's roadmap has more announced projects in full production than PlayStation, and PlayStation cant even keep up with announcements of new games.
3 of those PlayStation games look like PlayStation 4 games (because they are). One is CGI and just started development, and the other didn't show gameplay.
Don't care at all about Horizon:FW. GOW I'll play on PS4 and get the exact same experience. Gran Turismo looks worse than the two better Forza games about to come out. Which will also be "free" to me.
The only thing remotely interesting to me that I cant play on the PS4 I already own, is Spider-Man and Wolverine. At this point, I might as well just wait and cop that rumored PS5 Pro in 2023. I'll be just fine on Series X + GamePass.
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