Back 4 Blood sales seem unphased by day-one Xbox Game Pass launch

Back 4 Blood is available on Xbox Game Pass, and yet it still debuted as the No. 2 best-selling Xbox game of the month.

[ColtPSSX]

You would be surprise how many Xbox players don’t even have game pass. Alot of my Friends who owns Xbox still like to buy games.

But it’s how far the game will go tho IMO. Yes it’s top because it’s new but at the end of the day, who will sell more copies and so far it has been PS consoles, especially the PS5 selling the most.

[RpgSama]

I mean, being number 2 by itself doesn't mean a lot without knowing actual numbers in general, what does the average top 3 sell within the Xbox Ecosystem now, if number 1 sold 100K copies and number 2 is at 70k I wouldn't necessarily consider that a victory, number 2 or not.

[dbcoops]

Exactly, without actual sales numbers vs. gamepass numbers, which no way is xbox going to release, this story is basically meaningless and just an attempt at gmaepass propaganda.

[gravedigger]

Yep. High place on the chart doesn't mean game sold good. I remember the Quantum Break and MSs PR about it is a megahit or something like that. Well, Quantum Break was at No.1 spot in UK in launch week, but game sold back then around 15k. Well, that's bad for the No.1 game.

[CaptainHenry916]

Back 4 Blood sucks

[FlavorLav01]

Fresher than the annual CoD and semi-annual Battlefield.

[KingofBandits]

its not a terrible game its just not as good as L4D was when it came out. The card system "buffs" are dumb and the game just does not do as good of a job bringing you in to the world. Still it looks good, has solid controls and a lot of gun options. I just can't get into it

[Michiel1989]

for who does it matter who sells the most copies? for you to brag about sony?
if they sell only 1/2 the copies of sony and they get compensated enough by gamepass, then do you think the publisher cares how the revenue is obtained? or do you think publishers just put their games on gamepass without any sort of compensation from MS?
what matters to the devs and publisher is how much money is made by the game, regardless of how the money is obtained, through digital sales, physical or the likes of gamepass,

[KingofBandits]

I own a Series X and do not pay for GamePass. Its still cheaper for me to buy the games I want rather then constantly pay for a library of disappearing rentals

[darthv72]

Are you saying if someone has gamepass that they suddenly stop buying games? Guess Im doing it wrong as I have gamepass AND I buy games.

[amazinglover]

"Alot of my Friends who owns Xbox still like to buy games. "

Why do people keep saying this like having gamepass keeps you from buying a game you can still buy it if you have gamepass.

[ColtPSSX]

Idky you guys are so sensitive. I was trying to give a positive comment and busting the myth that Xbox gamers rely on game pass and don’t buy games smh.

[Sayai jin]

Game pass has console warriors shook for some reason. You look at comment sections of articles and you see people who do not have game pass complain and so on. You look on twitter and it is always trending and the comments for those who don't have it, complain. Yet, thpse who own have the service and several devs have lauded it. It mist be exhuasting being a consoles warrior.

[ColtPSSX]

Who is shook?
I own game pass and a Xbox series.
I was just stating that not all Xbox gamers rely on game pass and a lot still prefer to buy games and not a subscription.

I swear Xbox gamers have became the most sensitive of the group since Sony spanked them all last gen lol.

[Tedakin]

Not all games are on Gamepass. I love GP, but I still buy the games I wanna play that aren't on there. I've bought games that ARE on Gamepass too simply cause I wanted to own them and got a discount. My favorite game of this year, Resident Evil 8, was not on GP. I own it.

[TheHan]

Typical fan Boyesium that doesn’t know what their talking about. Like I said earlier you can’t take these “PS fans” seriously they have no argument their just upset cause they don’t have gamepass and that Xbox is more consumer friendly.

[monkey602]

Xbox counted for 17% of sales of back 4 blood in the UK. Yes this is to be expected of a game available on game pass. They touch on it in the article but completely gloss over it, Game that aren't on gamepass are suffering huge losses in sales on Xbox. Guardians of the Galaxy and Far Cry are recent examples. There are absolutely massive sales differences between Xbox and Playstation.

So yes GamePass is great value but it absolutely is killing sales of games. An issue a lot of websites seem to be burying their heads in the sand about.

[Kerppamaister]

That's physical/box copies. Come on, man. Don't draw conclusions based on physical sales on one region.

[monkey602]

Digital sales are a factor for both consoles, though. That's not going to suddenly tip the scales massively in the opposite direction.

[KillBill]

Exactly. You can't quote a sales figure that represents less than 20% of games sales in a region that is primarily PlayStation dominate and represents a fraction of the global market itself. You might as well quote game sales for your neighborhood for all that matters. lol

[SurgicalMenace]

GP is a cancer to the Xbox ecosystem and they fail to realize it because how convenient the pricing is for them. What successful company has to pay a dev to get their IP on their service? If that's not telling enough add the fact that absolutely NO AAA titles from 3rd parties are being added. MS is desperately killing themselves with GP the same as Sega did with Sega TV. The parallels are hard to ignore.

[Jin_Sakai]

“GP is a cancer to the Xbox ecosystem and they fail to realize it because how convenient the pricing is for them.“

Why are you guys so worried about knocking Game Pass? It’s honestly getting old now. Stop beating a dead horse.

[Zeref]

"Absolutely no AAA from 3rd parties"

Have you ever even looked at the catalog?

There's literally dozens upon dozens of AAA games from 3rd parties.

[FlavorLav01]

Preach! I’m paying $16 to play Forza Horizon 5 and the Halo campaign through January, then canceling my sub until another big game drops. I’m only one person, but that’s several hundreds of dollars shy of what I would’ve normally spent annually provided Xbox had the same quality content releasing throughout the year(s).

[SurgicalMenace]

Ummm Back 4 Blood is FAR from a AAA title, the budget nor the marketing would support that claim. It was published by a AAA company not developed by one. Warner Bro. nor Valve West(Turtle Rock) didn't even have faith enough to put a strong marketing push behind it, for good reason. I mean, with their last console outing being Evolved, I'd say they should have played it safe and not break the bank on the title. What do I know though? I just bought the game full price to see its shortcomings myself.

[strifeblade]

Arm chair analyst here. Someone call microsoft so he can get a job and give his baseless projections

[Michiel1989]

@surgical: how do you think ps+ gets its games? by the publishers being in love with sony and handing them out for free? a succesful company (sony) is paying to get them on their service.

"MS is desperately killing themselves with GP the same as Sega did with Sega TV. The parallels are hard to ignore." show me these parallels, im curious. Gamepass actually has been decently succesful even though they havent broken even on it. and you know what that is a parallel to? the ps3, sony sold them at a loss, it was an investement for them and it took them a long time to get a return for that investment, but it paid off.

MS and gamepass is going nowhere, you think they bought bethesda and the other studios with the idea that they would get a return on their investment within a year or two? maybe get a sense of how a business works before you start calling things a cancer.

[TheDibbler]

This is a ridiculously bad take that is just inherently incorrect. Back 4 Blood is a third party game added to the service. So is Avengers, Outriders, etc. As far as paying to have IP on a service, have you never heard of Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc? They all pay to have IP on their service just like Sony pays for titles on the PS Plus service.

[PitbullMonster]

Every game which isn't in Gamepass is in competition with Gamepass. Why should someone spend 70€ for a game when they have 200 games to play in Gamepass? And some of these 70€ games are coming to gamepass sooner or later anyway. This way MS will force Gamedeveloper to bring their games day one to Gamepass.

[monkey602]

Absolutely what is happening. Many of the users on Xbox are "waiting for gamepass". They'll tell you that themselves.

This is going to have a huge influence on gaming in the near future

[ocelot07]

Could be a risky move that. You say your self MS could try and force publishers to release games on gamepass. Publishers see game is not selling all that great on xbox but selling well on PlayStation.

Microsofts gives them a life line offering them a few million to put it in gamepass. But what if MS low ball offer them?

What if publishers decide that Xbox is just not worth it in future and just release on pc/playstation/switch.

[Notellin]

Because every single console user buys 50 games a year.

What about the people that only buy 1-2 games a year? Which is much more common than you think.

Not everyone is a basement dwelling gamer with the free time to buy every release.

There are plenty of normal adults with jobs and familes that play as well.

[Zeref]

God forbid, GamePass gets more successful and more games start being added.

What a terrible terrible future where people can play more games than ever and not spend as much and devs still get paid 🙄

[Teflon02]

Yup, I seen the response to Scarlet nexus hitting gamepass after MS did all that work to get Bandai to pretend a PS version didn't exist. For it to sell more on Playstation without people even knowing it had the game too lol. It went to gamepass after that failure months later and a bunch were happy it finally was coming to gamepass thinking it was funny Sony players paid for it. Like it's suppose to be some kind of insult to buy a game you like lol. Bandai took a major L with that. It could have sold way more on PS than it didn if people knew about its ps release and it still would have sold about the same on Xbox. Then they could have brought to gamepass later still. But ohh well. It's basically going to have to be, you put on gamepass or watch your game fail on Xbox just about now

[Wintersun616]

@Zeref have you ever heard of math? People playing more games for less money = devs getting payed less. If you disagree with that, you disagree with math.

[Jin_Sakai]

“So yes GamePass is great value but it absolutely is killing sales of games.“

They’re still getting paid for their games being on Game Pass just not as much obviously. It’s a win for consumers so why complain?

[monkey602]

I'm referring to games that aren't on Gamepass though Jin. Games like Guardians of the Galaxy and a few more recent ones where sales from Playstation consoles heavily eclipsed Xbox. Those developers are losing massively on Xbox because they are competing with a subscription service.

It's a short term win for gamers though. There's no way the current trajectory continues without a huge shift in some form.

[FlavorLav01]

So smaller devs and games should just take the smaller check from GP and shut up?

[ocelot07]

I'm not complaining but I do have a worry. Yes it's great for consumers expecially people like me who wait for gamespass to do the £1 a month or £1 3 months offers. Witch seems to happen every month.

But if developers/publishers don't make as much money as they expected sales wise (due to people getting it in gamepass). Then I fear that for there next project they won't have as much funds to make a better game. Or they ruin the existing game with crappy micro transactions.

[Wintersun616]

So you're saying that devs don't deserve to get payed as much as they did in the past, for the same work. Would you kindly fuck off and kill yourself please? You're the exact reason for the downfall of the game industry.

[SolidBoss816]

@monkey602 I totally get what you are saying. I had the same discussion with a friend and he thought I was hating on gamepass when I wasn’t. I’m just worried that 3rd party developers that don’t put their games on gamepass day 1 will be turned off by their games not selling well on Xbox because a lot of gamers who have gamepass take the wait for it to hit gamepass approach instead of buying games when they release.

[Zeref]

Physical games in the UK are not an accurate measurement, almost nobody buys them anymore.

Could be like 1000 people bought it on Xbox and 3000 people on Playstation.

Also who cares about sales, the devs got paid, players are happy.
Who are you arguing for here?

[monkey602]

I'm not arguing, I was attempting to have a discussion. I'm also talking about developers who's games aren't on Game Pass being effected by competing against a service, so those developers are not getting paid. Something that is surely going to cause a fallout within the industry at some capacity.

[Notellin]

Yeah similar to how all the streaming services forced us to stop buying movies and all the movie studios immediately shut down. You're really on to something genius level here.

[monkey602]

The movie industry shifted to meet the climate. Reebots and sequels to years gone series are coming back to a huge degree because of customer familiarity. Everything needs to have brand recognition and potential for insane amounts of merchandise. Studios take less risk.

Cinema tickets and DVD cost a substantial amount less than games, so it's not a wild idea to believe the budgets and how a game is developed is going to be impacted by a service fueled game industry

[SurgicalMenace]

🤣🤣

[Rdeal]

you do realise Playstation has treble the userbase of xbox so there will be massive sales difference between the 2

[Gaming4Life1981]

I have gamepass and I bought battlefield 2042, riders republic, guardians of the galaxy, far cry 6, and the forza 5 upgrade to the ultimate edition etc. I only buy games digital and im sure many others do as well.. Gamepass is not killing game sales and game pass is loved by the devs.

[SolidBoss816]

I too have gamepass and still buy games that are not on there but you know there is a large section of gamers who feel that they shouldn’t have to buy games anymore and are “waiting for it to come to gamepass” instead of buying new releases. My friend is a diehard resident evil fan who refused to buy village earlier this year because he thinks it be on gamepass later this year. It’s crazy how some people feel like you shouldn’t buy games anymore. Don’t get me wrong it’s their right to feel that way but it’s crazy imo.

[darkrider]

70% Cod Sony 30% Microsoft. There isn't a single big game where % is close. It's getting bigger from Gen to gen

[TheDibbler]

Physical sales for one region isn’t indicative of anything. Most people are buying games digitally now. People that have Gamepass are just able to play more games and probably don’t see a point to rushing out to buy Far Cry or Guardians. I bought Guardians but on PC. I didn’t buy Far Cry because I’m tired of that franchise like CoD. I have purchased games that were on Gamepass that I would have never tried if it hadn’t been on the service. It isn’t this thing that kills sales across the board like you think it is.

[ElvisHuxley]

The websites work for the publishers, not officially of course, but if they say too many bad things, especially about the coveted Gamepass, they might get "accidentally" overlooked with regard to access, and no access, means no money.

[roadkillers]

I really enjoyed B4B, but here is the thing... I wouldn't have bought it if it didn't come to Xbox GamePass. Same with Forza. There are few games that I buy and none of them have come to Gamepass day 1.

[Darkborn]

I agree. I paid for b4b and haven't finished it. I just have no ambition to and I played it mainly with friends. They all quit too, like 6 of them.

[Scissorman82]

Assertions like this need to be supported by actual sales numbers.

[SurgicalMenace]

I mean, when you actually pay attention you'll realize that GP is MS's desperate push to keep people on their console buy paying the cost for them.

These well established companies aren't putting their AAA titles on the service for a reason. This is because they know better and make far more profit by selling their games on a platform with a healthy ecosystem.

Pay attention to what they said with Forza 6 million people playing it on GP not buying it.🤷🏾‍♂️

[Darkwatchman]

Literally over 1 million people paid for the deluxe edition to play it early when they could have waited a few days more for the normal release on game pass but pop off I guess.

[SurgicalMenace]

You guys are consumers, so you'll only measure what's convenient to your own pockets. I am a business consultant so I'm privy to information that goes beyond "GP has such great value".🤣🤣

If you want the information how about you earn the access like those of us who put ourselves in positions to actually be functional in the industry.

I OWN ALL of the systems with HEALTHY libraries so my money is invested enough to know what the shortcomings are and it mean something. Fanboyism is a nonsensical word created in hopes to contend against people speaking against an individuals preference.

PS Now is an option for Sony not a lifeline to extend interest as AGAIN their ecosystem is made up of willing spenders not spendthrifts suffocating theprogress of their growth. Calm down buddy, it's only the truth. People still reminisce on the Dreamcast too.🤣🤣

[SurgicalMenace]

@Pawtyblack

Sales do matter to a person like me, as I'm HEAVILY invested in Sony and Microsoft, market wise. Sony for groundbreaking innovation in TVs, Movies, Music, Electronic, gaming and Real Estate and MS for Windows. If ever there were a valuation of viable growth, there's not a broker alive that'd advise to invest in MS for Xbox. They've NEVER turned a profit in their gaming division.🤣

Embarrass myself? Dude your greatest moments are most likely found in your gaming experiences, so calm down. Embarrassment would require me giving a measure of concern to the thoughts of others. Don't have that problem. I speak freely because I don't care. It's all entertainment to me. I perform great in real life, sir, so....🤷🏾‍♂️

[SurgicalMenace]

You're just studying, sir. A wide margin from practicing. Get accredited, join a firm, get some clientele, reinvest and then come back so we can talk. There is a blinding difference between bragging and giving a true account, ANALYST.🤣 Rich Dad, Poor Dad covers this concept in great detail. Give it a read or three.. There's no pride in a true account, only truth. We're not all basement dwellers, though one would assume this of some....😁

[SurgicalMenace]

In my place?!?! Where is this place that you speak of? Is it as nice as the one I inhabit now?

Also, you, being so impressed with your own existence, believe that because you ask for something I'm to required to adhere. Sir, you're merely a student at this point, so until you've some experience in this industry you're owed nothing.

If you had any actual acumen or access you wouldn't be left to have to ask. If you're successful you'll find out in due time. Until then, read your books, eat all of your vegetables, then one day you'll grow big & strong like grown adults.💪🏾

[strifeblade]

You know what. Dont think you are a very good business consultant and your analysis is holding back the inevitable. Eventually you wilp draw comparisons to netflix and the decline of hard copy sales. In this digital world that's where we are headed. And your archaic business consulting- keep them to your failed businesses.

[strifeblade]

And criticizing Microsoft on a failed gaming division that hasn't turned a profit?? If it's an absolute failure I guess microsoft acquiring Bethesda is a sign its giving up? I guess microsoft being the largest company in the world by market cap is a failure and they dont know what they're doing. Need and arm chair analyst like u eh? And sony practically failed in the cell phone market, is a shadow in the television market, and only relevant in the movie studio space and gaming space.... doesn't come close to microsoft market cap. And cash on hand for sony od less than 10% of msoft stockpiles. It shows you the level of confidence in Microsoft as a company as a whole. I personally think msoft know what they are doing.

[Lexreborn2]

I played the beta thought it was ok, got it on gamepass and played a couple games and haven’t gone back since. Not going to force myself to play something that hardly holds my attention just because it’s on gamepass.

[KeyAppearance]

Same played the opening campaign, then got bored

[sourOG]

I had already preordered on ps5 before they announced it on gamepass

[z2g]

Yeah so w/ game pass I get to try tons of games and on the developer side that means more people have exposure to things they might not have wanted to take a risk on before. The ones I truly love, I still purchase. And if you purchase thru game pass you also get a discount. This is why people think it’s great…. That’s right. You can buy the games in game pass thru Game pass

[Father__Merrin]

What was the week one sales numbers then?

[Donjune]

Why so angry at Gamepass lol? Could it be that it's an awesome product and your SALTY that your console can't get up to par with GP?

[ElvisHuxley]

Compare the library of GP and PSNow...enough said. You don't really think anyone is jealous of gamepass, right?

[CrimsonWing69]

Doesn’t Microsoft make-up a figure that is palatable to what successful sales would be? It’s not like you put the game on Gamepass for free.

[Knightofelemia]

I tried it out day one $1 for a month but after the latest update the game got buffing and nerfing bosses and players I just lost interest.

[redbeardshop21]

xbox is still a favorite to this day with all the advantages it has graphically.

[Yourmommasaid]

Gamepass is like going to a buffet that serves mediocre food, then occasionally gives you delicious meal when it's available. We'll have to wait and see in the future for what the recent first-party acquisitions can make, so who knows, maybe they'll actually serve fine cuisine delicacy...

[TheHan]

Honestly does it even matter. Is this gonna be the stigma that haters are gonna try and pull. Give us something more news worthy. Gamepass is just a service like PlayStation Plus but in a different light. Not everyone has it and it clearly doesn’t affect rather if a game is good or not when launching day 1 on gamepass or not. The sales numbers will still be there and they’ll get their lump some of cash for just having it on gamepass.