Sniper Elite 5 was arguably the biggest Game Pass launch of the year so far, arriving late last week. Rebellion's latest shooter got the thumbs up from us, as we labelled it "the best Sniper Elite to date". However, not many Xbox gamers went out to buy it, at least physically here in the UK.
GamesIndustryBiz has broken down this week's UK boxed sales, as the site does every week. Sniper Elite 5 has shot right to the top of the charts for the week ending May 28th, overtaking the likes of Horizon Forbidden West and Nintendo Switch Sports. However, the platform breakdown provides some interesting findings.
A mere 8% of Sniper Elite 5's sales were on Xbox platforms. Given the game is available on Xbox and PC Game Pass, and nobody really buys physical PC games these days, it's safe to assume the majority of that other 92% are PlayStation sales. Blimey.
This data not only shows how digital-focused Xbox is in this day and age (these figures don't include digital sales), it also shows just how much Xbox players are in on Game Pass. Sure, physical sales would've likely leaned PlayStation's way anyway ā especially with Xbox Series S on the market ā but a figure as low as this hints at how many Xbox players are accessing this title via Game Pass.
It'd be interesting to see the player count breakdown across platforms rather than just sales, but sadly, Xbox and PlayStation don't provide that info. Still, it's safe to assume the Xbox portion of Sniper Elite 5 players would be quite a lot higher than the 8% of physical sales.
Are you playing Sniper Elite 5 on Xbox Game Pass? Would you have bought it otherwise? Let us know down below!
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 34
It's vaguely interesting but doesn't actually tell us much.
I suspect Rebellion, and other studios & publishers, will be much more interested to figure out how much being on Game Pass led to higher sales on other platforms by having increased exposure and coverage. Was it ultimately a good deal for them? This is the answer a lot of publishers want to find out.
Platform sales breakdowns don't tell the full story in isolation, look at what happened to Rocket League and Fall Guys after being free on PS+, it boosted sales significantly.
It's also only physical sales. Xbox is typically much higher digital. For Elden ring it was 85% digital compared to just over 50% on PS in UK
So being new to Xbox this gen might mean i have this wrong but.... hasn't Xbox been mostly digital for a while now? Also it's on gamepass so they getting paid in other ways already on Xbox... naturally sales will be expected to be lower but more people will be playing the game overall? Ain't that the whole selling point?
It's been so long that I can't remember what the last game I purchased was as a physical copy.
I wonder how much MS pay devs to put a game on Game Pass??? Is it a monthly fee or a one off lump sum? Iām guessing the devs make more money from Playstation sales than they do from Game Pass.
@Krzzystuff Yeah digital sales are massive on consoles, and tend to be bigger on Xbox than PS. When the digital sales figures are released maybe we'll see more info, but it's clear that Game Pass will have had a big impact on sales.
I'd like to see figures from, say, LEGO Star Wars to compare as that's cross platform, but not on Game Pass.
I mean, while it's an interesting metric; I am sure Rebellion knew being on Game Pass would have lead to lower physical sales on Xbox.
I am also sure that whatever financial agreement that Microsoft and Rebellion came to was already put under a microscope by Rebellion's financial department and was deemed to be acceptable for the company to accept.
Bottom line: I am sure Rebellion is doing just fine; but I am sure some avenues will spin this as some kind of detriment to the industry due to the existence of Game Pass.
@sjbsixpack While Game Pass details are all shrouded in NDA's and secrecy enough devs have said, and Microsoft have told us, that there are different types of deal depending on the publisher/studio.
@PhileasFragg @GamingFan4Lyf As I said in my first post, the more interesting question Rebellion and others are trying to figure out is 'how much does being on Game Pass increase sales on other platforms from all the exposure?' While they will lose some outright sales on Xbox/PC through being on Game Pass they get paid something for that, but they also get a lot of increased exposure, effectively additional advertising, from being on Game Pass. It's not a simple zero sum game.
It seemed to not work for Outriders, a similarly large title released Day1, but other studios and publishers seem to be happy.
Well let's see... Zombie Army Trilogy was on Game Pass. Then Sniper Elite 4 was on Game Pass. Then Zombie Army 4 came to Game Pass. Now we have Sniper Elite 5 on Game Pass.
Something tells me Rebellion is quite satisfied with their "low sales" on Xbox.
We should also keep in mind that for the most part, these games have always been B-tier, AA games. Which isn't a bad thing, but also might mean that they don't have to sell 5+ million copies to consider a game "successful."
No way will the xbox digital sales be higher than playstations for this game seeing as its on gamepass, but once the digital sales do come out it will be interesting to see the percentage on xbox platforms, if its quite low then that will show most xbox users only own an xbox purely for gamepass, apart from maybe the odd game here and there
@XxEvilAshxX Sniper Elite 4 wasn't Day 1, it was 18 months later, so wouldn't have cannibalised sales much at all, very different release model. ZA4 was also 12 months later.
Regardless I agree they seem to be happy enough with Game Pass so far to try this. They've clearly seen increased exposure and new players to the series due to Game Pass.
Also theres way more potential ps4/ps5 users to sell to than xbox one/series users, so it makes sense that getting a one off payment from Microsoft for being on gamepass is more profitable for them whilst on playstation its more profitable to sell copies
physical only sales data is pointless in todays market where a large amount is digital
@PhileasFragg
Here: https://www.purexbox.com/news/2022/04/xbox-the-dominant-platform-for-digital-sales-of-lego-star-wars-in-the-uk
The Xbox digital split is high extremely high. Xbox box sales donāt get any traction. Using them as any measure of GPs effect on game sales doesnāt work.
Iām not saying GP didnāt effect sales but you canāt use box sales on a platform thatās closers to 90% digital split.
Iām glad itās on game pass. Never would of bought it. Too much stealth but great to try and play it every once in a while. I want to try the coop.
Dont forget Elden Ring saw just 17% of its physical sales on the UK during the same window on Xbox, while 63% on PS5. So it sounds like Sniper Elite 5 being on Game Pass might had, at worst, halved the physical sales. We still need to see digital sales to see how that went there.
On the case of Elden ring, at the end, it was 32% PS5, 29% xbox, counting digital sales. Will be interesting to see SE5's ratio once we get there.
@sjbsixpack
Its a case by case basis. I remember listening to an interview with Phil Spencer where he went on details about the program and he was going on how it can be either or a mix of both. It might be just lump sum up front, it might be an amount over time based on how much users play the games, or it might be a mix.
Many devs, especially early on, were skeptical about the share system so only signed up with a lump sum up front for X months.
Some devs have gone to state the console versions would not even exists if they had not gotten that lump sum from XBox to be on Game Pass, so even PlayStation users benefit from Game Pass existing.
It would interesting to see how many gamers eventually buy their own copy of a game (or the DLC packs) after playing it on Gamepass. I've been playing Sniper Elite on Gamepass and will definitely buy the DLC when it's released, or even the inevitable GOTY edition.
Its a pointless discussion as no-one here knows the full details. If the game sold 92% of Physical copies on PS that tells you 'nothing' - other than more PS gamers bought the game Physically than Xbox Gamers - but most Xbox gamers (25m+) don't 'need' to buy the game at all to play and if/when they do buy, are more likely to buy Digital anyway for the 'benefits'.
If the game sold 1m Physical copies, 920k bought it for PS and maybe you have ~1.8m PS gamers playing (50:50 digital/physical split) on Xbox that may well be 80k physical purchasers, with another 120k that bought Digitally to get reward points or other perks as Digital is more popular on Xbox. But then you also may have 18m+ who play via Game Pass - it has 25m+ subscribers so you could have 10x more Xbox gamers playing SE5 than PS gamers.
We don't know the 'deal' that was made to bring SE5 to Game Pass - but its likely to be more 'lucrative' for the Publisher than relying on 'sales'. In the example above, if Sony, which only offers the option to 'Purchase' sells 920k, Xbox may only sell 800k in the same time so trading those 'extra' sales for millions more gamers in your game from day 1 must be worth it otherwise they wouldn't agree to release on Game Pass -they could wait for a few months before considering Game Pass and maximise their sales potential but obviously Game Pass is a better option otherwise they wouldn't agree to it...
At the end of the day itās just uk boxed sale which doesnāt represent the rest of the world nor digital sales. Sony fan boys like to use this as argument against gamepass every chance they can get. The truth of the matter is if it was that detrimental to sales then publishers would stop doing it. Clearly thereās value in it as publishers/developers arenāt going to repeatedly do something thatās going to make them less money.
Well honestly, who still buys physical games in 2022? I stopped buying game discs a generation ago when they became little more than glorified extensions to DRM.
I'm so fed up with all the negativity for gamepass sales damage company's / the don't sell as much blah blah
It's working for them or they wouldn't put Thier games on game pass and it wouldn't have so many games on there it's not like Microsoft are forcing them to do it
So what Sony sell more physical games, say it all you want it's like celebrating u have to pay more than everyone else does,
It's a big win for me as a consumer not having to pay Ā£70 for a game I won't play again after I've completed it in a week
And I also don't buy physical anymore in fact most physical games I also own on digital
Well me and my group of friends use our xbox mainly as a BC machine and playing a new 1st party title with a free month of gamepass, everything is through playstation
Xbox is synonymous with gamepass, now. If rebellion were to skip out on gamepass, that's a lot of eyes/players they would miss out on. So it's good to take that upfront money, whilst selling on xbox, still and elsewhere. If gotg got $10m, I could see this getting about $8m, give or take, considering how well it is.
The narrative "gamepass might hurt sales" seems to forget the payment(s) the devs/pubs get, to put their game's on the gamepass. Also, whether the game's sales are 8% or 80%, a game on gamepass, still sells on xbox.
Would have bought it , if it weren't for gamepass, but then again will definitely buy it once it leaves the service, with discount, and will buy the dlc also.
To be fair the sniper elite 5 game sucked š¤¦ stupid ai enemies, glitches where your running and floating etc, no ammo ... So glad I didn't pay money for this game won't be playing until it's patched
to those talking about Sniper Elite 5 selling way more on ps5, well seems about right consideing Elite 4 sold 2-3 times as much on ps and that wasnt a day 1 release on gamepass yet it still sold more then 2-1 on ps and was 80% of all physical sales were on ps....cant blame that on gamepass... Xbox users dont buy physical as much as ps users....also they announced elite 5 day 1 gamepass, so why in the hell would you buy a game you know is coming to gamepass.... ie last year i bought mlb the show this year i did not, cause i knew it was coming to gamepass....so i spent some money on stubs 1st time i ever spent money on stubs but cause the game was free i didnt care.
The fact that we're half way through the year, and this has been the best on gamepass so far is pretty shocking imo, game pass drying up...
@sjbsixpack Xbox pays an amount for the contract, or to actually get the game on Game Pass.
Naturally what they do is they increase the pay depending on downloads. At least that's what I've heard but I might be wrong.
@TheSilverFalcon might be a while. SE 4 is still on.
@BAMozzy it depends on the estimated sales of a game. Game Pass can be a great deal for devs as it guarantees them a return. If the game flunks they still get paid. The only reason Sony donāt put day 1 releases in PS+ is because the hit would be huge. Much bigger than the hit Microsoft take. PS exclusives often sell 20+ million copies, no way could they make that back putting it on PS+.
@BBB Same... But i do admit that it was a lot of fun comparing the pre-order bonuses between Target, Best Buy, Amazon, Gamestop and other places to try and find the best pre-order bonus and the one i liked the most.
@sjbsixpack
Only a handful of PS Exclusives have ever hit the 20 million mark, spiderman , gow and horizon zero dawn, so not that often.
And GoW is definitely coming to PS+ something (2018 version of course)
@TheSilverFalcon Uncharted 4, The last of Us. Quite a few hitting 10-15 million too.
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