Square Enix: Outriders on Game Pass at Launch Worked in Our Favor - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 July 2021 / 1,709 Views
Square Enix believes the decision to launch the co-op RPG shooter, Outriders, on Xbox Game Pass on day one worked in their favor as it helped build an install base of players. Outriders is one of two high-profile third-party games, the other game is MLB The Show 21, to launch on Xbox Game Pass on day one in 2021 so far.
"In regards to the response to Outriders, while there were slight issues with bugs and the like on launch, we believe it has gotten off to a good start as a new IP," said Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda during the company's full year financial results call with investors. The comments from Matsuda are from May 13, but were only published in English today and reported by VideoGamesChronicle.
"In addition, we have been pleasantly surprised as the digital sales ratio for the title have been very high, and the number of active users has also beaten our expectations," Matsuda added. "We believe that our decision to make Outriders available with Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass as soon as the title launched also worked in our favor."
Outriders had surpassed 3.5 million unique players worldwide in its first month.
"With over 3.5 million unique players, average play times of over 30 hours and extremely high engagement for co-operative play, we and the amazing team at People Can Fly are so excited with this initial success," said Square Enix External Studios co-head of studio Jon Brooke at the time.
Outriders launched for the Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, Xbox Game Pass for Console and Cloud, and Google Stadia on April 1.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I'm very glad I played it on Game Pass because the game is still a buggy mess and definitely not worth full price.
I am currently playing it and so far I haven't seen any bugs. Just screen tearing during cutscenes
They've patched a lot of major bugs like inventories getting wiped but I often still get crashes.
Ah okay. I hope I don't get them! I am currently playing it on series x as its on gamepass. Thanks for letting me know
I'm playing on One X so that might explain why you haven't seen the same bugs.
That’s so weird as when I played it on release the only thing I had an issue was when I joined a game with someone on another console. When I played with my other mates all on series x we all had a blast n definitely for us worth the money but we all got game pass 😂
I played on One X so that's probably why I had so many bugs. It's improved but still has a lot of issues.
Newly released average games deserve to be on gamepass day one
Played and beat it. Enjoyed it overall. Story was not good and neither was the dialogue, but the gameplay kept me going. The weapons/armor is well thought out and I liked how it didn't have annoying microtransactions. I would give it a 7.5/10. If they add compelling content, I might jump in again.
glad got to try before buy because i didn't like it
Here is what I would argue then. A company that has no issue putting games day 1 on GamePass should have no issues putting it on PS+ right? What’s to stop them? Sony? Square-Enix? I mean you can still offer the physical copy at retail or buy full price on digital. I’m curious what impact it would have on Sony to do this?
Game Pass games can be taken off by the publisher whenever, whereas as long as you have PlayStation Plus, you can play the game forever... so if they took it off Game Pass after a month, people who enjoyed it would need to buy it to continue playing, whereas PlayStation Plus users would just keep it for free forever. I'm not saying that IS the reason, but it could potentially be a factor...
I see, so realistically PS Now would probably be the most comparable option since some games stay while others go.
Yeah pretty much, and I really think if Sony ever want to compete with Game Pass they're really gonna' need to beef up their PlayStation Now content and quality of service.
Not only beef up content but also beef up the price.
Game Pass is $120 a year, Game Pass Ultimate is $180 a year.
PS Now is $60. And people wonder how MS is making money off Game Pass? With a $60 subscription, you're never going to get these games at launch.
I think it might have to do with the payment systems of how they both work
Typically these PS+/Now/Gold/GamePass deals come with stipulations that you can’t put the game on other services for a set amount of time. I forget the game but in the Apple v Epic leaks we also saw Sony including stipulations that companies not out their games on GamePass for a set amount of time after it releases. I’m sure they all have language like that.
So just because they were able to make a deal for GamePass, doesn’t mean they would have been able to also make a deal for others. No different than how Netflix v Hulu or Prime works. But don’t be surprised if soon after Outriders leaves GamePass, it shows up on Now or PS+.
The outriders deal was probably tens of millions of dollars plus revenue sharing from gamepass use.
