All purpose Sales and Sales Rumours and Anecdotes [2022 Edition]

[BRiT]

New Year, New Thread, probably some new sales or player engagement information available to discuss.

Old Thread @ https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...les-rumours-and-anecdotes-2021-edition.62288/

 

[BRiT]

I'm a little curious how the MTX income from some newly released F2P games are. The latest being a newly launched Yugi-Oh card battle game, which has a peak on Steam of 255K players.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1484909179584368640

 

[BRiT]

During the MS Q2 financial call, Satya Nadella revealed FH5 has over 18 million players and Halo Infinite has been played by more than 20 million.

“The big bets we have made across content, community and cloud over the past few years are paying off,” Nadella said. “We released new AAA titles this holiday to rave reviews and record usage. 18 million played Forza Horizon 5, and more than 20 million have played Halo Infinite, making it the biggest Halo launch in history.”

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1486112265854193671

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1486109690199252996

 

[zed]

I'm one of the 20 million that played halo infinite (got motion sick bad with it for some reason)
though I havent played forza horizon 5, I actually would like to play this, but unlike halo, I think you have to spend money right to play? i.e. buy gamepass or buy it outright
So if thats the case, anyone can download and play halo for free yet you have to spend money for forza then its forza thats done the much more impressive numbers

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Is "reached" played or downloaded? Because if I downloaded Forza it's reached me.

Why is Forza "reached" and Halo "played"? I hate marketing people, they are tricksy bastards.

 

[Nesh]

Is "reached" played or downloaded? Because if I downloaded Forza it's reached me.

Why is Forza "reached" and Halo "played"? I hate marketing people, they are tricksy bastards.

Same. I am disgusted with marketing talk. Its like the wooden speech of a politician. A half truth is a lie. A PR talk is a lie that is rewarded and embraced rather than boo'ed.

 

[zed]

I assume Satya Nadella just misspoke/wrote, I assume he meant played. He is the CEO and not concerned with games and also english aint his first language.
Reached doesnt really make sense with games or films or whatever.
star wars reached 5 billion ppl? vs star wars was watched by 5 billion ppl

 

[JPT]

I assume Satya Nadella just misspoke/wrote, I assume he meant played. He is the CEO and not concerned with games and also english aint his first language.
Reached doesnt really make sense with games or films or whatever.
star wars reached 5 billion ppl? vs star wars was watched by 5 billion ppl

Not that it matters in the big picture, but I doubt the ceo of MS misspeaks such things in such situations. Its not impossible, but very unlikely. I assume his grasp of english grammar etc is better than most less educated native speakers.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Not that it matters in the big picture, but I doubt the ceo of MS misspeaks such things in such situations. Its not impossible, but very unlikely. I assume his grasp of english grammar etc is better than most less educated native speakers.

CEOs of large corporations misspeak all the time. It's the bane of the PR department for many large corporations. If it ends up being something innocent, they'll neverously shrug it off and maybe laugh about it in a few months. If it's something more serious that causes public confusion (either investors, consumers in their target market, etc.) then it's serious go time as they scramble to fix any damage it has caused.

Most of the time PR departments want to be able to approve anything a CEO says, but that doesn't always happen. The CEO is the CEO and if they want to speak without PR department approval they will. Some CEO's are obviously worse about this than others. Just look at Bobby Kotick, he used to misspeak so much that years ago the board of directors basically banned him from speaking in public about Activision-Blizzard unless the PR department was involved. And so he mostly faded from the limelight until the recent troubles over at Activision-Blizzard. I can recall past CEOs of HP misspeaking at times and then PR either cleaning up their mess, or letting it go if not enough "important" people noticed.

Heck, even carefully crafted PR speeches aren't free of errors. Especially true if something has been lost in translation or just in the chain of information passing from one person to another to another from source to PR writer. Sometimes, context is lost in getting information from the source to the PR writer or CEO.

Then throw in that English, like many languages, is by its very nature imprecise, meaning it's very easy for different people to interpret what is said in different ways. Even interpreting the same word in different ways. Then throw in someone not being a native English speaker.

Regards,
SB

 

[BRiT]

Is "reached" played or downloaded?

I can't find the actual transcript to know if "reached" is merely Benji-Sale's words or Satya's words. Nearly all the other websites are saying "played" for Forza 5.

Here's an actual quote from CEO Satya Nadella (found in article @ https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertain...ongest-launch-in-franchise-history/ar-AAT8UyD ):

“The big bets we have made across content, community and cloud over the past few years are paying off,” Nadella said. “We released new AAA titles this holiday to rave reviews and record usage. 18 million played Forza Horizon 5, and more than 20 million have played Halo Infinite, making it the biggest Halo launch in history.”

So all the discussion around reached and played are because of Benji-Sales tweet and not the actual words of the CEO.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Nadella said. “We released new AAA titles this holiday to rave reviews and record usage. 18 million played Forza Horizon 5, and more than 20 million have played Halo Infinite, making it the biggest Halo launch in history.”

Excellent, that's much clearer. I dipped into FH5 but I burned out of driving games years ago. At least I didn't spent £60 on FH5 like I did with Dirt 5. I know I will love Halo Infinite when one morning my brains suggests "you should play an über space marine game."

 

[zed]

Not that it matters in the big picture, but I doubt the ceo of MS misspeaks such things in such situations. Its not impossible, but very unlikely. I assume his grasp of english grammar etc is better than most less educated native speakers.

of course he misspeaks, he is a human, not a robot.
The word reach is corporatebusiness speak, I assume what he uses often, 'we achieved/reached our targets/goals today'
the missive prolly was 18 million players have played forza, and he put it as we have reached the 18 million target or something.
dude the person is a human being, not a god, ppl are not always perfect.
At the end of the day its totally not important

he is the CEO of MS, thus he would not fuck up? laughable, MS have fucked up multiple times in the last decade, .........
dude yes he gets a lot more money than me or you but he aint like got god like smarts

 

[BRiT]

of course he misspeaks, he is a human, not a robot.
The word reach is corporatebusiness speak, I assume what he uses often, 'we achieved/reached our targets/goals today'
the missive prolly was 18 million players have played forza, and he put it as we have reached the 18 million target or something.
dude the person is a human being, not a god, ppl are not always perfect.
At the end of the day its totally not important

he is the CEO of MS, thus he would not fuck up? laughable, MS have fucked up multiple times in the last decade, .........
dude yes he gets a lot more money than me or you but he aint like got god like smarts

He did not misspeak in this situation. You're all making an issue out of someone's tweet of the topic instead of what was actually said. Maybe you need this reposted in larger font to see it?

Here's an actual quote from CEO Satya Nadella (found in article @ https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertain...ongest-launch-in-franchise-history/ar-AAT8UyD ):

“The big bets we have made across content, community and cloud over the past few years are paying off,” Nadella said. “We released new AAA titles this holiday to rave reviews and record usage. 18 million played Forza Horizon 5, and more than 20 million have played Halo Infinite, making it the biggest Halo launch in history.”

So all the discussion around reached and played are because of Benji-Sales tweet and not the actual words of the CEO.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

of course he misspeaks, he is a human, not a robot.

Senior executives rarely fire from the cuff because they are almost never experts - more so in massive companies. Comms is managed by a specific team. I've worked with Government press offices who perform the same function and it is a meticulous process of picking the right words, tone and level or detail for whatever message it is you're trying to send.

The word reach is corporatebusiness speak, I assume what he uses often, 'we achieved/reached our targets/goals today'

As BRiT posted, he didn't use "reach" at all, this was sloppy reporting. When reporting on what somebody said it's better to quote them verbatim. Embellishing, or trying to add colour almost never works out. Like here. It looks like a consistent then smart arses on my on the internet query why one word was used here and another word was used there.

It's generates unnecessary speculation and pointless noise.

 

[zed]

As BRiT posted, he didn't use "reach" at all, this was sloppy reporting.

yes I see now it was this guy that said it
https://twitter.com/benjisales?lang=en
his latest tweet, still using the word

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1486489180041629706

@BRiT hmmmm Im not making an issue in fact the opposite, if you actually read my message you see I'm diffusing(?sp) the issue, Im saying the word in this case is not important
@DSoup senior executives do 'fire from the cuff', dont place them on a pedestal
the only senior executive I can think of recently that didnt fire from the cuff were the richest man in the world, and the most powerful man in the world

 

[zed]

European GSD 2021 Top 20 Games (Digital + Physical)

Position Title
1 FIFA 22 (EA)
2 Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar)
3 FIFA 21 (EA)
4 Call of Duty: Vanguard (Activision Blizzard)
5 Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo)*
6 Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar)
7 Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (Nintendo)*
8 Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (Activision Blizzard)
9 Assassin's Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft)
10 Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Sony)
11 Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo)*
12 F1 2021 (EA/Codemasters)
13 Far Cry 6 (Ubisoft)
14 Minecraft: Switch Edition (Nintendo/Mojang)*
15 Pokémon Brilliant Diamond (Nintendo)*
16 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege (Ubisoft)
17 Resident Evil Village (Capcom)
18 Battlefield 2042 (EA)
19 Mario Party Superstars (Nintendo)*
20 Ring Fit Adventure (Nintendo)*
* Digital data unavailable

also 7.1 million consoles sold (not including UK & germany & some other countries)

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...minated-europe-in-2021-european-market-report

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Weird. Unlike other multiplatform titles, the European GSD report single SKU sales for Minecraft? I wonder what the reason for that would be? Also interesting that Europe loves GTA V far more than NA.

Regards,
SB

 

[Karamazov]

Just like in the game, nothing stops the GTA5 train.

 

[iroboto]

Weird. Unlike other multiplatform titles, the European GSD report single SKU sales for Minecraft? I wonder what the reason for that would be? Also interesting that Europe loves GTA V far more than NA.

Regards,
SB

NA has had it's fill. lol

 

[JPT]

NA has had it's fill. lol

Half the fun with GTA is the radio channels, every-time I get to go to the US, I rent a car and turn on the radio, its just like playing GTA

So of course europeans play it more