'Game Pass Doesn't Lower Game Sales, Quite the Opposite,' Says Developer

Earlier this year, we wrote about Microsoft representatives admitting that Game Pass is not a good influenece on game sales. Later there was a correction from their side, saying that each game is a separate case and the earlier statement does not necessarily apply to all. A kind of confirmation of this is a recent statement by the creator of Everspace 2. who stated, that his game sold better due to its presence in Microsoft's subscription service.

Source: DaveOshry on Twitter.

The information cited in the above post is based on statements made by the developer, who appeared at the Reboot Develop Blue conference. He shared statistics on sales of the second Everspace as part of early access. One of the slides (published by a conference attendee - the founder of New Blood Interactive) shows information on sales of this game from April 1, 2021 to January 31, 2023. According to the director of Rockfish Games, the results were so good precisely because of Game Pass. More precise data was unfortunately not presented.

This partly stands in contrast to what is mentioned above, but here again we return to the statement that each case must be treated separately. The fact that Everspace 2 sold better due to its presence in the subscription does not mean that developers of the other games were as lucky. The subscription may seem unprofitable, since its purpose is to be self-sustaining - unlike Nintendo's subscriptions, it does not boost console sales, and thus does not particularly favor the Xbox brand. Such a conclusion appeared in a recent DFC Intelligence report.

Finally, let me remind you that Everspace 2 came out of the early access phase on April 6. Currently, the game is available only on PC, but in August it is also expected to appear on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S - but we do not know the exact release date.

1. Everspace 2 - official website