While the sales of single player titles Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment have been a little more muted, Xbox Game Studios’ two live service titles are selling like crazy on PS5, giving Microsoft all the incentive it needs to port more titles to Sony’s system. Originally, the Redmond firm’s multiformat release strategy was billed as an “experiment”, but there was promise more titles would follow if sales remained strong. CEO Satya Nadella was certainly optimistic about the early indications.
PS5 tops hardware yet again
And now we have some hard data from the United States, which suggests the strategy has been successful. Sea of Thieves, the 2018 sea-faring foray from legendary UK developer Rare, rocketed 49 places in the US best-sellers list for April on the back of its PS5 launch, anchoring itself to fourth position behind just Stellar Blade, Helldivers 2, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. It was the third best-selling PlayStation game of the month.
Obsidian’s co-op escapade Grounded enjoyed similar success, jumping from 167th position the month prior all the way up to 12th place. This game also launched on Nintendo Switch, but was the ninth best-selling PlayStation game for the month. It didn’t appear in Nintendo’s respective top ten.
All of this suggests there’s a huge market for Xbox Game Studios titles on PS5, despite these being late ports. It’s not hard to imagine how well tentpole series like Gears of War, Forza Horizon, and Halo would perform on PlayStation platforms, but it remains to be seen whether Microsoft will pull the trigger. The last word we heard is that nothing is out of the question, but until announcements are actually made, this all remains conjecture for the time being.
As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time
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