It’s good to hear that they finally fixed it. It seems that it has become a common tactic, do aggressive monetisation, to see how much people are willing to put up with, and then reduce it to that level. So many games seem to be doing that.
Well, Mario has kind of a general appeal, so I won’t call it a niche (and it was in 12th with just physical sale). And Pikmin 4 also sold over 2 Million in just first month or so, IIRC, though not sure if that’s enough for being a top seller in a year like the one we just had.
Also, Tears of the Kingdom was on 5th overall sales, and that’s only with the physical sales. Don’t know the actual number difference between 1st and 5th, but with digital added, it could’ve at least entered top 3, if not gone for 1st.
While that might be true, 2023 was an year filled with great games and yet Hogwarts Legacy is first, and Call of Duty is 2nd.
As for notable games of the year that weren’t flop (in no particular order):
Spider-Man 2
Baldur’s Gate 3
Diablo IV
FF 16
Armored Core 6
Street Fighter 6
Alan Wake 2
Not to mention:
Resident Evil 4 Remake
Dead Space Remake
They may not be to your taste, but they all rated very highly. I haven’t included any Nintendo games, cause they don’t share digital data. Their numbers are based only on physical sales.
First of all, not here to defend Ubisoft, I completely agree about not trusting them to do what’s good for gamers.
So, my point was, everything said in this interview, is pretty much same thing you will hear from any “head of subscription” of any company. I think MS is currently the most aggressive one, with their Gamepass. Keep in mind this interview is specifically about their subscription service, and the changes they made it isn’t about anything else. Sony is currently (or well last I read about it) most defensive with subscription, often talking about how it’s bad for the industry, but if you ask whoever is incharge of PS+, and ask them, what needs to happen before subscription will really take off, he would probably say the same thing.
As for closing down of online servers, it’s always sad when that happens. That’s a valid reason to blame a company, but pretty much all companies do that. As a patient gamer, I don’t even remember how many times I have come across a game where I would find out you can’t get all trophies because online servers have shut down. So, all companies should be blamed for this.
I don’t know why everyone is so angry at this comment. The question was about what will it take for subscriptions to increase and become dominant in industry, the guy answered that. The interview was with the guy about Ubisoft’s subscription service, what else people expected?
If anyone talks to the guy in-charge of Gamepass, and they ask them how will gamepass increase, they wont’ say, well, if everyone keeps buying physical, that will be great for us.