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Sea Of Thieves is the best-selling digital game in Europe and third in America-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro
Xbox has had its first big success on the PlayStation 5 and it’s likely that could have a significant influence on their future plans.
Sea Of Thieves is a multiformat hit (Xbox Game Studios)
Xbox has had its first big success on the PlayStation 5 and it’s likely that could have a significant influence on their future plans.
This has undoubtedly been one of the worst weeks ever for Xbox, in terms of public perception. And given the memory of the Xbox One unveil still looms like a shadow over everything they do, that’s not a thing to be said lightly.
Nevertheless, there has been one very positive piece of news from them this week, that may prove just as influential. Thanks to the newly released PlayStation 5 version, Sea Of Thieves has become the best-selling paid-for digital game in Europe during April, and the third best selling in the US and Canada.
That’s not entirely surprising, as it was the most pre-ordered PlayStation 5 game for a while, but it means it beat the Sony published Helldivers 2 and Stellar Blade in Europe – although not in North America.
The sales data comes straight from Sony themselves, while the unofficial tracker for the top 100 games of the last 30 days on PSN suggests that Sea Of Thieves is at number 25. That’s impressive given it hasn’t been out for a full 30 days yet and most of the top 10 are free-to-play games.
Fellow Xbox live service game Grounded is the eighth highest-selling digital game in Europe and the ninth in the US and Canada. It’s 57th in the list of the most played games, after having been released on PlayStation 5 on April 16.
Single-player Xbox games Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment are not in either chart, although they were released in March and February, respectively.
Although Sea Of Thieves has been relatively popular since its Xbox exclusive launch in 2018, none of the four games made much impact on the system and even though Hi-Fi Rush is the most critically acclaimed of the four its developer, Tange Gameworks, was shut down this week.
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Much like the success of Helldivers 2 for Sony, it’s hard not to imagine this having a profound influence on Xbox’s future plans, as well as encouraging them to make more live service titles.
Rumours suggest that there is considerable disagreement within Microsoft over their multiformat policy, with some execs arguing in favour of releasing most or all games on PlayStation and Switch, and others trying to limit the number of titles that appear on rival systems.
The success of Sea Of Thieves will undoubtedly embolden those arguing for multiformat games, although it’s hard to say whether Microsoft is likely to announce more at the Xbox Games Showcase in June.
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MORE : Why I’m still playing Sea Of Thieves six years later – Reader’s Feature
MORE : Sea Of Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush among Xbox games confirmed for PS5 – but not all are coming to Switch
MORE : Sea Of Thieves has a second secret crossover and it’s a real blast from the past
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