According to the NPD, which tracks games sales in the United States, Outriders still managed to garner high sales on PlayStation and Xbox consoles despite launching day-and-date on Xbox Game Pass. A prevailing theory suggests that more companies becoming comfortable with rolling out their AAA titles day one on Game Pass will eventually prove detrimental to the industry at-large. Evidently, the likes of Microsoft and Square Enix do not agree.
Outriders, of course, counts as an interesting case study in this regard. It's a brand-new IP from a studio, People Can Fly, that hasn't released an original title of its own since Bulletstorm - a first-person shooter developed in conjunction with Epic Games. As an online-only project, Outriders runs the risk of becoming lost in the shuffle of its looter-shooter, shared-world counterparts. So perhaps Game Pass was a no brainer for publisher Square Enix, which has already suffered the slings and arrows of a disappointing live-service launch with Marvel's Avengers.
Early data indicates Xbox Game Pass isn't hurting Outriders sales too severely on either PlayStation or Xbox. As reported by NPD analyst Mat Piscatella, Outriders' successful April 1 launch secured it a spot as the third best-selling game in the US for the month of March. (Piscatella noted that NPD follows the retail calendar; the March retail month lasts from February 28 to April 3.) People Can Fly's latest shooter sat at number three for the month's best platform sales on the PlayStation and Xbox charts, Piscatella revealed. In terms of sales across all platforms, Outriders only lost out to Black Ops Cold War and the wildly successful Monster Hunter: Rise.
This data shows that with less than a week on the market, Outriders managed to move the needle on the sales charts quite considerably. It's not only selling well on PlayStation hardware either; Xbox players are buying the third-person shooter in droves, too, despite its availability through the incredibly popular Game Pass subscription service.
Xbox Game Pass will no doubt become the topic of conversation when April's NPD sales data goes live in mid-May. MLB The Show 21 is coming to the service day-and-date on Tuesday, April 20, while also costing $60 and $70 on PS4 and PS5, respectively.
Outriders is playable now on the PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S platforms.