Game Pass vs. PlayStation Plus: Gotham Knights surges higher on Xbox

Xbox Game Pass Leads To Huge 'Player Engagement' Spike For Gotham Knights

"The initial surge on PS+ did not match that of GP"

Gotham Knights was a pretty major Xbox Game Pass drop last month - sure, the game didn't get the best reception at launch, but a relatively new 'Batman' game is always going to make a splash on Game Pass - and that it seemingly has!

As posted out by Circana's Mat Piscatella (NPD), 6% of all tracked Xbox Series X|S players tried out Gotham Knights when it was first added to the Game Pass library last month. That's compared to a measly 0.3% before its arrival.

Interestingly, the game also went to 'PlayStation Plus Extra' later that month - and its addition there didn't have as much of an overall impact on the PlayStation platform. The two ecosystems have now evened out in regards to Gotham Knights players, but Xbox Game Pass seemingly had a bigger impact on arrival.

What say you fellow SW friends? Are you surprised by these results? Did any of you try this game when it became available on these services?

Lems enjoy shovelware more than others?🤷‍♂️

Cows too busy enjoying the critically acclaimed and loved Spider-Man 2. Sheep enjoying the amazing Super Mario Wonder. Lems looking for whatever they can in the GamePass catalogue

So gamepass players are so starved for content they will literally play trash. Noted

And I'll never take GamePass engagement numbers seriously again

Wouldn’t mind checking it out myself but honestly there’s much better stuff on Game Pass that I’d rather play. Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name and Wild Hearts both just came out yesterday for the service. Dead Space Remake was excellent.

Read this the other day, pretty interesting. I already beat it a couple months ago on my PS5. Bottom line, if you can play it for free or cheap, it’s not bad. Yea, 30fps is a joke, and the reality is it’s the devs fault, lack of skill. There is an ideological decision that had no reason to be in the game, again, political devs that couldn't help themselves. Can’t beat free though on Game Pass right now.

And you complained about fanboying. That irony is off the charts with your post here. 😂

I forgot about that game. I will give it a shot since it is on Gamepass. Thanks for the reminder.👍🏽

@SolidGame_basic: And now? Since you posted that 30 min ago, there cows have now finished Spider-Man 2. :-P

The problem I found with the game, is that the Arkham series has established the gameplay we expect. So it’s not a welcome change to do it like this.

I mean, if they wanted to make a change like this, they would need to change the style a lot more so I wouldn’t associate anything in particular with the game, I wouldn’t have an expectation with it.

It’s like with Wind Waker, but that was the opposite with the graphics but with the same gameplay.

Phil just knows what the gamers want, he is one.

I tried playing it on PS+ because I loved the Arkham games. This game is garbage. It's amazing how much lower quality it is then games that came out a decade ago. It feels like it was originally trying to be a GAAS title.

GamePass is where mid games thrive. :)

True

True

Xbox and uncle Phil are simply unstoppable.

I refuse to even compare Gamepass with PlayStation Plus, since the former has infinitely better value.

This topic feels like a stealth troll. The low hanging fruit makes it too easy

PlayStation users have good games to play. Why would they play this trash? All the scraps like this go to Xbox. No thanks.

Does it? PS+ Premium has better exclusives, equivalent or better general titles (indie, AA, etc), and it's like $45 less expensive than GamePass, yearly.

So you like inferior services.🤷🏽‍♂️

Probably because Playstation owners buy games more than rent them..

@Pedro: Worse? Nash. That’s nonsense Microsoft advertising propaganda. The only people who say that are lems who don’t have access to both. Psplus has better games and is a fair bit less expensive.

I have access to both and PS+ is an inferior offering. Now, what is your spin.🤔

I have both systems and I get more value from Game Pass. 🤷‍♂️

@Pedro: There's no way to spin it. When you compare the games, psplus is objectively better and less expensive.

I have both and I get more value from Game Pass as well. I actually canceled my ps+ with the price increase because I no longer saw the value. I may resubscribe when they get some first party games I want to play but don't own on there. I've stopped buying Sony's 1st party games in anticipaion of playing them on PS+. For now, Game Pass is better with day 1 releases and 3rd party games for me. Plus MS has a lot of games announced in the pipeline all coming to Game Pass. Sony is being radio silent on upcoming games and they aren't day one on their service.

I respect other people's opinion though.

You are using the word objectively but incorrectly.🤷🏽‍♂️

Long ass intro for this game.

It's competing with Spiderman 2 and well, that didn't work well on PS5.

So is the game any fun? What does it play like, an Arkham game?

Don't care if it's a flop or not, fun is fun.

Did you ever get to it? Kind of curious about it.

Ah I guess that answers that question haha.

Yeah not sure what's up with these intros sometimes. Feel like you can play some of these games for five hours before the "intro credits" roll

Its obvious, Xbox been training lems to like gamepass mediocre offerings so they more receptive to bad products like gotham knights than PS+ users.

Actually bothered to download gotham knights 2-3 days ago as its one of ps+ highlighted titles. Played till reach clocktower, uninstalled. I really think it needed a 60fps patch the game felt really sluggish.

🐄🐃🐂 taking this news as well as expected..

I'm going to speculate perhaps a contributing factor in disparities between subscription service usage between Game Pass and PS Plus Extra/Premium could in some part be attributed to prevailing fanboy community attitudes toward the very idea of them to begin with.

Microsoft years back set a strong posture toward promoting Game Pass as a more central component of its identity within a larger UWP gaming ecosystem, and its fans championed this idea and celebrate this new direction. Of course, warring gaming communities being as they are (in this case PlayStation fanboys) have to take an antithetical position to Xbox's pivot to flip the script, and have resisted recognizing Game Pass's value to such a degree that there seems to be a firmly ingrained hostile repulsion to the very idea of a gaming subscription service cemented within PlayStation community.

Of course, Sony did see the light themselves, overhauled PS Plus and PS Now to be more like Game Pass with PS Plus Extra/Premium, and people are coming around to the idea more, slowly but surely.

Perhaps with Xbox gamers, having come around to adopting subscription services as part of their console experience, are more open to using it as a way to discover new exciting games to play, and the more it succeeds at doing so keeps pulling users back to discover that next satisfying fix it offers, with a diverse rotation of interesting titles to try out.

I don't think PlayStation users at large have come into the swing of Sony's service to utilize it like Xbox gamers do. In part because they haven't had it in its current state for as long as Game Pass has, and like I mentioned before, this is somewhat hindered by the prevailing fanboy attitudes toward subscription services within the PlayStation community.

When Game Pass first arrived, I was an early adopter. I didn't truly come to embrace it strongly until a couple years in where they started offering first party games on it day one. A large part of this had to do with they were adding a lot of good titles but it was almost always something I already bought. But there were still the few obscure titles to keep me using it. Eventually I slowly worked up to using it more and more as the offerings got better. I wouldn't buy as many games and it was keeping up keeping me engaged more and more.

Curious if perhaps PS gamers at large could be where I was with Game Pass before I decided to go deeper into using the subscription service. They are just too hung up to embracing it for all it offers. Like where I was, perhaps some of the most stand out games it offers are things people already own, and haven't hit their stride exploring the library, finding that new satisfying experience, and exploring new games to play.

Now, I don't want to say this is perhaps the only reason we see such a disparity in users playing Gotham Knights between the two services, stands ro reason there could be other factors at work, but I can't rule it out as a significant contribution factor either.

All PS has is trash 🙁 Then look at the floundering PS Plus. The games on there are just filler, dumpster fires at each end 😖

@kvallyx: Most of the entire catalog for both game pass and PS plus are filler. They have to be. It would be insanely expensive otherwise. The point, however, is that filler is pretty much the same. The important difference is the exclusive content available on both, and that content is currently much better on PS plus premium, and it's a good $40 per year cheaper than game pass ultimate. One day Microsoft may overtake Sony with exclusive content, but that's definitely not now. There's no way halo, Forza, ori, and gears even compares to Spider-Man, God of war, bloodborne, horizon, and uncharted. We already have most Bethesda titles and doom eternalon PS plus.

Content on Game Pass is SUBSTANTIALLY better than that on PS Plus.

Complete nonsense. Not possible. Both services offer 400+ games, with most being the same. $40 less per year and you get much better exclusives with psplus premium. Clearly you're just pushing the Gamepass is better propaganda that MS has been paying for the past few years. Maybe one day IF MS gets better exclusives, but not today. PSPlus is the better value with better games. No way around it, my guy!

Gonna have to 110% disagree with your opinion. Game Pass is hands down is hand over fist better than PS Plus. It’s actually not even close. All good in the hood.

As a manticore I am pushing them to both be the best that they can. You too should not accept mediocre from Sony. Be better and accept no less.

Why would us cows play a flop known as Gotham knight , when we have Spider-Man 2 😂

I guess Starfield was that bad that lems are playing a better flop ( Gotham knights )

The problem is, we all finished Spider-Man 2 in 7 hours a couple weeks ago. Now we have to wait another 12 months before we get a game. Gotham is all that we have.

@daredevils2k: It is a shame you didn't get the game.🤷‍♂️

GP also had a substantially more severe drop in engagement. Check out that dip. Not even going to mention the double dip phenomena. Misleading title and post aside, I'm not really interested in the game at this point.

Game Pass keeps making profits for devs! Day one!

@kvallyx: If I was a concerned person I would be creating a thread on this tragedy.🤭

I wonder why they haven't ?!?!?

Xbox Won

@Pedro, any concerns that you can think of?

Gamepass delivering The Games and the butthurt!

JUMP IN!

or cry harder.