Outriders’ Game Pass Launch Has Paid Off, According to Square Enix

Square Enix believes that the decision to launch Outriders on Xbox Game Pass has paid off in terms of bringing players to the game. Outriders launched on April 1st for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, and PC, but clearly the decision to put the game on Xbox Game Pass on day 1 paid off for the publisher. Outriders is one of the highest profile third-party games to launch on Xbox Game Pass to date.

“In regards to the response to Outriders, while there were slight issues with bugs and the like on launch, we believe it has gotten off to a good start as a new IP,” said Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda during the company’s full year financial results briefing, which happened on May 13th. While the comments appear to be old, they were only published in English today, and first reported by VGChronicle.

“In addition, we have been pleasantly surprised as the digital sales ratio for the title have been very high, and the number of active users has also beaten our expectations. We believe that our decision to make Outriders available with Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass as soon as the title launched also worked in our favor,” Matsuda added.

Given that Square Enix recently announced that Outriders passed 3.5 million players and that the company believes Outriders has the potential to become its next major franchise, this isn’t the most surprising news, but it probably won’t be the last time we see a major publisher launch a major release on Xbox Game Pass.