Talking Point: How Often Do You Pre-Order Games For Xbox?

Never pre order games...if I want a game on release day I just buy it on release day

I mostly wait for sales to buy games these days. There's rare occasions I'll do a preorder for something I know I'm absolutely playing and want to hook it into my veins budget for it in advance, because there's no real difference to buying it release day or 2 weeks ahead of time, so why not. Soul Hackers 2 comes to mind which I preordered a week and a half in advance and started up at midnight launch just to see, but that's because I know I love Atlus and the first cult classic SH game. I can't remember the last thing I preordered on XB. Or PS or that matter. On Switch I preorder often because there's no difference paying $60 today for XC3 and Splatoon 3 or paying $60 in 2043 for the same games and Switch takes 2 hours to download a 20GB game with 10 timeouts and restarts while Xbox/PS take 10 minutes to download a 120GB game.

Sometimes I pre order for the bonuses. Mostly CoD and Destiny expansions. I more or less know what I’m getting into with those.

I've learned long ago that the risk of buying a poorly made game far outweighs the preorder benefits most games offer. It's the perks of digital items; I can watch or read any reviews I want and then decide to purchase a game instantly. The company-made urgency to buy the game before release is no longer a factor.

I preorder here and there, mostly for the pre order bonuses and games I know which I will like. At the moment hogwarts legacy is the only game I have in preorder, because I know I will enjoy my time in it. And if a new Yakuza game launches it will be an instant pre order as well they always deliver bug free and good games. If I know a game will be to short for its price or may contain to many bugs I'll just wait

Never, the fact that people still got faith in the industry to do so baffles me. Alas it is the average consumer

If it's a game i really want to play, I'll pre order it physically..

@Cherip-the-Ripper what baffles me is that some people think that every game launches like cyberpunk or Saints row, those are exceptions not the rule. I never had any problem with a preorder

So i only play gamepass games but if you're not a physical collector of limited editions i don't understand why anyone would pre order a game. The last few years have shown that games are launching in poor conditions so i wouldn't give anyone a penny until they prove it's a finished product.

I rarely pay full price for a game and haven't pre-ordered in probably 7+ years. I buy most games for $20 about 6 months after release. Same gaming budget 3x as many games.

The last game I preordered was GTA: SA for ps2.

Never. The last have of the 360s life cycle taught me to never pre-order.

There are very few exceptions to this of course, like say anything from From Software.

The only thing I've preordered was Far Cry 6 gold edition....never again will I pre order

I'm all digital now, so never. There's simply no need.

I don’t preorder often but I do pre-install quite a bit to play games Day One on GamePass!

I only pre-order to support certain niche games or remasters/remakes that take a long time to thrive, such as Project Zero/Fatal Frame, Sonic Origins... And I go for the deluxe editions to support further these projects.

I learnt not to pre order since watch dogs legion

If I know I am gonna buy it. I will preorder 3-4 days out from release to grab the bonuses. That is pretty rare though.

@Bruvas same but I got my money back a week after release.

I probably haven't pre-order a game since the 360/PS3 generation. It's been so long I can't even remember. I usually wait for a few patches before I buy it

@Markatron84 Exactly. No need to have to decide a week before so it will show up on release day

@Lavalera never would've thought the day would come where someone would put Saints Row in the same bracket as Cyberpunk 🥲
I've had way too many negative experiences with day one gamepass releases to wanna pre-order any game, the QOL features added later on are unmissable imo.
But I'm glad you never got let down, hope that Hogwarts pre-order works out 👀

@SplooshDmg LOL. Yeeeahh.....
"An error occurred downloading software".
"An error occurred downloading software"
4minutes.
15 minutes.
99 minutes.
2 minutes.
99 minutes.
43 minutes.
"An error occurred downloading software"
57 minutes.
"An error occurred downloading software"

There's many things to love about Switch. Many things to not love about Switch. But for the love of Hylia, how can it be THAT bad at downloading anything?!

I used to pre-order games all the time. These days, I have learned to never pre-order them.

Pre-ordering games is just wasting money for me. I have a substantial backlog of games to play. It makes much more sense for me to wait until the games drop in price.

The one exception I would probably make is the sequel to BOTW. I might be willing to preorder that if there was some reason to do so.

I would pre-order more Xbox titles if they released them physically, especially indie titles, Japanese titles (Persona!) and hits from medium / smaller studios. I like the limited / collector's editions that are just like $10-30 more (not the $100+ options) but there aren't that many options when compared to Nintendo. Wish they used LRG more. For most Xbox titles as they stand, digital is fine, but I'll definitely want copies of exclusives like Starfield, Elder Scrolls VI, Fable, Redfall, Gears, etc. Hoping they make some nice packaging for those bad boys.

"I don't always pre-order games, but when I do, it's Sonic."

• @Banjo-

@StylesT this is the way.

@NEStalgia 🤣 Imagine what I will do when Banjo-Kazooie is announced.

Between DLC road maps and broken games at launch, it's pointless buying a game within the first year of launch. I mean, look at games like Halo and Cyberpunk.

You never know when you are going to get dumped with a lemon or not, and even when you get lucky and it's not, the dev usually ends up tweaking and adding to the game.

Best to wait, know exactly what it is you are buying, and get the full experience first time round.

@Cherip-the-Ripper How I wish I wouldn't have to put Saints row there. I absolutely love Sr 3 and 4 and was hoping this one would be good, there were just to many red flags. From what I see it's mostly the big open world games that come with the biggest bugs so I tend to stay away from those at launch. If I look at the games I preorder it's mostly in the jrpg genre and those from my experience are finished when they are released . So I know there are games that launch broken and it's sad to hear people like you have bad experience with it. Your first post seemed so generalizing and negative to people who do pre order, that's why I had to react since not everyone has bad experiences or take them and enjoy the game anyways.

I only preorder Nintendo games. The prices seldom dip much and the quality is usually pretty good.

I'm all digital, so there's no point in pre-ordering when I can wait for reviews and download instantly when I've made an informed decision.

Last game I pre-ordered was Elden Ring, and that was after all the 10/10 reviews came out. I figured it would be nice to have it with some pre-order goodies. I usually will only preorder for a very special game, which will be very rare.

Depends on the game, what edition and what bonus is included.

For games (usually jrpg) that come with a art book or art cards for pre ordering, then you bet I'm pre ordering.

Then digitally some games like soul hackers give you bonus story content or side quests which you can't get with the physical edition, so il be pre ordering games off the store if the bonus is good.

And finally for any limited/collectors editions I buy I will pre order them as I don't know if they will be out of stock once the game releases.

If by pre ordering a game you get absolutely nothing, no bonus dlc content or physical pre order items then I see absolutely no reason you would need to pre order, you may as well buy it day one.

BUT, the main reason people pre order games is so that they get it delivered day one, especially with less and less people actually going to stores to buy games, people now rely heavily on online stores amazon, shopto, base etc so to get the game the day it releases they HAVE to pre order it.

I never pre order games and find if I end up buying them day one or weeks later from game or Amazon that the pre order bonuses are usually included anyway

Digital preorders seem daft to me. Stock won't exactly be an issue, and games often need umpteen post release patches before they're even playable these days.

Buying games digitally means there's no point in pre-ordering. Back in the physical release only days pre-orders made sense because if you pre-ordered the game would be $10 cheaper than after release and each store usually had limited copies.

I do t think I ever pre-ordered a game on Xbox. Even if I preorder one I do it just a couple of days before release to have the 15% discount but already knowing more about the game. The exception are JRPGs (mostly on switch) that tend to be hard to find around here if not preordered

Elden ring was the first game I pre-ordered, digitally, on xbsx. Got some points from a punch card and had some leftover reward points.

But yeah, I normally wait for sales. Game prices drop so quickly, sometimes. I went through my games and found tlou2, resident evil 2 remake and some others, still wrapped in plastic. So ive learned to wait, play my backlog and beat some games, til the price drops.

In general, I pre-order Nintendo games (since sales aren't worth waiting for, and because I tend to be more excited for those) and wait for everything else to fully depreciate in price over time.

Atlus JRPGs were on that first list with Nintendo stuff from 2014 - 2022. They had a good run for me.

The last game I pre-ordered was Diablo 2, i seldom pre-order, theres no point most of the time.

I preorder games for my Series S all the time, did it with Elden Ring, Evil Dead, The Quarry, Cult of the Lamb, Temtem, Dakar Desert Rally, Ghostbusters, CoD MW2, Gotham Knights, Callisto Protocol, Devil In Me and Dead Island 2, i was going to buy all those games on release day regardless so i get the preorder bonus for free.

I never pre-order games. They're all digital now so if I did want one then I'd buy it when I wanted to play it (say it was out on Thursday, but I don't have time to play until Saturday).

Even if it's a company you love with a great track record you don't know if it could be a bad game, or have a botched launch for technical issues (overloaded servers, etc.).

If you HAVE to get the pre-order bonuses (you really don't) then wait for the pre-launch reviews (NOT the previews) to see if it's actually any good first, and then "Pre-order" it the day before release. Are there no pre-launch reviews? Then that's a red flag, and don't order it.

The last game I pre-ordered (many years ago now) was a PC strategy game from a good developer, experienced publisher, the previous game in the series was really good, and I was hyped.

On release it was literally unplayable for 2 days as the executable was bugged so you couldn't launch it, when that was fixed it was practically unplayable for around a month as it would crash constantly, and certain parts of the game weren't even there. I uninstalled and never properly played it out of disgust. Sadly that was before the days of Steam refunds.

I never use pre-order digital, If i love a game I get physical disc, and then if i I have further don't want it, I could get some get money back by selling it.

I used to pre-order most games to get Steel books and other 'collectables' in the Franchises I enjoyed, opting to buy other games in sales after launch.

However, with more and more games releasing 'too soon', before they are 'ready' to be playable and 'worth' the price, and the massive list of games I can play 'free' on Game Pass, I have basically stopped pre-ordering. Games I can play for Free seem pointless to pre-order - for maybe some free 'cosmetics' and the rest are not worth the 'price' knowing I can wait until they are patched, completed (as some games are incomplete at launch and build up the rest of the game over the next year or two) and of course much cheaper too.

Pre-ordering/Buying games was much more 'important' to me when I only had the games I'd bought in my Back Catalogue. With Game Pass, I can always find something I want to play at 'no' cost over something I have to pay £60+ for up front before I know if its something I'll enjoy and get my 'moneys worth', get 'value' from. Therefore, I have basically stopped Pre-ordering because until its released, you don't really know if its worth the 'Launch' price or better to wait for patches, content drops and the inevitable price drops...

Following Tiny Tina's Wonderlands... Never again.

If i know for cert the game will be fantastic i pre order. Games like Uncharted, TLOU, God of War, Spiderman, Miles, Red Dead, GTA.

I never preorder digital games and I only buy digital on Xbox. I can buy them day one if I know I’ll play them, else I either wait for a sale or for the day I have time to play the game.

I only preorder some physical games I really feel I must own in plastic form, and that’s almost always for switch. I tend to also just wait on those games for a sale unless I have a hunch the game will be niche and likely only get one printing.