The Xbox Games Showcase & Starfield Direct 2023 was conducted on Sunday, with lots to digest for fans and pundits. It provided news on Fable, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, and Clockwork, among others, helping the event become the most popular in terms of average online viewers among the four editions held so far.
There were also updates on Obsidian's long-awaited fantasy RPG, Avowed, a showcase trailer for the much-anticipated Starfield, and a reveal of Ubisoft's Star Wars Outlaws. With so much happening, here’s a breakdown of this exhibition show in terms of viewership stats.
The Xbox Games Showcase & Starfield Direct 2023, a one-day event, hit a solid 2.3M Peak Viewers. As already mentioned, it benefitted massively from the disclosures and new trailers of some highly-sought after video games from developers who have cultivated prominent reputations across the years.
The video game conference also did 3.9 Hours Watched and 1.9M Average Viewers over an airtime of two hours. All of these main metrics were an ever-so-slight improvement on the previous year’s edition, the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase 2022.
There were 27 games shared overall — of which 21 will be available for the Xbox Game Pass and/or PC Game Pass — at the Xbox Games Showcase. Meanwhile, Starfield Direct offered fans unprecedented access to Bethesda Game Studios’ first new universe in more than 25 years.
When looking at the chat stats, a total of 2.2M messages were shared, which included 249K active chatters. This was done across a whopping 620 Twitch channels, with the overall number of handles across various broadcasting platforms live streaming this showcase being an incredible 714.
Regarding the top Twitch channels with the highest interactions with their audiences, Spanish streamer BaityBait came out on top with a pretty awesome 37.3% engagement rate. Someone who usually streams in the Just Chatting and Special Events genres, he made full use of the Xbox Games Showcase & Starfield Direct 2023 to gain 2.4K followers and ensure the broadcast entered the top four all-time list in all three metrics.
Next was JVindahouse with an engagement rate of 35.2% over 10K messages shared and 882 active chatters. Having spent the majority of his time on the purple platform covering Special Events, it is a testament to his quality and regularity that the Spaniard was able to engage such a high number of watchers.
Rounding off the podium was GigaBoots, who maxed out at an engagement rate of 29.4%. The American is another known for his streams that focus on Special Events, Retro, and Talk Shows & Podcasts, so his getting such high numbers is not unexpected.
This top five list has some pretty heavy-duty names, led by two games from the legendary Persona franchise sharing the top spot: Persona 3 Reload and Persona 5 Tactica. Both were announced yesterday, and that got the fans buzzing and sharing their excitement about these video games across Twitch chats, reaching almost 15K mentions combined.
Starfield, Bethesda Softworks' next-generation role-playing game set amongst the stars, came in second with 13K mentions across channels. It is set for a September release, and with the hype and expectations surrounding the game, anything less than a stellar showing could prove to be disappointing.
It was followed by Fable — Playground Games and Xbox Game Studios’ fantasy RPG — which recorded 8K mentions and is set for a late 2023/early 2023 release. The last two entries in the top five — Payday 3 and Star Wars Outlaws — have no less scope in terms of hype, and fans can’t wait to get their hands on these titles.
When looking at all four Xbox Showcase events held so far, 2023’s version was the second most popular and watched, behind the 2021 event, which holds the record for both these metrics. Considering the latter was where Bethesda — then recently taken over by Microsoft — finally announced Starfield, apart from Microsoft revealing details about Halo Infinite, being atop this list is completely understandable.
However, this year’s iteration got the largest average concurrent viewership number, showing that the hype for it, especially with updates on huge titles like Starfield, Persona, and Star Wars, was pretty high. Looking at these stats, it is safety conclude that these showcase events have become much sought-after among fans and bring in some high numbers viewership-wise.
