Where to play - largest remaining playerbase?

I guess this is kind of a tired topic but even so I haven't had any luck finding the exact answer to this question. I'm a little later to the party than I'd have liked already, but I want to buy Titanfall this weekend, and I could do so on the Xbox or PC. Everything else being equal, I'd probably pick Xbox because I expect the skill level required to be competitive is a bit lower, but I also remember hearing that the console had the worst sales of the three platforms it released on. Would anyone care to make a recommendation based on these considerations?

I think it's Xbox > PS4 > PC in that order. Both consoles seem to be doing well considering the overall sales (Xbox with slightly more fans from the first game most likely). I can't speak to the PC numbers firsthand. Regardless of platform the Networks feature is one of the greatest gifts to gaming.

I checked around 9 PM Pacific time and there was somewhere around 19,800 people playing on Xbox last night. I can't speak to the other platforms.

I haven't checked in on PS4 so far this weekend but it consistently is around 15,000 on weekdays and 19,000 on weekends. It's pretty healthy there despite the launch of a lot of new games

There was 760 players on PC attrition in my region (US west coast) this morning, so I'd definitely suggest Xbox. Its a real shame how quickly the pc version is hemorrhaging its player base.

I'm hoping they merge servers on PC. I love this game but the Australian population is really dropping off.

Can anyone comment on the EU pc population? I'll probably not be picking this up until christmas and it's kind of sounding like no one will be left by then :/

@creepingdeath0 said:

Attrition has between 150-800 players, the least being between 2-5AM GMT+02 and the most somewhere around 3-10PM. I've never not gotten into a match, average matchmaking takes about 20-30 seconds. I've only been playing Attrition though, can't talk of the other modes. Mostly connected to the Amsterdam-server, I think there was one in Germany or something too.

Xbox seems to have the healthiest community out of the 3 platforms but PS4 isn't that far behind. Do not get the PC version

I bounce between PS4 and Xbox but Xbox definitely seems to have the most giant bomb folk on at least on a fairly consistent basis at any time of day.

Thanks for all the help. Turns out my instincts were wrong. Went ahead and went Xbox.

It's interesting to know PS4 is less popular than Xbox, considering the install base. Could this be an indication of weak marketing efforts by EA?

@icyeyes: the original was an Xbox exclusive so doesn't it make sense that there are more players for that platform?

@icyeyes: An exclusive even timed arriving later or not at all in the case of Titanfall 1 means most folk will ignore the game and in the case of a new IP properly any future games in the franchise as well, the same thing happened to Planets vs Zombies 2 and Rise of the Tomb Raider on PS4. Bungie did a smart thing by having timed DLC and co-marketing with Sony for Destiny, despite Sony's lead in the console race Destiny inital retail performance was stronger on the MS platforms brand loyalty goes along way and can have the opposite effect like PS4 owners ignoring Titanfall 2.

@humanity: I understand the exclusivity aspect for Titanfall 1, however, I think that only accounts for the larger player base on Xbox if sales are being driven primarily by word of mouth and existing fans. Which to me would seem to indicate a lack of marketing to increase brand awareness on the PS4.

@thepanzini: Titanfall 2 released simultaneously on both platforms, so I don't know how much of the previous games exclusivity really effects this launch, but yeah it's true that Xbox has the advantage of a pre-existing fan base. I think Destiny is a special case because Bungie was an Xbox exclusive developer for years, so most of their fans are on Xbox, but I guess fans of Respawn might also be more aligned with XBox too.

@icyeyes: The previous game exclusivity has a major impact on future sales.

https://www.videogamer.com/news/uk-video-game-chart-far-cry-primal-earns-ubisoft-the-no-1-spot

"EA's Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 is new in second place, though it's Xbox One which dominates the sales taking a 60 per cent cut on week one. PS4 managed 40 per cent. The original game launched as a timed exclusive on Xbox One and has also benefited from being included in the Xbox One EA Access offering, opening up the title to even more players. Garden Warfare 2 sales are up 31 per cent over the original."

@icyeyes: I think you have to account for it being labeled "2", so casual players who may not have played or even heard of it might not think to hop right into the sequel. Pc sales i think have to do with Origin, if it was on steam i think sales would be double honestly.

That's a shame. There was at least ~150 players in Attrition on Saturday night which is not alot but enough to easily find a game.

@oursin_360: Yeah, I was thinking the same about it on PC. I'm sure battlefield is doing just fine on Origin, but keeping an unestablished ip like Titanfall off Steam seems like a really big hindrances to mainstream success.

I'm playing on Xbox one. I haven't had any connectivity issues and I have found games easily. The highest I've seen this game at was ~35,000. It's a really good time. I will probably be playing this game for the next 2 years. Just like the last game.

Playing on Xbox One, there are consistently around 15-20k people online, of course peaking on weekends and during the mid-to-late-day.

I know this has been marked as answered, but im just gonna chirp in here with numbers. These last 3 days on PC (EU) i have seen it swing from 3000-5000 players online around midday.

On PC in the EU here, around 1000 to 2000, I primarily play Mixtape though.

Thought the player base would increase with the half off sales. Fantastic game that is going unnoticed by the mainstream.

I've been playing on ps4. Maybe not a massive player base, but worth noting i have no problems finding matches.

PC Reporting In. East coast of US/Canada seeing low 4000 to high 6000 for Attrition which seems to be the most popular game mode. As a solo it's typically around a minute to find a match. In a full party I've seen it take as much as 5 minutes. I expect the player base to grow seeing as it is currently on sale and we're heading into the holidays. It's certainly not doing CS:GO or Overwatch numbers but still looking healthy for the time being.

I play on the US East server on PC, and have never had trouble finding a match. The player base is pretty stable right now, though it is small and it may drop off. Too bad, because the game plays extremely well with a mouse + keyboard.

Maybe not the best place to ask, but I my internet is trash at the moment so I'm mainly interested in picking this up for the campaign. Is there a good reason other than multiplayer numbers for me not to feed this game to my new 1070? I could get it for Xbox One instead if there's a good reason to.

This game is a prime example of why cross play should be available across all platforms, especially PS4/Xbox. in a few months its going to be impossible to find matches in the less populated modes.

It won't be long before they have to think about merging some of the data centres on PC, for the EU at least. I'm in the UK and the London server usually has around 1,400 people in it, which sometimes leads to waiting a while for match making.

@fnrslvr: Not had any performance issues or bugs so far on PC. Not really interested in the multiplayer, but the single player campaign has been good so far.

I'm on PC in Europe and I really don't have any issues getting into games. Attrition pretty much always works nearly instantly, even with a full party. Mixtape gets kinda empty after 3 AM (during the week), but that can be easily fixed by changing the region to US east coast (where it's prime time around then) then Mixtape games also matchmake pretty fast and the game is still surprisingly playable with a 150 ping. Overall I don't mind the waiting times (if they actually happen) all that much due to the Network chat, time flies by while chatting with fellow duders, such a great feature!

But Respawn can still patch a lot of things to make the matchmaking better, in TF1 they added cross-region matchmaking post release and afaik Mixtape does not populate other playlists, changing both of these should help quite a bit with populating the lesser played game modes and make overall matchmaking faster.

Just checked PC 4:40 pm EST and there was 6800 players online.

Last night when I got home at 3 am there was 3400 players. I've never had trouble finding a match, and if people would stop wondering what the player count was and would just get the game and ADD to the player count that would be nice.

How is the Australian population? The reason I didn't buy this one was largely because matchmaking only plus Australia normally equals a ghost town in all but one mode (normally the least interesting one).

No idea bout the Australian population, but if by "matchmaking only" you mean that the game is lacking a join in progress feature, I'm happy to let you know that you're wrong. I've only seen it a few times, but the game will put you into a game in progress, usually one that's still pretty close to the beginning. I've also never been placed in games where I'm on the losing team and the game is about to end, so that's good.

There's also a private match mode.

@spaceinsomniac: by matchmaking only I mean no server browser but that does sound good as far as the join in progress goes

Well I'd say Giant Bomb has done a good job spreading the gospel of Titanfall. I'm hopeful that the numbers see a steady increase throughout the holiday thanks to sales.

How is it looking these days? I'm looking at the PC version since its been on sale recently.

@robothamster Hiya man, I'm in a similiar boat. Did you ever pick it up and if so, how is it doing on the pc?

I would always rather turn my PS4 on instead of my Xbone. That being said, I've never had a problem getting a game in Titanfall 2 PS4. The PC communities for all of these cross platform games seem to die faster.

@slasktotten: I haven't played in months, but I'd be happy to boot it up tonight and let you know how it goes. I never say no to a quick round of Titanfall 2. It's so damn good.

Honestly, the price is so low right now that you should consider picking it up just for the campaign alone. Sure, it's really short...but it's also really fucking good.

I played a fair chunk of TitanFall 2 on PC a few months ago and I was able to find games in the standard mode without much problem, can't comment too much about today. It's a massive shame the popularity of the game dropped off pretty quickly and never really recovered. I consider it one of the best FPS games to come out in the last 5 or so years along with the 2016 release of Doom.

I also agree with @big_denim on the singleplayer campaign, I pretty much blasted through it in 2 sittings but it was very good.

@big_denim: That'd be mighty fine of ye. And for the sake of context I've already got it on ps4, so it's actually a question of double dipping (got a new pc a few months back)... But yes, that campaign is all kinds of amazing and the game itself is, as I believe the kids say "the tits".

It may not reach top 50 most played, but finding a match never takes very long. I don't queue for all game modes and I play around 11pm or later on weekdays on the east coast and I wait maybe a minute for a match. Usually see at least 5K playing with about 8 to 10K during peak hours.

@slasktotten: Hey! So I've been playing for a couple of weeks and haven't had any problems. It'll take maybe about a minute or two, sometimes even faster to get into a match. I played last night, which was a Monday and with about a thousand people playing I got into matches which was about a minute or two.

If anyone wants to get into a party I normally play late at night here on the east coast!