Summary
XboxGame Studioshas flaunted extraordinary lifetime player numbers for some of its most successful first-party games, includingForza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite, Sea of Thieves, and more.Xbox’s first-party portfolio is set to grow even larger this year, with several major titles planning to release, like Ninja Theory’sSenua’s Saga: Hellblade 2in May, andIndiana Jones and the Great CircleandAvowedin the fall.
Recent Xbox developments have seen the platform holder commit to bringing four of its smaller first-party games to competing platforms like the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5. The controversial move has sparked heated debate among the Xbox audience and wider gaming community about whether Xbox is planning to fully shift to a third-party publisher, and what that would mean for Game Pass and Xbox consoles. For now, Xbox has indicated that only the following four games will make the jump to other platforms:Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment,andGrounded.Obsidian’sPentimentis the first to make the leapto Switch and PlayStation, with the other three to follow suit in March and April.
On Twitter, trusted industry insider Klobrille posted a graphic highlighting the impressive player counts of some of Xbox’s biggest and most successful titles of the past several years. Topping the list is2021’s runaway racing successForza Horizon 5, sporting a massive 37 million lifetime players. Following right behind is Rare’s open-sea service title,Sea of Thieves,with 35 million players. Several other first-party Xbox games land in the 20-25 million player range, such asGrounded,Minecraft Dungeons, andHalo Infinite. Bethesda’s latest single-player RPG,Starfield, came up with 13 million players, andGhostwire: Tokyo,the lowest title in the graphic, boasts 6 million.
Xbox First-Party Player Count Numbers:
As Xbox continues to grow its ecosystem, in part by releasing some of its smaller titles on other platforms, it’s very possible that these already impressive player numbers could jump even higher.Hi-Fi RushandPentiment,two Xbox games with smaller player counts, could wind up on a list like this in the future if they perform well enough on Switch and PS5. Judging by the fact that single-player titles likeStarfieldandGhostwire: Tokyohave some of the lower numbers in the graphic, it’s tough to imagineXbox’s 2024 single-player games likeHellblade 2andAvowedreaching 20+ million territory, at least during their first few years on the market.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circlecould be a single-player Xbox game that potentially ends up breaching that 20-25 million player mark, as it’s Xbox’s first major partnership with a popular film IP. Fans will have to wait a bit longer to learn about its release date, though, perhaps atXbox’s confirmed June showcase. Additionally, it’ll be interesting to see ifSea of Thievestakes the number one spot, surpassingForza Horizon 5, when it comes to PS5 on April 30.
Xbox Series X
Microsoft’s ninth-generation console, the Xbox Series X is a powerful machine that can support 4K resolution and 60 fps, depending on the game. Released alongside the Xbox Series S, the Series X has a Custom AMD Zen 2 CPU, a Custom RDNA 2 GPU, and 16 GB of RAM.
