Microsoft Celebrates a Record Year for Xbox Game Studios
- Paul Thurrott
- Oct 05, 2020
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Microsoft announced today that Xbox Game Studios has already launched a record number of first-party games this year. And many of them have won some important industry awards too.
“I’m inspired by the dedication and extraordinary work across our many talented creative teams within Xbox Game Studios to launch a record number of first party games this year,” Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg writes. “In addition to a record-breaking year for games we’ve launched, many of these titles have earned strong critical acclaim, as well as impressive engagement from our fans.”
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Here are the key stats:
- To date, Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios have launched 15 game titles in 2020, 10 of which are brand new titles, a record for Xbox. And there are “many more to come,” Greenberg says.
- Gamers have spent over 1.66 billion hours playing Xbox Game Studios titles in 2020, the most ever year-to-date.
- Microsoft Flight Simulator is the firm’s longest running franchise and the new version has delivered an overall Metacritic score of 92, making it one of the top-rated PC games this year.
- On the console side, Ori and the Will of the Wisps was the highest-rated Xbox game that Microsoft launched this year. It had an average Metacritic score of 90.
Additionally, Microsoft provided some key player stats too. For example, Microsoft Flight Simulator players have logged over 26 million flights and more than one billion miles flown, enough miles to circumnavigate the globe over 40,000 times. And Minecraft Dungeons registered over 6.9 million multiplayer sessions in just the past two months, nearly two-thirds of which (4.4 million) were couch “co-op.”
“It’s been a tremendous year so far, and it’s going to get even better with the launch of Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on November 10,” Greenberg adds. “Across four generations and thousands of games playable this holiday, this will be the largest launch lineup in the history of gaming.”