The Xbox Series S and X consoles are set to launch on November 10, but while the event is still pending, Microsoft General Manager of Xbox Marketing Aaron Greenberg has decided to share some insider information on Xbox Game Studios on the official Xbox Wire blog.
According to Aaron, 2020 was a “record year” for Xbox Game Studios. Microsoft-controlled development teams have released several well-known and powerful projects, as well as announced new games. In addition, Mr. Greenberg did not forget to mention the acquisition of ZeniMax Media, which included famous studios like Bethesda Softworks and id Software.
Here are some excerpts from the blog of Microsoft’s General Manager of Marketing:
- 15 Xbox Game Studios games launched to-date* (10 of which are brand new titles) and many more to come, a record for Xbox.
- 1.66 billion hours played by our fans and counting, the most ever year-to-date for Xbox Game Studios titles.
- Microsoft Flight Simulator, our longest running franchise, returned with an overall Metacritic score of 92, a top-rated PC game this year.
- Ori and the Will of the Wisps was the highest-rated Xbox game we launched this year with an average Metacritic score of 90.
- Grounded, a new release from Obsidian, quickly exceeded more than 1 million players, while Sea of Thieves has now surpassed 15 million players to date.
- Wasteland 3 not only was a fan-favorite and previously won the award for best RPG at gamescom, it also had an average Metacritic score of 86.
- In July at the Xbox Games Showcase we announced 5 new titles from Xbox Game Studios.
- Microsoft Flight Simulator players have already logged over 26 million flights and more than a billion miles flown, which averages out to 15 times more than the number of real-life flights taken globally each day in 2019, and enough miles to circumnavigate the globe over 40,000 times.
- Minecraft Dungeons has become a co-op favorite, with 6.9 million multiplayer sessions over the past two months, nearly two-thirds of which (4.4 million) were couch co-op.
- More than 500 million bugs have been squashed in Grounded, but there are over 10 quintillion insects in the world so we’ve only exterminated 0.000000000005%.
And, as stated by Aaron Greenberg himself, this is just the beginning. After all, on November 10, two completely new consoles Xbox Series S and X, as well as projects optimized for them, will see the light of day. Also, in addition to new games, gamers will have a portfolio of thousands of existing adventures ever released for previous Microsoft consoles.
Well, let’s wish Microsoft, and specifically Xbox Game Studios, growth and success. After all, as you know – competition works wonders.
