Since it’s a key metric for MS, I compiled every official playercount (last time these were revealed) for games that are on Game Pass and the assumed timeframe to reach these numbers (sometimes the numbers are outdated at the time they are revealed):
Sea of Thieves: 30 million in 50 months (2018 to 2022)
Forza Horizon 5: 28 million in 15 months (2021 to 2023)
Forza Horizon 4: 24 million in 24 months (2018 to 2020)
Halo Infinite: 20 million in 2 months (2021 to 2022 / Multiplayer is F2P)
Grounded (Early Access): 15 million in 28 months (2020 to 2022)
State of Decay 2: 11 million in 50 months (2018 to 2022)
Halo MCC (Game Pass PC + Steam only): 10 million in 16 months (2019 to 2021)
Microsoft Flight Simulator: 10 million in 27 months (2020 to 2022, released in 2021 on console)
Killer Instinct: 10 million in 46 months (2013 to 2017)
Descenders ( Game Pass numbers only ): 4 million in 24 months (2019 to 2021)
Gears 5: 3 million during opening weekend (2019)
PowerWash Simulator: 3 million in 2/3 months (2022)
Hi-Fi Rush: 2 million in 1 month (2023)
Ori and the Will of the Wisps: 2.8 million in 8 months (2020)
Battletoads: 1 million in 2 months (2020)
Chivarly 2: 500k in 3 days (2022)
Let’s build a zoo: 250k in a week (2022)
Rain on Your Parade: 150k in a week (2021)
[Never joined Game Pass] Forza Horizon 3: 10 million players in 23 months (2016 to 2018)
Games (1st-party or 3rd-party) that benefited from Game Pass (including Day One in some cases) but were also released on PlayStation:
The Elder Scrolls Online: 21 million in 99 months (2014 to 2022) (not on Game Pass PC)
Minecraft Dungeons: 15 million in 20 months (2020 to 2022, Day One Game Pass )
Fallout 76: 13.5 million in 49 months (2018 to 2022)
Back 4 Blood: 10 million in 4 months (2021, Day One Game Pass )
SnowRunner: 10 million in 34 months (2020 to 2023)
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: 8 million in 12 months (2021 to 2022)
Hellblade: 6.3 million in 48 months (2017 to 2021)
Atomic Heart: 5 million in 3 weeks (2023, Day One Game Pass=
Rainbow Six Extraction: 5 million in 1 month (2022, Day One Game Pass )
DEATHLOOP: 5 million in 17 months (2021 to 2023)
Two Point Hospital: 5 million in 45 months (2018 to 2022) (+Switch)
MLB The Show 21: 4 million in 3 months (2021, Day One Game Pass, with 2M copies sold on PS/Xbox so assuming ~2M players through Game Pass)
Outriders: 3.5 million in 1 month (2021, Day One Game Pass )
Scarlet Nexus: 2 million in 9 months (2021 to 2022)
Wasteland 3: 2 million in 15 months (2020 to 2021, Day One Game Pass )
Disney Dreamlight Valley: 1 million in 10 days (2022, Day One Game Pass) (+Switch)
A Plague Tale Requiem: 1 million in 1 week (2022, Day One Game Pass) (+Switch)
Two Point Campus: 1 million in 3 weeks (2022, Day One Game Pass) (+Switch)
Metal Hellsinger: 1 million in 3 months (2022, Day One Game Pass)
Escape Academy: 1 million in 3.5 months (2022, Day One Game Pass)
Weird West: 400k players in 2 weeks (2022, Day One Game Pass)
Slighty related:
Minecraft: 141 million Monthly Active Users in August 2021
F2P on Xbox, PS and PC (unrelated to Game Pass):
Call of Duty Warzone: 125 million players in 26 months (2020 to 2022)
Overwatch 2: 40 million in 2 month (2022)
Other ABK titles:
World of Warcraft: 100 million in 110 months (2004 to 2014)
Diablo 3: 65 million players in 120 months (2012 to 2022)
Overwatch: 60 million in 60 months (2016 to 2021)
Mobile:
Call of Duty Mobile: 650 million in 31 months (2019 to 2022)
Minecraft (mobile + PC, China only): 400 million as of 2020 (+100 million added during the year 2020)
King games: 240 million Monthly Active Users (last quarter)
Fallout Shelter (mobile + consoles/PC): 180 million in 6 years (2015 to 2021)
Heartstone (mobile + PC): 100 million in ~4.5 years (2014 to 2018)
Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!: 33 million in 2 weeks (2021)
Diablo Immortal (mobile + PC): 30 million in 2 month (2022)
Miscellaneous (number of units SOLD):
Gears of War franchise: over 40 million as of 2019
Skyrim: 30 million as of November 2016, " far above " that as of November 2021
Call of Duty Modern Warfare (2019): 30 million as of September 2020
Fallout 4: 12 million on Launch Day
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy: 10 million as of February 2019
Sea of Thieves: 5 million sold on Steam as of December 2021
The Outer Worlds: 4 million as of August 2021
First-Party summary + including ABK (playercounts only, last reported numbers, console/PC):
Yeah it’s weird how much pushback Phil Spencer got for saying he wants this to be the most played Bethesda game ever when the numbers in this thread suggest it’s very realistic possibility. I mean, Skyrim had 7 million sales in it’s first week. Starfield doesn’t even have to do as well as Forza Horizon 5 or Halo Infinite to achieve that in player count.
Where’d 2 months come from? Starfield doesn’t have to do 30 million right away, it took several years for Skyrim to hit that number - Starfield just has to beat that number in the next several years. Assuming the game is up to the quality we’d hope, I think it’s a very attainable goal. Sure, it’s a next gen only game (though that’ll be less of a problem as time goes on) and it’s on less consoles and that’s all going to take away from their potential playercount but the game is also gonna be so much more accessible for a wider audience now that it’ll be available on gamepass and through streaming.
I think key stat we would have to know is retention and possibly how it effects retail and digital sales. However massive numbers to have people playing these games
That’s true, but my point being Starfield doesn’t have to beat Skyrim right away - Skyrim has been out for ten years, it doesn’t have to do that in a couple months, if it beats Skyrims total sales in playercount over a decade it’s still the most played Bethesda game. And over that decade the playerbase on Xbox Series S and X is only gonna grow.
Aside from them both only being natively available on Series/PC, they’re also both new IP that have no roots to anything aside from the studios (unlike Halo, Back 4 Blood, etc.).
Oh I just got confused because 30 million is how many copies Skyrim was last reported to have sold so it seemed like you were talking about beating Skyrim. If you were just bringing up 30 million for unrelated reasons fair enough.
I’m pretty sure that even being a new IP, Starfield will destroy every Xbox 1st party game numbers so far, to me it’s a Cyberpunk case, sadly this one had been hyped for a longer time before releasing due to it having gameplay over 2 years before it’s release.
But, even if nowadays most people don’t know what Starfield is, once we see gameplay with starships, crazy brutal ambientation with these space cities etc, the word of mouth advertising will do it’s thing with the “Skyrim in the space” and it’ll get incredibly popular in a matter of a few months.
For Redfall i’d say they need content creators to help advertising, if the game is similar to Borderlands, it’ll be best played on cooperative, and these games must be popular on Twitch to be a huge hit (and must be good of course), if it’s good and they manage to get some hundred thousand viewers on there, it’ll grow quickly.
With streaming being available on consoles now, I’m sure there’ll be a fair few Xbox One owners who haven’t been able to get a Series who’ll at the very least do some dabbling in the game via xCloud, while they wait for a time when they’ll be able to play it natively.
