Microsoft is very popular, and their new games are tried by everyone. They’ve caught even more of that attention when they acquired Activision Blizzard for the sum of $68.7 billion. Everyone was shocked, and the future seems bright.
During the earnings call that took place on Tuesday, the CEO, Satya Nadella stated that 20 million people had played Halo Infinite and 18 million people had played Forza Horizon 5. Of course, the number includes people who only tried the game for a few minutes, but it is still a very big number.
Both of the games are free to play. Forza Horizon 5 is available on Xbox Game Pass – which has about 25 million subscribers. Halo Infinite’s multiplayer has a free model to play, but those who are not subscribed to Game Pass will need to buy the campaign separately.
But this very big number seems like…a lot. It makes Forza Horizon 5 be the biggest one in the series. Back in 2020, Microsoft announced that 24 million people had played the previous game from the series. But that number was available two years after Horizon 4 came out, and one year after it made its appearance on Game Pass. So 18 million in under four months doesn’t seem true.
The 20 million people trying Halo Infinite also seems unreal, if we are to compare it to the previous games from the series. Before the game was launched, the series had sold 81 million copies in 20 years. But keeping in mind that Halo Infinite has a free multiplayer, we could understand the big number, since it’s easier to download, than to buy something.
The thing is that these numbers released by Microsoft show how successful their games are – especially since some of them are not free.
