The Xbox One did not see many exclusives throughout its lifetime. Of course, there was the signature Halo series and Gears of War, which ushered in tons of sales for the Microsoft console. Forza was another popular release that saw many iterations on the Xbox One.
The video game industry is rather secretive on sales data unless a game does exceptionally well. That makes it difficult to find data from an official source, but some independent sites have done sales research on Microsoft’s most popular games. Today, we’re looking into some of the fastest-selling exclusives.
10 Forza Motorsport 7 (176,150 In One Week)
Forza Motorsport 7 did not succeed on the sales front compared to other entries in the series. Its sales were slightly lower than its predecessor while Forza Horizon 3 was still going strong. It sold about 176,150 units during the first week, according to VGChartz. Eurogamer suggested the low sales were due to the popularity of Forza Horizon 3 and fans wanted to wait to play on the looming Xbox One X.
9 Forza Motorsport 6 (221,042 In One Week)
The 6th entry in the Forza series was touted as being the most realistic driving game to date. It sold 221,042 copies in 1 week, slightly better than the next entry in the series. The sales continued to climb until it reached one million in three months, according to gtplanet. Even though the launch sales for the Forza games were low, comparatively speaking, they all made it onto the best selling Xbox One exclusives list.
8 Forza Motorsport 5 (350,588 In One Week)
Microsoft announced that Forza Motorsport 5 was Xbox’s fastest-selling racing game at the time (2013) though no official numbers were released, according to Eurogamer. VGCharts reported that the game sold 350,588 in one week while Microsoft announced that half of all Xbox One owners bought the game (the time frame and numbers were not detailed).
7 Forza Horizon 3 (406,753 In One Week)
Forza Horizon 3 sold 406,753 units during launch week, according to VGChartz, and remained a popular entry for the series.
It also accomplished an amazing feat of blasting the series to a total of 2.5 million sales, according to Polygon. It has a score of 91 on Metacritic, justifying its achievements for the Forza series overall.
6 Halo The Master Chief Collection (679,889 In One Week)
The Master Chief Collection is a unique case, but it certainly was an exclusive title of incredible notoriety before its wildly popular leap to PC. Sales numbers from its original launch are difficult to dig up, but this article from VGChartz sets its launch week sales at just over half a million, with 679,889 copies flying off shelves during its launch week.
5 Sea Of Thieves (2 Million In One Week)
Sea Of Thieves was a unique game that Xbox needed to diversify its library. In a nutshell, Sea Of Thieves is an open-world multiplayer game that allows players to live out their pirate fantasies. Rare’s game was a huge accomplishment for Xbox with 2 million players sailing the high seas within its launch week, according to Gameinformer. Even more impressive, Sea Of Thieves’ playerbase grew to 10 million players as of January 2020, according to pcgamesn.
4 Forza Horizon 4 (2 Million In One Week)
Forza Horizon 4 and Sea Of Thieves actually tied in sales, both being hugely successful for the Xbox One. The dynamic seasons and open-world gameplay of Forza Horizon 4 proved to be great additions to the franchise. It garnered 2 million sales in one week, with those numbers rising to 10 million as of June 2019. These numbers also established Forza Horizon 4 as the best-selling game in the franchise.
3 State Of Decay 2 (1 Million In Two Days)
State of Decay 2 is an online open-world zombie survival sim for PC and Xbox One. Microsoft’s move to bring the State of Decay franchise to their console was a big win. After early access, game sales skyrocketed during the global release, reaching 1 million players in two days, according to Xbox. In March of 2020, the Juggernaught edition was released, which included past DLC and new content. At the time of release 7 million people were playing the zombie sim.
2 Gears Of War 5 (3 Million In One Weekend)
In a console generation that seemed to have little to offer in terms of exclusives, Gears of War 5 was entirely ripe for the Xbox One’s library. Gears 5 continues the franchise’s storyline as the battle against the Locusts rages on and Kait tries to uncover their origins.
The first weekend saw a player count of 3 million, according to Venturebeat, which was naturally boosted by the game’s availability on Game Pass, but it’s still an impressive number.
1 Halo 5 Guardians (6.6 Million In One Week)
The marketing of Halo 5 Guardians, showing Master Chief going rogue, was enough to skyrocket the series to new heights. It is definitely one of the best selling games on the Xbox One. BusinessInsider estimated approximately 6.6 million copies sold in one week based on monetary sales figures. It also brought the franchise’s total number of sales to $5 Billion. The original Halo was a big reason for the Xbox’s success and it continues to be Microsoft’s signature series. Halo Infinite will likely be a major selling point when the Xbox Series X eventually releases.
NEXT: 5 Things Halo Infinite Needs To Be Successful (& 5 Things We Hope They Drop From Halo 5)
