Xbox Unveils The 'Excellence Awards' And Reveals All The 2024 Winners

Shadow of the Erdtree on daily active users list, great to see! Long may From Software develop for Xbox.

Now what’s up with Dragon Age Veilguard being in top sellers? That game sold less than 1.5 million across all platforms and underperformed EA’s expectations. I’m surprised to see it listed. Similar story with Star Wars Outlaws, another game that has famously underperformed and added to Ubisoft’s financial woes. Seems a little odd to me.

@Cakefish in the grand scheme of the releases at that time maybe made the cut. Depends how they are measuring it..

For example Palword if they are counting Game Pass downloads as a seller. If not I'd be more surprised that's in there than the two you mentioned.

I'm curious about that skull and bones player engagement award–Does it have a dedicated fanbase of 5 or did the internet over-hate?

@Boogaloo_Jenkins While I don't really care for it, there always seemed to be a LOT of people playing Skull and Bones whenever I tried to play it. Like Star Wars Outlaws, I suspect it's one of those games where the Internet opinions of it didn't match up with reality very much at all. I have a few friends that absolutely love it and have hundreds of hours into it.

@Cakefish evidently most of DAv sales was on Xbox.

That or it shows just how few games are actually sold on the platform that the "low performing" games can make the charts.

No Brotato - fake news! No Indy on their own excellence awards is very curious…

@AlwaysPlaying Indy's there on Daily Active Users. Probably didn't make the units sold because it'll be Game Pass users.

@abe_hikura Yeah, I guess it points to one of either of those options. I certainly hope it’s the former and Xbox users formed the bulk of sales, because having two notoriously underperforming games being in the top sellers list of the year paints a very scary picture for the health of Xbox outside of Game Pass indeed!

@Cakefish them both being on the Player engagement too might suggest the former.

But the latter would explain why MS doesn't seem to care about Xbox consoles anymore. If people aren't buying as many games on Xbox then that's pretty much the traditional revenue model dead.

Nice list for each category. Also, I think Xbox should be applauded for things like this, it's nice to have teams commended for their efforts.

@Cakefish either of those options paints a bleak outlook on the sales front considering it sold less than 1.5 million across all platforms. It shouldn't be in the top 10 of anything full stop, let alome at number 4, as that means the others below sold even less on the console.

If they were on gamepass, like Indy say, it makes complete sense. But there's some big names in there that aren't.

This is a great thing for fostering a gaming community with devs and gamers. Xbox needs to do more organic marketing like this. Heck, they could create and host some just fun shows or even their own game awards with the content library they have and if they're a hit that plasters the Xbox brand more in the wider gaming industry. Like I remember that idea of player chosen awards for NPCs in gaming, why not pursue that more? It'd be a fun even in March to bring the gaming industry together with an Xbox branded event. They could have a fun time with a live in person convention made to mirror awards shows like the Oscars but with NPCs. Could do awards for companions, quest givers, bosses, etc. They could also throw in some trailers. Just stuff like that which foster community spirit between Xbox gamers, developers, and publishers while also putting Xbox's brand forward in the gaming industry.

@Cakefish EA was hopping for a bigger success for a new entry in a known IP, but 1.5 million sales is hardly on the low end for all the games that came out in a year. It's top 20 so there's room to play around with and just based on Xbox so the results might surprise us even more. Other games though would take 1 million total sales as a massive W and go home. It'd be interesting to see how many games this year in total topped 1 million in sales across all platforms. Honestly, I read 1.5 million for Veilguard and thought that was really good for a game that released just a few months ago against some of the stiffest competition. It's EA who said that was half of what they projected, but that'd mean they projected nearly 3 million sales for Veilguard in a handful of months. That's insane to me. Though I'm certainly not privy to the data they had. With how stuck gamers are in live service and all the single player competition, I'd have had much lower expectations. They also barely marketed Veilguard after it came out out nowhere from years of being rumored.

@Cakefish I'm delighted to see both them games in to be honest. I thoroughly enjoyed both titles, but I'll admit, their presence doesn't fit the narritive...

@abe_hikura Based on data from across the industry consumer spending is way up and it's all mostly in Microtransactions. This has been a big problem with shipping new games in general. It took Alan Wake 2 FOREVER to hit profitability. More and more gamers are stuck playing their favorite live service game and less are buying new games. This is the narrative everywhere, not just Xbox. Based on prior earnings calls at Microsoft consumer spending from Xbox gamers on the platform has continued to increase. However, I suspect most of that has to do with Microtransactions. Another analytics reported posted recently showed that despite being Free to Play Marvel Rivals was the 6th highest earning game in December 2024 and it had some of the most engagement from gamers. The industry is really facing a LOT of problems in how to deal with this. There are more games than ever releasing and there's more sticky live service games than ever. For gaming revenue overall that's a boon, but for every individual game it's become a dog eat dog world. Microsoft is still pulling in a LOT of money from Xbox console gamers, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of that is Microtransactions because it's the same everywhere. On the flip side the gaming industry continues to struggle to bring in new gamers to buy these increasingly expensive AAA games. A lot of this is why Game Pass exists as it does. The hope that Xbox can get the scores of gamers stuck in their live service of choice to just play more games while having another consistent revenue stream and hopefully boosting Microtransactions in those other games. How the industry continues to evolve and deal with this issue remains to be scene.

@Weebleman Also wanted to add this, but just a heads up the list as listed here is definitely in alphabetical order. Not ranked. The order based on actual units sold would be entirely different. It isn't clear at all if Dragon Age is near the top most sold or bottom. I also suspect these aren't total sales (as that'd be unfair for the newer games), but like judged based on the first month or something. Xbox isn't actually sharing the data of how much each game sold properly for a mix of marketing reasons and to not strain relations (they aren't steam and probably don't want to risk angering a publisher by outing how good or bad a game sold aside from their most played and most popular store listings). At the very least I wouldn't put too much emphasis and worry on Dragon Age's placement in a list that is in alphabetical order.

@Weebleman It shouldn't be in the top 10 of anything full stop, let alome at number 4, as that means the others below sold even less on the console.

Wrong. It didn't place fourth. The list was posted alphabetically. It could have been 20th in the list for all we know.

@WildConcept6 I also suspect these aren't total sales (as that'd be unfair for the newer games), but like judged based on the first month or something.

Correct. It will either be weighted by one month post launch or a week post launch, as, like you say, it wouldn't be fair to games that came out much later in the year - such as this very example (DAv launching Oct 31st and all).

@WildConcept6 ahhh, I missed that. Appreciated man. It did seem a little odd

@Kaloudz see my response above. I still stand by the fact that a game selling less than 1.5 mill across 3 platforms shouldn't be in any top sellers list for a platform. I do get the gamepass factor comes into play here though.

@Kaloudz I mean, the article says 'Units Sold: "Top-selling content across Xbox and Microsoft stores."' In 2024. Im not sure why you think it's weighted.

@Weebleman Because a game that released in, say, January, has 12 months of sales to boast Vs a game that released in, say, November has just 1 month. In instances like this, most outputs would narrow it down to first week sales or first month sales , for fairness.

@Weebleman Also, for comparison, Doom 2016 sold 900k sales on launch month, Vs Doom Eternal's 3 million sales on launch month. Both games were multiplat and considered successful. Not everything has to be 10 million copies sold to be considered a chart smasher. I wouldn't put much weight on the unit sold list. We don't know the order and to be fair, most on that list are solid. Did it underperform, sure. Would it have sold a good amount to make it into the list during launch week / month? Absolutely. We don't need to dig through stats we don't have access to to connect dots that don't need connecting.

@Kaloudz again though, the article literally confirms its units sold in 2024. That's the part I was originally commenting on. I'm just not sure where you are getting your weighted confirmation from. Happy to hold my hands up of you can point me to confirmation of it. Otherwise it's pretty clearly labelled why things are in that list, units sold in 2024.

@Kaloudz furthermore, there's a category that clearly says '...within the first week'. The one I refer to does not.

Pure Xbox using Banishers as a header is ❤️. It's criminal that this masterpiece underperformed.

Great to see Xbox doing this, I look forward to seeing the developer reactions in the near future. There are quite a few games on the lists that I enjoyed in 2024. Some of the highlights for me were Persona 3 Reload, Dragons Dogma 2, Metaphor ReFantazio and Dragon Age The Veilgaurd. I also enjoyed Star Wars Outlaws, MS Flight Sim 24 and FC 25.

@Weebleman Totally understand where you're coming from but I guess this is just one of those things we will never know without clarification 😅

@WildConcept6 compared to past Dragon Age games it’s dramatically lower. Key word EA used was ‘engage’ 1.5 million players so it includes EA Play Pro subscribers too. The original DA sold 3.2 million in 3 months so over double in roughly the same time span. DA2 sold over 2 million in 2 months. DA Inquisition was ‘the best launch in BioWare history’, so even more than those games in the launch window. They did eventually confirm it sold over 12 million as of 2024. So considering the gaming industry has grown significantly since these past launches I can see why EA was expecting at least 3 million sales across all platforms.

@Titntin oh I’m not trying to hate on these games at all, it’s just publicly known that these two in particular performed badly sales wise. EA and Ubisoft can’t lie to their investors. So I’m alarmed to see them in Xbox top sellers list of the year!

@Cakefish I understand. To me it confirms that people who actually buy on Xbox have good taste 😀

@Titntin I’m interested in Star Wars Outlaws, but I’m currently trying to make some decent progress through my backlog before I add any more games to the list!

@Cakefish It's wise to wait on unbisoft games anyway. It's in a great state now, but it will be even better latter I'm sure.
I picked it up in a sale and had £10 credit from ps rewards program and got a further 16% from buying credit online, so it cost me £28, but I'm sure it will be £25 in a sale soon anyway!
Just the Atmos of a living breathing star wars world was amazing, I turned off many of the mini games for actions, they were fun enough, but in the heat of a mission they could get tiresome.
I hope you enjoy it when you do get to play!

Very happy to see my 3 favorite games of the year cleaning up: Dragon's Dogma 2, Infinite Wealth, and Space Marine 2.