Halo 5, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Forza 6, Gears of War: UE top 1 million on Xbox One

To wrap up 2015, Microsoft has shed a little light on how well the Xbox One fared during the holidays — and the year, overall. Apparently, compared to the Xbox 360, the Xbox One is outpacing their last generation console in terms of sales at the same point in time. In other words, the Xbox One is now the “best-selling console in Xbox console history”.

As for software, the Xbox One big-budget exclusives, including Halo 5: Guardians, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Forza Motorsport 6 and Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, each topped 1 million units (we assume some are shipped not sold-through).

Take a look at the details below for more stats and an updated release calendar, or stop by the Xbox Wire for the article.

With the arrival of the New Xbox One Experience with Backward Compatibility and the most critically-acclaimed fall lineup of exclusives ever on Xbox*, you set new records for global engagement on Xbox Live this holiday. On Dec. 28 there were more gamers using Xbox Live than any other day in Xbox history, and the number of hours spent gaming on Xbox One and Xbox 360 during Christmas week 2015 were up compared to last year**. Thanks to you, Xbox One continues to outpace Xbox 360 at the same point in time in the Xbox 360 generation, making it the best-selling console in Xbox console history.

2015 was a monumental year for Xbox ? the biggest in our history ? and we owe it all to our gaming community. We saw record global engagement and sales fueled by high demand for our greatest games line-up and hardware and accessories like the best-selling Xbox One Gears of War: Ultimate Edition Bundle and our Elite Controller. Every title in our exclusive 2015 holiday games line-up ? Halo 5: Guardians, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Forza Motorsport 6 and Gears of War: Ultimate Edition ? sold over 1 million units, and the number of Xbox One gamers who played Microsoft Studios-published titles more than doubled compared to 2014.

Before we look to the year ahead, we want to share a quick snapshot of some other great things we accomplished together in 2015:

• We released over 200 new features for gamers in 2015 including the New Xbox One Experience and the most-requested feature, Xbox One Backward Compatibility.
• More than 350 games were released or were made playable on Xbox One in 2015 (including first and third-party, ID@Xbox and Xbox One Backward Compatibility titles), fueling progress toward our goal of delivering the largest games catalog ever on Xbox.
• Xbox gamers earned over 4 billion achievements and racked up a total Gamerscore of over 77 billion in 2015.
• In 2015, the Xbox community cast over 6.5 million votes on Xbox Feedback.
• Since Xbox One Backward Compatibility released on Nov. 12 with more than 100 playable titles, global Xbox gamers have logged more than 15 million hours playing Xbox 360 games on Xbox One.
• As Yusuf Mehdi shared today, we?ve seen strong engagement with the Xbox App on Windows 10 PCs, with over 6.6 million hours of Xbox One games streamed to Windows 10 PCs. And gaming continues to grow on Windows 10 ? in 2015, gamers spent over 4 billion hours playing PC games on Windows 10. In the six months since Windows 10 launched, it has already become the second most popular OS for Steam players behind Windows 7***.
• Minecraft is the number one grossing paid game in the Windows 10 store, a spot it has occupied since it launched in July 2015. Nearly 1 million Minecraft players have taken advantage of the offer to get the Windows 10 version free if you already own Minecraft for PC.

As we close a record 2015 for Xbox, there is even more in store for gamers in 2016. With great new games, hundreds of additional titles coming to Xbox One Backward Compatibility, a wave of investments in Xbox and gaming on Windows 10, new Xbox Live updates and features for the console including Cortana on Xbox One, 2016 is shaping up to be an even bigger year for gamers. Last year we were proud to offer you the greatest games lineup in Xbox history, and we are thrilled to see all the fun you?re having playing them.

This year our plan is to go even bigger, offering you the greatest games lineup anywhere, no matter where or how gamers play, with the biggest blockbusters from our third-party publishing partners alongside our unrivaled line-up of console exclusives led this spring by Remedy?s time-bending new action IP Quantum Break.

Here?s a snapshot of the 2016 exclusive titles we?ve announced so far from Microsoft Studios and our first-party partners that we?ll ship on Xbox One, Windows 10 and in some cases, both. We?ll also bring even more updates to all versions of Minecraft in 2016 and we have new title reveals in store for gamers too:

• Gears of War 4 (Xbox One) ? Multiplayer Beta in Spring 2016/Launch in Fall 2016
• Quantum Break (Xbox One) ? April 5, 2016
• Halo Wars 2 (Xbox One & Windows 10) ? Fall 2016
• Crackdown 3 (Xbox One) ? Multiplayer in Summer 2016
• Fable Legends Open Beta (Xbox One & Windows 10) ? Spring 2016
• ReCore (Xbox One & Windows 10) ? 2016
• Sea of Thieves (Xbox One & Windows 10) ? 2016
• Gigantic (Xbox One & Windows 10) ? 2016
• Killer Instinct: Season 3 (Xbox One & Windows 10) ? March 2016
• Gears of War: Ultimate Edition (Windows 10) ? Spring 2016
• Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (Xbox One & Windows 10) ? Spring 2016
• Cobalt (Xbox One, Xbox 360 & Steam) ? Feb. 2, 2016

We are grateful to our passionate community of gamers on Xbox One. You are our inspiration and the soul of Xbox, and we look forward to sharing even more great gaming experiences with you in 2016.

*Based on data via Metacritic
**Period of Dec. 20 ? Dec. 27 globally; based on internal Microsoft data
*** Valve November Hardware & Software Survey