Palworld made its first appearance in 2021. Although it immediately caught attention due to its concept, few imagined at that time that it would become one of the most significant releases of 2024. Its unprecedented success allowed Xbox to experience one of its best months in its entire history.
The Pokémon-inspired survival video game debuted exclusively for Xbox and Steam in mid-January. Despite being in early access, it brought together thousands of players on both consoles and PC.
According to official data, more than 25 million people tried out the title developed by Pocketpair during its first month on the market. Specifically, 15 million copies were sold on Steam, and 10 million users played it on Microsoft's consoles.
Xbox Makes History Thanks to Palworld
During a recent post on the official Xbox blog, Chris Charla, leader of Microsoft's ID@Xbox initiative, detailed some recent achievements of the program and the plans for the future.
At the beginning of the article, the executive revealed that Xbox had one of its best months in January 2024 in terms of gameplay time. He refrained from providing more information on the matter but suggested that this achievement was largely made possible by Palworld.
"2024 started quickly for gamers: Xbox had its most significant month on consoles last January, measured by gameplay time (including ID@Xbox program member, Pocketpair, whose Xbox Game Preview title, Palworld, already has over 10,000,000 players on Xbox so far!)," said Chris Charla.
Those data are not surprising considering that, according to analyst Mat Piscatella from Circana, the survival video game had more active players than Fortnite on Xbox platforms on Monday, January 22. It is estimated that on that day alone, users played it for an average of over 200 minutes.
Moreover, Palworld is already the best third-party launch in the history of the Xbox Game Pass subscription service.
With this in mind, it's noteworthy that Pocketpair intends to bring this title to more platforms. Even without concrete plans, its CEO, Takuro Mizobe, revealed in an interview with Bloomberg that they are "in talks" to make the game available on more ecosystems.
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