The inauguralXbox Excellence Awardshave revealed the winning games in each of the four categories, which we’ll now present.
Xbox Excellence Awards First Edition
There’s no doubt that 2024 was an incredible year for the gaming industry, a fact not lost on Xbox. While we’re already in 2025 and looking ahead, Microsoft has chosen to honor the titles that shined within its ecosystem over the past year.
Thus, the Xbox Excellence Awards were born—celebrating different aspects of games released in the last 12 months, using four distinct criteria.
All the winners of this first edition were unveiled on Xbox Wire, detailing each of the four categories.
“With over a thousand games released annually across Xbox consoles, PC, and the cloud, it could simply be a matter of choosing a panel to decide. However, the Excellence Awards focus on how you interacted with Xbox over the past year,” the announcement explained.
The four categories of the Xbox Excellence Awards are:Store Rating,Player Engagement,Daily Active Users, andUnits Sold.
The winning titles in each category have now been revealed. Microsoft confirms that the studios and companies will soon receive their awards, while for now, the winners are marked with a badge on their official pages in the digital store.
All Winners of the Xbox Excellence Awards 2024
Store RatingThis category highlights the Xbox games with the highest ratings (one to five stars) of the year, starting from a minimum of 500 reviews.
Player EngagementThis measures games with the highest average playtime during the first six weeks after release.
Daily Active UsersThis category tracks games or expansions that achieved the highest number of unique players in a single day, including older titles that received updates or DLC.
Units SoldThis recognizes the games that sold the most copies on Xbox consoles through the Microsoft Store.
Based on these criteria, here are the winners of the Xbox Excellence Awards 2024:
Store Rating
Player Engagement
Daily Active Users
Units Sold
Many of these titles are available onGame Passfrom day one. This includes exclusives like Hellblade II, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, STALKER 2, and Indiana Jones and the Grand Circle, as well as major hits like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Little Kitty, Big City, Palworld, Diablo IV, and Fallout 4.
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