Palworld Gave Microsoft’s Xbox Its Best Month This Year

Palworld may seem like it's dying a bit, but it's actually still one of the biggest games out this year.
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Anubis Palworld Using Power
Image: Pocketpair

The Early Access game Palworld has helped the Xbox platform achieve a record-breaking start to 2024. Described as “Pokemon with guns” due to its mix of creature-collecting, combat, and survival gameplay, Palworld has led to the highest console playtime ever for Xbox during January. It still has a big part of Xbox’s playtime in 2024, as the game is still holding a strong player base.

Microsoft announced its support for independent developers through the ID@Xbox program in a blog post. In it, they announced that Palworld had attracted over 10 million players on Xbox consoles. In January, the game achieved the biggest third-party launch in the history of Xbox Game Pass. Its Steam release also drew in 2 million concurrent players, a feat previously only achieved by PUBG.

While Palworld is currently only available for Xbox and PC, other platforms are interested in joining the fun. Shuhei Yoshida, Playstation’s head of indies, has shown interest in bringing the game to their console. Despite its widespread popularity, Palworld’s developer, Pocketpair, wants to remain a small studio. Founder Takuro Mizobe wanted to focus on “multiple small games” rather than large-scale AAA titles. However, the studio is open to considering potential partnerships or acquisition offers.

We can all see why Palworld has taken off. It’s exactly what Pokémon fans have wanted growing up, true freedom in that world. The issue is that Pokémon can only give a childish world because their key demographic is younger and they don’t want to ruin their image. I remember seeing Palworld for the first time and immediately wanting it.

Microsoft was smart to have seen Palworld early and put it on the platform. Their indie showcase and how they support newer developers are things that PlayStation should learn from. If we can get Palworld on PlayStation, we’ll likely see another player explosion. However, because the studio is still smaller, they’ll likely need to prep a move onto the console with a lot more servers. Helldivers 2 is a great example of what happens when you’re not ready for how popular your game gets.

Jorge A. Aguilar

Jorge A. Aguilar

Jorge A. Aguilar, also known as Aggy, is the current Assigning Editor.

He started his career as an esports, influencer, and streaming writer for Sportskeeda. He then moved to GFinity Esports to cover streaming, games, guides, and news before moving to the Social team where he ended his time as the Lead of Social Content.

He also worked a writer and editor for both Pro Game Guides and Dot Esports, and as a writer for PC Invasion, Attack of the Fanboy, and Android Police. Aggy is the former Managing Editor and Operations Overseer of N4G Unlocked and a former Gaming editor for WePC.

Throughout his time in the industry, he's trained over 100 writers, written thousands of articles on multiple sites, written more reviews than he cares to count, and edited tens of thousands of articles. He has also written some games published by Tales, some books, and a comic sold to Telus International.

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