The Best-Selling Games on the Xbox 360

When the Xbox 360 originally launched 20 years ago on November 22, 2005, the Xbox brand was arguably at the height of its power. Microsoft’s first gaming console had been able to establish a slow but steady foothold in the industry compared to its competitors from Sony and Nintendo, bolstered by an impressive lineup of exclusives and PC ports. The real kicker, though, was the launch of Halo 2 and the Xbox Live service, transforming the Xbox into the best console for online play and setting up the Xbox 360 as a must-have successor. Sure enough, looking at the best-selling games on the Xbox 360 shows that exclusives and online-centric titles ruled the day, which was only helped further by developers generally having an easier time with Xbox 360 hardware than with that of the PlayStation 3.

• Release Date — May 29, 2007
• Developer — Turn 10 Studios
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — Driving/Racing
• Review Aggregate Score — 90%
• Total Sales — 4.05 million units

The Forza series became the Xbox equivalent of Gran Turismo during the Xbox 360’s lifespan, resulting in it having an impressive three entries that became some of the console’s best-selling games. The first is Forza Motorsport 2, which is where the franchise officially supplanted Project Gotham Racing as the Xbox brand’s de facto racing franchise, and it makes a lot of sense given how well the game still holds up today in terms of both its visuals and gameplay.

• Release Date — November 5, 2007
• Developer — Infinity Ward
• Publisher — Activision
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 94%
• Total Sales — 4.1 million units

The release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was a turning point for both the franchise and gaming in general, with the first-person shooter genre smashing through previous sales records and Modern Warfare establishing the ongoing dominance of Call of Duty. The Xbox 360 version was easily the best one to play thanks to how well-integrated the Xbox Live service was, which made hopping online and playing against others in white-knuckle deathmatch easier than ever before. And though Modern Warfare would eventually be surpassed by later games in the series, it still sold an impressive 4 million units at a time when that was almost unheard of for a non-Halo game.

• Release Date — October 11, 2011
• Developer — Turn 10 Studios
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — Driving/Racing
• Review Aggregate Score — 91%
• Total Sales — 4.6 million units

The fourth game in the Forza Motorsport series, and final one for the Xbox 360 before the series moved to Microsoft’s 8th-generation hardware on the Xbox One, Forza Motorsport 4 was an impressive technical achievement that continued to evolve the franchise in important ways. Notably, it’s also the final game in the series before the franchise split into the Horizon and Motorsport halves, with the Horizon games adopting a more accessible style of arcade racing and the Motorsport games keeping in line with the series’ more simulation-style gameplay. As such, Forza Motorsport 4 feels like the end of an era, and it sold accordingly.

• Release Date — October 18, 2011
• Developer — Rocksteady Studios
• Publisher — Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
• Genre — Action-Adventure
• Review Aggregate Score — 94%
• Total Sales — 4.73 million units

Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham games are some of the best superhero video games ever made, with Arkham City an obvious highlight as the first game to accurately capture what it would be like to patrol the streets of Gotham as the Caped Crusader. Arkham City was a blockbuster on every platform, but the Xbox 360 version seemed to be the de facto console home for the title, with it selling nearly 5 million units and becoming one of the handful of third-party titles that almost everyone with an Xbox 360 had a copy of.

• Release Date — November 7, 2008
• Developer — Epic Games
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — Action, Shooter
• Review Aggregate Score — 93%
• Total Sales — 5 million units

The original Gears of War had been such a massive game during the early years of the Xbox 360 that a sequel was practically a foregone conclusion, and sure enough, Epic Games would deliver one two years to the day of its predecessor’s launch. Gears of War 2 features what’s still many fans’ favorite campaign in the series, and that’s just half of the experience. Once you clear the epic story mode, Gears of War 2 has a completely revamped multiplayer suite that’s one of the best on the console, especially the co-op horde mode that lets you fight wave after wave of Locust with your trusty Lancer rifle.

• Release Date — November 7, 2006
• Developer — Epic Games
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — Action, Shooter
• Review Aggregate Score — 94%
• Total Sales — 5 million units

At the time of Gears of War‘s launch in 2006, the Xbox 360 was fast approaching its first full year on the market and was in dire need of another killer exclusive to hold players over until the launch of Halo 3. Gears of War fit that bill perfectly, bringing the Xbox brand one of its more iconic franchises and delivering an incredible third-person shooter experience that effectively changed gaming as we know it with its implementation of “stop-and-pop” cover-shooting. The hype surrounding Gears of War was real, which helped it easily sell 5 million copies as one of holiday 2006’s biggest titles.

• Release Date — April 29, 2008
• Developer — Rockstar North
• Publisher — Rockstar Games
• Genre — Action-Adventure
• Review Aggregate Score — 98%
• Total Sales — 5.01 million units

Despite the Grand Theft Auto franchise most commonly being associated with the PlayStation brand (owing to the incredible PS2 trilogy that brought the series into 3D), it was the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV that sold the most units. The PS2 trilogy of GTA games had made its way to the original Xbox in 2005, priming players for the series’ next-gen debut in 2008, and they were more ready than ever. Interestingly enough, Grand Theft Auto IV was a little more stripped-back and grounded than San Andreas, but it’s looked at today as one of the best and most underrated games in the series thanks to that more realistic approach.

• Release Date — October 23, 2009
• Developer — Turn 10 Studios
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — Driving/Racing
• Review Aggregate Score — 92%
• Total Sales — 5.5 million units

The third Forza Motorsport game would end up being the series’ best-selling game on the console as well as its best-rated, making it a nice parallel to the role that Gran Turismo 3 played on the PlayStation 2. The leap between the original Forza Motorsport on Xbox and the series’ second entry and debut on the Xbox 360 was massive, and Forza Motorsport 3 only further brought the franchise into the future with refined gameplay and some of the most impressive visuals of any racing game of the era.

• Release Date — September 14, 2010
• Developer — Bungie
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 91%
• Total Sales — 5.79 million units

As series creator Bungie’s swansong to the franchise, Halo: Reach is one of the greatest games on the Xbox 360 and a fitting farewell from its original developers. It’s also a highlight of the Halo franchise in terms of its story and gameplay, with one of the best campaigns and some absolutely incredible multiplayer, justifying its place as one of the Xbox 360’s best-selling games with nearly 6 million units sold. Knowing the fate of Noble Six did little to take away from the emotional impact of their sacrifice and Halo: Reach‘s iconic ending.

• Release Date — November 10, 2009
• Developer — Infinity Ward
• Publisher — Activision
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 94%
• Total Sales — 8.38 million units

The success of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare primed its sequel, Modern Warfare 2, to be an even bigger hit. Accordingly, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 would go on to sell more than twice the units of its predecessor, topping nearly 8.4 million copies sold and becoming one of the most commercially and critically successful FPS games of the era. Modern Warfare 2 upped the ante in just about every aspect of its gameplay, with an unforgettable single-player campaign that caused its fair share of controversy and an improved multiplayer suite that only further underscored Call of Duty as the best competitive shooter on consoles.

• Release Date — November 6, 2012
• Developer — 343 Industries
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 87%
• Total Sales — 9.4 million units

Bungie’s decision to pass the reins of the Halo franchise to another developer was one made out of necessity, but that didn’t stop fans from having high (almost too high) expectations for the team that would carry the series forward. Even with the odds stacked against it, 343 Studios managed to deliver a memorable first crack at the franchise with Halo 4, and the question over how a new studio would handle a Halo game led to it being incredibly hyped ahead of its release, selling nearly 10 million units in just its first few weeks on the market.

• Release Date — November 5, 2013
• Developer — Infinity Ward
• Publisher — Activision
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 73%
• Total Sales — 10.16 million units

Call of Duty: Ghosts was actually the first game in the series for Microsoft’s Xbox One console, but the large install base of the Xbox 360 prompted Infinity Ward and Activision to make it a cross-gen release available for both the 360 and PS3 alongside its 8th-gen counterparts. And even with the 7th-gen version of Ghosts being one of the worst ways to play what was already a fairly middling Call of Duty game, the Xbox 360 release of the title still managed to outsell a ton of other games in the series, moving more than 10 million units.

• Release Date — November 11, 2011
• Developer — Bethesda Game Studios
• Publisher — Bethesda Softworks
• Genre — Action RPG
• Review Aggregate Score — 96%
• Total Sales — 13.7 million units

In the early days of the Xbox 360, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was one of the few games that truly felt like a “next-gen” experience. Naturally, the importance of Oblivion in the trajectory of the Xbox 360 made the anticipation for the next Elder Scrolls game almost unbearable, to the point where Skyrim was easily the most hyped game of 2011. Sure enough, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was a monumental release in the Xbox 360’s history, selling almost 14 million units and going on to sit at or near the top of the list of the best open-world role-playing games of all time.

• Release Date — November 13, 2012
• Developer — Treyarch
• Publisher — Activision
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 83%
• Total Sales — 13.7 million units

By 2012, Call of Duty was almost single-handedly dominating the military shooter space (which it arguably still does to this day), and the release of Black Ops II was incredibly hyped thanks to the love players had for the original. While Black Ops II doesn’t quite match the heights of the first Balck Ops in either its campaign or its multiplayer, it’s still a quality Call of Duty experience that further establishes Treyarch as one of the best teams to work on the franchise, and its futuristic setting was a first for the series that drove players to pick it up en masse — to the tune of about 14 million players on the Xbox 360 alone.

• Release Date — September 25, 2007
• Developer — Bungie
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 94%
• Total Sales — 14.5 million units

The top 10 best-selling games on the Xbox 360 are almost entirely dominated by first-person shooters, which should come as no surprise with how integral the genre was to both the original Xbox and the Xbox 360’s success. While it doesn’t quite crack the top 5, Halo 3 was still a major seller on the Xbox 360 and one of the console’s most anticipated exclusives ahead of its release, with fans understandably salty about the massive cliffhanger of Halo 2‘s campaign. Thankfully, Halo 3 more than delivered on its story and gameplay as a follow-up and conclusion to the first major arc of Master Chief’s journey, with its nearly 15 million units in sales justified by some of the best single and multiplayer FPS gameplay on the console.

• Release Date — November 9, 2010
• Developer — Treyarch
• Publisher — Activision
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 87%
• Total Sales — 14.55 million units

It’s no wonder that Call of Duty: Black Ops is one of the best-selling Call of Duty games during what can best be described as the franchise’s “golden era”. Both Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 had primed Call of Duty for genre supremacy, and Black Ops marked the series’ first foray into the Cold War era alongside the return of Treyarch’s Zombies mode (which made its debut in Treyarch’s first run with the series, Call of Duty: World at War). Truthfully, Call of Duty: Black Ops is probably the most replayable game in the franchise from the 7th generation, which makes its nearly 15 million units in sales a total non-surprise.

• Release Date — November 8, 2011
• Developer — Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games
• Publisher — Activision
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 88%
• Total Sales — 14.72 million units

Black Ops wouldn’t be the only Call of Duty game to sell nearly 15 million units on the Xbox 360, with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 slightly beating it out by a few hundred thousand copies. Surprisingly, Modern Warfare 3 is actually an inferior Call of Duty game to many of the series’ other best-selling titles, but is a classic example of how player loyalty to a franchise and pre-release hype could help drive some impressive sales figures during the Xbox 360 era. And while it was the first real instance of players starting to show some Call of Duty fatigue, Modern Warfare 3 is still an enjoyable FPS with a surprisingly great campaign.

• Release Date — May 9, 2012
• Developer — 4J Studios
• Publisher — Microsoft Studios
• Genre — Simulation, Crafting, Survival
• Review Aggregate Score — 82%
• Total Sales — 22 million units

If one were to try to name a “game of the decade” for the 2010s that helped define game design trends for the era and was an undeniable success, there’s almost no other viable option than Minecraft. Aside from being the single best-selling game of all time, Minecraft‘s influence has spread far and wide, and it’s become so ubiquitous now that it’s easy to forget that its first console release was on the Xbox 360. Minecraft‘s Xbox 360 Edition is a surprisingly great port of the title that carried over most of its features at the time and allowed players to see what all the hype was about, which resulted in it selling an astounding 22 million units.

• Release Date — September 17, 2013
• Developer — Rockstar North
• Publisher — Rockstar Games
• Genre — Action-Adventure
• Review Aggregate Score — 97%
• Total Sales — 22.95 million units

Just slightly beating out Minecraft for sales supremacy on the Xbox 360 is Grand Theft Auto V, which sold nearly 23 million units to become the best-selling action game on the console and the most successful third-party title in the system’s library. It should come as no surprise, given how successful Grand Theft Auto V was and continues to be on every platform it’s been released for, but it’s still crazy to think that we’re more than 10 years out from the title’s original release without a proper follow-up. That’s almost certainly due to Grand Theft Auto V‘s ability to be a continual money maker for Rockstar, with Grand Theft Auto Online still being played by millions worldwide.

• Release Date — November 4, 2010
• Developer — Good Science Studio
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — Sports, Party
• Review Aggregate Score — 61%
• Total Sales — 24 million units

Who says best-selling games have to be good? No doubt helped by its place as a system pack-in with the wave of Xbox 360 consoles that came packaged with the Kinect peripheral, Kinect Adventures! would end up becoming the Xbox 360’s best-selling game with more than 24 million units sold. Microsoft would eventually phase out the Kinect, but Kinect Adventures is actually one of the small handful of games made for the device that worked as intended, even if its gameplay was pretty shallow and little more than an excuse to let players see renditions of themselves in party games.