Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 have been played by over 38 million people

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Microsoft has been focussing a lot of its efforts on the gaming sphere. The company recently announced that it is going to acquire Activision Blizzard and all of its subsidiaries. Now, the company’s CEO Satya Nadella has announced that 20 million people have played Halo Infinite and 18 million people have played Forza Horizon 5. Also Read — Microsoft launches new skilling courses for small and medium businesses

These numbers include people who played the games using the Xbox Game Pass subscription service, where both the games can be played without any direct cost. However, this does give us a look at the just-download-it-and-give-it-a-whirl model in play. Microsoft had earlier revealed that its Game Pass subscription currently has around 25 million subscribers. Also Read — Microsoft is bringing its first major update to Windows 11 next month

Halo Infinite offers its multiplayer mode to all under a free-to-play model, with all non-Game Pass subscribers being required to purchase the campaign separately. Also Read — Next 3 Call of Duty games likely to launch on PS, irrespective of Microsoft's Activision acquisition

While both the games were highly anticipated, it is hard to believe that they would have drawn so many players, if they were required to pay the full price for the game.

To put this into perspective, Microsoft back in 2020 announced that 24 million people had played Forza Horizon 4 since it came out back in 2018. While Forza Horizon 5 has only seen 18 million players, it did so in just four months.

Halo Infinite has become the biggest launch in its franchise history. The game series as a whole had sold 81 million copies in its 20-year run.