Mega Man is all set to blaze a path to the finish line, complete with his signature outfit and a very cool yet familiar ride that’s sure to give him the speed needed to slip past some very fast opponents. It seems that he was late to a tournament at some point, but he’s sure not going to miss out on this one, and we’re certainly glad that he’s on his way to the tracks.

He’ll be available as part of a DLC pack on March 25. Mega Man’s announcement comes hot on the heels of Goro Majima, Angry Birds’ Red, and Arle from Puyo Pyuo, who are going to be joining the game’s ever-growing roster over the next couple of months for free. It’s looking like a great time to be a fan of Crossworlds’ excellent and often chaotic take on arcade racing, and Sega seems as determined as ever to get those sales numbers in line with its projections.

The announcement trailer is below for those who want to take a look. For more details on Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, check out our review.

Goro Majima from the Yakuza franchise had us grinning at the news, his popularity after his last adventure in Hawaii making him a fine choice. There’s also Red from Angry Birds, and Arle from Puyo Puyo, for those of you who can’t get enough of them. Each of them brings their own unique vehicles to the table, which are bound to create the scope for some crazy new combinations with existing characters. We’re curious to see how each character’s stats manage to make them competitive additions to the game’s expanding roster.

The new vehicles are quite impressive, each one themed to the character driving it. Majima’s is part of the reason we’re stoked to have him join CrossWorlds, and his ride looks like it could ‘sail’ through the game’s timeline-spanning shenanigans.

There are also some new tunes coming your way, and you can access them from the in-game jukebox. You can see when your personal pick of the three new characters is coming in the trailer below. If you can’t, Red and Majima are out in April, with Arle arriving in May.

The post is a the latest iteration of the Xbox Excellence Awards, which was created last year to celebrate how players engaged with various releases on Xbox. The Store Rating category lists 2025 games with the best ratings on the Microsoft Store, with an added requirement of the title having at least 500 ratings. Player Engagements is about the average number of hours spent on a game by each player within the first six weeks of a game’s release. Daily Active Users celebrates titles, expansions or updates with the highest single-day active users throughout the year. And finally Units Sold is fairly self-explanatory.

Going down the lists, you’ll find many of the biggest releases of the year, from ARC Raiders and Battlefield 6, as well as award-winning RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Indie titles have also been well-represented, with games like Crime Scene Cleaner and Satisfactory making it into the lists. There also doesn’t seem to have been a singular genre to dominate the lists, since everything from sports games like EA Sports Madden NFL 26, to fantasy adventure life sims like Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, and even fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics are well represented.

Curiously, none of the games was present in all four of the categories. At most, we got to see titles like Borderlands 4 being able to make it on to three of them: Player Engagement, Daily Active Users and Units Sold. Even ARC Raiders, which has seen quite a bit of success, is only on the Units Sold and Daily Active Users lists.

Microsoft has also emphasized that the lists represent a diverse collection of games developed by studios of varying sizes. All in all, it represents 48 unique developers based out of 13 countries, with 24 publishers having had a hand in their release. 19 of the games were self-published. “Taken as a whole, it’s an encapsulation of development on Xbox – we want gaming to reach you wherever you are, and for the teams making those games to find you from wherever they are,” wrote the company.

Full list of games:

Store Rating:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
• Crime Scene Cleaner
• Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2
• Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• Dreamcore
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Final Fantasy XVI
• Lies of P: Overture
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• Little Nightmares III
• Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics
• Minami Lane
• Mullet MadJack
• Poppy Playtime Chapter 4
• Satisfactory
• Silent Hill 2
• Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
• The First Berserker: Khazan

Player Engagement:

• Borderlands 4
• Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins
• EA Sports College Football 26
• EA Sports FC 26
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Farm Together 2
• Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles
• Helldivers 2
• Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
• MLB The Show 25
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• NBA 2K26
• NHL 26
• Rust
• Satisfactory
• The First Berserker: Khazan

Daily Active Users:

• Arc Raiders
• Avowed
• Battlefield 6
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• DOOM: The Dark Ages
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Fortnite
• Forza Horizon 5
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Grounded 2
• Helldivers 2
• Marvel Rivals
• Minecraft
• NBA 2K26
• Rematch
• Roblox
• Rocket League
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

Units Sold:

• Arc Raiders
• Assassin’s Creed Shadows
• Battlefield 6
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• EA Sports Madden NFL 26
• EA Sports College Football 26
• EA Sports FC 26
• Elden Ring Nightreign
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Helldivers 2
• Hollow Knight: Silksong
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II
• MLB The Show 25
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• NBA 2K26
• PGA Tour 2K25
• Ready or Not
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• WWE 2K25

Despite the early success, however, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds apparently didn’t meet internal sales projections. However, Sega plans on continuing post-launch support to promote long-term sales.

“We recently announced that worldwide cumulative sales [of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds] have surpassed 1 million units,” said Fukuzawa. “However, initial performance did not meet our expectations, and we are aiming to sell approximately another 1 million units within the fiscal year. We aim to sustain long-term sales by encouraging players to enjoy the game over time through the continued support of the title, including ongoing release of additional downloadable content.”

The sales milestone had been reached in October. This announcement coincided with the release of a free update for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds that introduced Persona 5 protagonist Joker to the roster. The character was accompanied by his vehicle—the Arsene Wing—along with three songs from Persona 5—“Take Over,” “Wake Up, Get Up, Get out There,” and “Victory.”

Looking forward, director Masaru Kobayakawa confirmed that more content is in development for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds that will be released throughout 2026. These updates, he said last month, will “surprise everyone”.

“We released Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds in September 2025. Thanks in part to the over 30 years of racing game know-how we’ve accumulated since Sega Rally, the game has been well-received by players all over the world,” said Kobayakawa. “We plan to continue providing service throughout the season in 2026, but we’ve also prepared many more amazing surprises than at launch. We’re aiming to make this a year in which we’ll surprise everyone.”

The newest addition to the Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds roster has been Pac-Man, released in January. The character’s arrival was teased with a short social media clip showcasing a game of Pac-Man with the high score racking up at a rapid pace.

Three more collaboration DLCs confirmed to be part of the game’s season pass are in the works: Mega Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, and Avatar Legends. They will join other third-party IPs like SpongeBob SquarePants and Minecraft, which have already made it into the game. For more details, check out the post-launch roadmap. As for Sega’s own IP, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds has so far seen the addition of Vocaloid star Hatsune Miku and Like a Dragon‘s Ichiban Kasuga joining Joker.

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. Check out our review, where we gave it a score of 9 out of 10 and called it a “kart racer with its own identity”. We praised its focus on blistering speed and performance, while criticizing the sensory overload from its Race Park party mode.

Taking a closer look at software sales for the month of December, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 took the lead, with Battlefield 6 being ranked third. Other titles in the best-seller charts for the month are a mix of newer games like Donkey Kong Bananza and older titles like Grand Theft Auto 5, Minecraft and Red Dead Redemption 2.

While other console makers might have started struggling with console sales last year, Nintendo has been doing quite well with the release of the Switch 2. Piscatella had confirmed, the Switch 2 ended up being the best-selling console of the year in the US, with the country accounting for 4.4 million units. Along with this, the new console is also noted as selling faster than the original Switch from back in 2017.

As he noted, the Switch 2’s hardware sales single-handedly managed to offset industry-wide downward trends in console hardware sales. Sony’s PS5 ranked second for the period. The Switch 2 has also been described by Piscatella as being the “fastest selling video game console hardware platform” in history so far.

While things might be going well for Nintendo for the time being, research firm Niko Partners has predicted that the company will end up raising the price of the Switch 2 thanks to the worldwide memory shortages affecting manufacturing. The firm noted that, while the Switch 2 is priced competitively when compared to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo might have to bring its latest console in line with its competitors to maintain profitability.

In the meantime, Battlefield Studios has been working hard on creating and testing more content for the upcoming second season of Battlefield 6. While it hasn’t yet revealed too many details aside from its February 17 launch date, the developers provided a few hints about what kind of content we can expect when Season 2 of Battlefield 6 is kicked off.

Among the new content coming to the game is a brand new map, dubbed Contagion, that will also feature its own unique gameplay mechanics. No details have been provided about these mechanics, aside from vague hints about players needing to use equipment to interact with them, a soldier wearing a gas mask in the teaser trailer, and the fact that the map’s name implies some sort of contagious infection will be involved.

Battlefield 6 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our review from back when it first came out.

2025 Top 20 Best-Selling Premium Games – U.S. (Dollar Sales, Physical and Digital from digital data sharing publishers, excludes add-on content)

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-01-22T14:00:07.506Z

December 2025 Top 20 Best-Selling Premium Games – U.S. (Dollar Sales, Physical and Digital from digital data sharing publishers, excludes add-on content)

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-01-22T14:00:07.505Z

Alongside the Man of Pac himself, players can control the Ghost Gang, namely Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. The next playable stage is also seemingly based on a typical maze from the classic, which makes sense. For those who don’t own the DLC, the Pac-Man Festival will be available starting January 8th at 4 PM PT, allowing everyone to try out the character for free. It’s live until January 11th, 3:59 PM PT.

Three more collaborations await as part of the current season pass – Mega Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, and Avatar Legends. However, creative director Masaru Kobayakawa also promised “many more amazing surprises” for the racing title, somehow topping its launch hype. “We’re aiming to make this a year in which we’ll surprise everyone.”

It could mean other free characters, potentially from Sega’s own ranks. Thus far, we’ve seen the likes of Vocaloid star Hatsune Miku, Joker from Persona 5 and Ichiban Kasuga from Like a Dragon.

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2. It sold over a million units less than a month after release – not quite the same sales pace as Sonic X Shadow Generations, but still pretty good. Check out our review here.

Speaking to the Japanese publication as part of its interviews of over 150 developers, Kobayakawa said that there are plans to release new content for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds throughout 2026, and that Sega wants to make sure that this new year is one in which it will “surprise everyone.”

“We released Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds in September 2025. Thanks in part to the over 30 years of racing game know-how we’ve accumulated since Sega Rally, the game has been well-received by players all over the world,” said Kobayakawa (via Google Translate). “We plan to continue providing service throughout the season in 2026, but we’ve also prepared many more amazing surprises than at launch. We’re aiming to make this a year in which we’ll surprise everyone.”

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds was released back in September, and has since then seen several updates and DLC releases. In October, Sega had confirmed that the kart racer had sold more than one million copies, and celebrated this announcement with the free release of Persona 5 protagonist Joker as a playable racer. The update also brought with it three new songs—”Take Over”, “Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There”, and “Victory”.

Along with free characters like Joker, Hatsune Miku and the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series’ new protagonist Ichiban Kasuga, Sega has also released characters from Minecraft and SpongeBob SquarePants as part of its paid season pass. A roadmap has confirmed plans for more crossover character releases in the future, with the Pac-Man, Mega Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Avatar: The Last Airbender franchises being represented in these plans. The upcoming free characters, however, have been left as surprises.

While the addition of crossover characters is a great way to boost the number of playable characters in the kart racer, Sonic franchise head Takashi Iizuka had confirmed back in July that these they would not feature any dialogue lines. “There is no dialogue for collaboration characters,” said Iizuka. “Because of the IP, the voice dialogue is limited to the 24 Sonic characters.” While this might make sense for characters from IP that Sega doesn’t own, fans of the kart racer had also spotted that DLC characters that are already part of Sega’s own franchises also don’t seem to have their own voice lines (which extends to the pre-order bonus character Werehog).

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. For more details, check out our review where we gave the kart racer a score of 9 out of 10 thanks to features like gadgets and builds, and the Rivals system.

As part of the process, the team first makes the roadmap, and then figures out which game it wants to work on next. Once that decision has been made, resources are then allocated accordingly. Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds was developed in a similar manner, since Sonic Team wanted to focus on reviving the racing side of things for the franchise.

“First we create a roadmap of Sonic titles and think about which game to release in which year, said Iizuka. “We then allocate the development resources needed to develop those titles. So this year we’ve strengthened the racing genre, and we’re currently planning what to do next on the roadmap.”

However, Iizuka didn’t provide more details about these roadmaps, such as how far into the future it makes plans for when it comes to making new Sonic titles. The roadmaps also likely take into account other projects in the Sonic franchise that might already be under development.

In the meantime, Sega has confirmed that Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds has sold more than a million copies since its launch back in September across PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch. The announcement was made alongside the release of Joker from Persona 5 as a playable character for the kart racer, including the addition of three new songs from the turn-based RPG – Take Over, Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There, and Victory.

As its name might imply, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is the newest entry in the kart racing mini-series under the larger Sonic franchise. The title launched with 24 regular tracks and 23 characters from across the Sonic franchise, as well as a host of guest characters, including vocaloid music store Hatsune Miku. Alongside its fast-paced arcade-styled racing, the core gameplay of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds revolves around the titular mechanic that allows players to change the track in the middle of a race thanks to portals that take racers to different locations.

A Nintendo Switch 2 version of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is also planned for release. In the meantime, the title is also slated to get a variety of different DLC releases, which will include characters from franchises outside of Sega. These franchises include Mega Man, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Minecraft. Check out more details about the kart racing game in our review, where we gave it a score of 9 out of 10 thanks to its performance and fun gameplay.

The Sonic franchise has been seeing general success as well. Back in January, Sega had confirmed that Sonic X Shadow Generations had sold more than 2 million copies. The announcement came after its launch day back in October 2024 already saw more than a million sales.

Its last major release, Sonic X Shadow Generations, sold over one million copies at launch and more than 1.5 million about a month later. Perhaps it’s not the best comparison, especially given the ability to play as Shadow and the hype surrounding the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 film. However, it appears to be a vast improvement over Team Sonic Racing, which launched in May 2019 and sold 1.38 million by the third quarter of fiscal year 2020.

Aside from the sales update, Joker from Persona 5 is now available in-game for free. Players can also use the Arsene Wing and access three songs – “Take Over,” “Wake Up, Get Up, Get out There,” and “Victory.” Sega also confirmed that, thus far, the player base has accumulated more than 74.5 million races, over 31.5 million Grands Prix, and more than 13 million Ranked races.

For more details on free and paid characters, check out the roadmap. You can also read our review here.

Several new music tracks are available from the Intro and Overworld to the Nether, but you can also listen to the originals, from Comforting Memories and Infinite Amethyst to Pigstep. Coinciding with the DLC’s launch is the Minecraft Festival, a limited-time event available now till October 12th, 7:59 PM EDT.

By participating and earning Festival Points, players can earn a new title, stickers, a horn and a new Gadget for free. If you miss out, the Gadget will be available in future updates, while other rewards could become available through “other means” in the future.

The next pack releasing in Q4 2025 is SpongeBob SquarePants, so stay tuned for more details and check out the roadmap here. Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch, with the Switch 2 version also out later this year. You can read our review here.