Microsoft announces giveaways to celebrate Xbox One's one year release

Holiday season is almost here and that means there will be some great deals in store for gamers. It also means that the next-gen consoles are now a year old...which again translates back to great deals for gamers! The Xbox One released a year ago on November 22nd which means it will turn a year old in a day. To celebrate its first year anniversary, Microsoft will be releasing a lot of stats that will chronicle the last twelve months of Xbox One gaming. Alongside this, they will also be giving away a lot of goodies to all Xbox One owners. The details of these giveaways can be found below.

The recent stats released by Microsoft are pretty mind boggling in terms of sheer number. In total, gamers have spent nearly 2 billion hours playing on their Xbox One. They have also earned 11 billion Gamescore points during this time. This averages to 5.5 points per hour.

The top four games with the most achievements earned this past year were:

• Forza Motorsport 5: Welcome to Forza Motorsport
• Titanfall: Build Yourself
• Destiny: Ship Rite
• Call of Duty: Ghosts: Spatial Awareness

Microsoft giveaways can be divided into two varieties. The first will be for every Xbox One gamer who has played their console in this last year and will include:

• A Year One Gamer Picture
• New Xbox One backgrounds: A special Year One background as well as an exclusive Day One background for those who unlocked the Day One achievement
• A Year One background image for use on Twitter, your desktop, etc.
• A free rental of “Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn” (for a limited time)
• A free rental of “Dragon Ball Z: Battle of the Gods” movie and a sampler pack of “Dragon Ball Z” TV episodes (for a limited time, available in the U.S. and Canada only)

The second more rarer variety are some bigger prizes that will be given to randomly selected fans. These fans will receive one of the items mentioned on this list below:

• Xbox One Limited Edition Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Bundle (U.S. only)
• Xbox One Special Edition Sunset Overdrive Bundle (U.S. only)
• One month membership for Xbox One-exclusive EA Access service
• Tiger Shark cash card for Grand Theft Auto V, worth $200,000 in-game GTA Onlinedollars
• Forza gift pack with Forza RallyCross hat, Lamborghini Huracán 1/24 scale replica, and Xbox One Controller (launch team edition) signed by Tanner Foust, host of Top Gear America, Global RallyCross champion and professional stunt driver (U.S. only)
• Forza Horizon 2 Limited Edition Casio G-Shock Men’s Black Multi-Function Digital Sports Watch (U.S. only)
• Grand Theft Auto V gift pack with the Los Santos Sheriff Trucker cap, Michael, Franklin and Trevor Posters, and a Grand Theft Auto V sticker pack (U.S. only)
• Xbox Live Gold 12-month membership digital code
• Killer Instinct Season 1 Combo Breaker Pack, the retail version of Killer Instinct Xbox One’s first season and includes all eight season one characters: Jago, Sabrewulf, Glacius, Thunder, Sadira, Orchid, and Spinal. Also includes Fulgore DLC character.
• Special limited edition Nissan 370Z, featuring a custom Casio livery for Forza Horizon 2
• Air Vehicle shortcut for Battlefield 4 for immediate access to all available unlocks for helicopters and jets available in the main Battlefield 4 game
• Arno’s French Rapier for Assassin’s Creed Unity to improve your combat skills
• 75 Platinum in Warframe
• Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare Costume Pack for Peggle 2
• Epic Quest Table in Pinball FX2
• Dance Central Spotlight (full game token)
• Project Spark Premium – 15 days: Grants 2x gain of Spark XP, credits, and champion XP, as well as the ability to purchase new token-only content for earned in-game credits