Microsoft poster boy Phil Spencer has revealed that Sea of Thieves and State of Decay 2 sold far greater than what the format holder had initially forecast.

Spencer confirmed during an interview with Giant Bomb that Rare's multiplayer plunder-'em-up moved 'significantly more' copies than Microsoft's internal projections.

'On those two games (Sea of Thieves and State of Decay 2), we sold more copies of those games than we expected,' the executive said. 'The same thing was true of State of Decay.'

Both titles are of course available on the Xbox Game Pass, although interestingly Spencer revealed that pass users actually buys more games than other Xbox owners.

Sea of Thieves was released in March while State of Decay 2 shambled into stores last month. The latter also managed to drum up over two million players in less than two weeks.