Update: Forza Horizon 5 hits 18 Million Players in 3 months

Gaming
21

What a beast of a launch, although something tells me that record of being the biggest XGS launch is not going to last long lol.

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22

I think Halo will be bigger still, but I am less confident than I was prior to this FH5 launch for sure lol

23

Nah, Halo will beat it definitely on the basis the multiplayer is FTP, it cannot be underestimated how many players that can bring to a title. If we just speak about the single player, I do agree that is more touch and go, although I feel Halo will still post bigger numbers.

But still, Forza Horizon 5 is posting astonishing numbers, especially when you consider it is a racing game.

1 Like
24

Yep, this series’ growth can’t be understated:

  • Announced as a “cute” little spin-off for the behemoth that was Forza Motorsport at the time.
  • Some were even surprised to see it at full price, given that early impressions made it feel like a less deep and involved Forza Motorsport.
  • A brand new third party studio, who knows how they’ll handle the franchise?
  • Turn 10’s involvement was clear though, and Forza Horizon turned out to be great. Not groundbreaking but really good, still.
  • Horizon 2 was a marked improvement in most aspects, but Xbox One’s muted launch undermined the game’s potential.
  • Horizon 3 was probably the best looking game on Xbox at that time, and despite being an Xbox One exclusive, it managed to do stellar numbers.
  • Playground becomes a Microsoft first party, and is already looking like one of their most talented ones by all means.
  • Horizon 4 had a stellar debut on console with yet another massive visual improvement, and managed to generate massive numbers even much later when it debuted on Steam.
  • In 2021, Horizon 5 wins the best game at E3 award. Yeah, yeah, Elden Ring didn’t count as it was in Geoff’s own show, but even second or third best was notable for a racing franchise.
  • Over 1 million people bought the Ultimate edition or Upgrade before the proper release of the game.
  • Day 1 has had 4.5m+ players, with 70k+ peak concurrent users on Steam alone - the only platform where Game Pass isn’t available, so that’s hundreds of thousands of copies sold on Steam already.
  • Playground is now one of Microsoft’s peak first party studios, delivering three consecutive 90+ Metacritic hits with tons of players and still an increasing playerbase.
  • This series absolutely eclipsed not only Forza Motorsport, but any racing game that isn’t Mario Kart.
  • Fable couldn’t be in more capable hands.
17 Likes
25

yeah the F2P aspect is the golden goose here. Definitely thinking 5 mill launch day across all platforms

Tbh people underestimate just how big racing games actually can be. Black Box era NFS had Underground selling 15 mill, MW2005 selling 16 mill. Like Gran Turismo was the biggest game in the PS2 generation for Sony, and now Forza Horizon is that for Xbox. So I’m glad to see the franchise thriving and continually pushing the boundaries for the genre.

2 Likes
26

That’s just it, that was some time ago where you had GT being PlayStation’s biggest franchise and now that is not the case, because the genre has lost some of its popularity with the more casual demographic. But Forza Horizon seems to be able to tap into it, hence why you get these numbers.

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27

Yeah, what I meant was the allure and potential for a huge audience for racing games has always been there, it’s just that most devs/publishers fell off hard in the past decade starting from the late Black Box Era and MS cleverly saw the gap there and created Horizon, which now took the mantle and kept the casual racing space alive at a scale this big. Like the fall of NFS legit created such a power vacuum that Horizon being there just launched it super high lol.

Hoping this marks the return of arcade racing to the forefront again. Hotwheels Unleashed is one of my favorite games of the year, and FH5 shall join it soon. And more so, really hoping the upcoming NFS and TDU shall be great as well.

1 Like
28

Gotta love that disclaimer lmaoo

11 Likes
29

My guess would be that MP will outstrip Horizon 5 easily – it’s already got amazing word of mouth from the flightings and it’s FTP.

Whether the campaign will beat it or not is another question, but MP should.

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30

I think FH5 will be bigger on console. Halo will be bigger on PC. I doubt that Halo will have 4.5M day one but FH5 had early access.

Not going to be a straightforward comparison.

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31

Ok I’m gonna say it, Forza Horizon feels like a Nintendo game.

4 Likes
32

Congrats everyone involved and deserved!

Forza Horizon 5 & Playground should be a model and inspiration for craftsmanship, quality & consistency among Xbox studios!

3 Likes
33

Rumour is that Infinite is going to have early access too isn’t it?

34

We haven’t got to the weekend yet lol fully expect 7m by next Monday.

35

I’m finally going to get some time in today since I have tomorrow off.

2 Likes
36

I wonder if Halo will beat this…probably not. If it doesn’t Starfield will.

37

As above, I personally think it will. I’m going off a few factors:

  1. Halo Infinite MP is FTP – people without Game Pass, even people without Gold, are going to be able to download and play it.
  2. It will be splashed over the dashboard of every Xbox One and Xbox Series console as FTP from launch.
  3. It will be all over Youtube, Twitter and other social media.
  4. The MP already has tremendous word of mouth as a result of the successful technical tests.
  5. Competitive FPS is bigger than racing as a genre in general.
  6. Both Battlefield and COD are arguably not releasing their best iterations this year.
  7. Halo Infinite MP is arguably of a much higher graphical fidelity and ‘completeness’ than the average FTP shooter.
  8. Due to its scalability to 2013 hardware, even people with modest PC hardware will be able to play it.

I think campaign may not hit the same numbers as FH5, as it requires Game Pass or a purchase and is arguably less graphically stunning and ‘next gen’ as compared to FH5. I also feel that due to MP and Campaign being separate SKUs, people who jump straight into MP may not even download the Campaign on day one even if they do plan to play it.

When it comes to making player count announces, I highly doubt that Xbox would actually announce the player counts separate despite there being two SKUs. They will just give a count for ‘Halo Infinite’ and roll campaign and MP players into one figure, so we will never actually know. how well each has respectively done as to engagement.

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38

Why not? Halo is a big IP + free to play FPS + game pass

39

I bet you Phil Spencer, who I assume greenlit the game because he was in charge of first party at the time, pats himself on the back for okaying the game wayback when.

1 Like
40

Of course halo will be bigger. But let this topic be about forza.