With Forza Horizon 5’s release on PlayStation 5, we knew the game was going to be a massive hit. Today, the numbers just confirmed that idea. Rhys Elliot of Alinea Analytics states that the 2021 racing title crossed 5 million copies sold on the PS5 this week. That roughly translates to over $300 million in revenue.
Going by the industry standard revenue split of 70/30 (70 for publishers, 30 for the storefront), there’s a good chance that Sony made nearly $100 million just from the game being on their platform. The actual number might be slightly higher or lower, depending on the revenue split agreed upon between Sony and Microsoft, but even if Sony were to take a 15% cut (which is unlikely), that would still result in $45 million in revenue for a four-year-old game. Yeah, the Xbox publisher transition is pretty much complete.
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Like It Or Not, The Strategy’s Working
Back when Xbox announced it would be releasing major franchises like Halo, Gears of War, and Forza on PlayStation, die-hard Xbox fans were understandably confused. However, after bleeding quite a bit of money after Activision, this is the route that Xbox was forced to take. You have to meet the players where they are, after all. Xbox Series X/S users are estimated to be around 34 million, and the PS5 users are closer to 85 million.
That’s quite the loss in user count for Xbox, but the transition to becoming a publisher has been building for Microsoft for a while now. If you’re able to generate hundreds of millions in revenue by re-releasing a four-year-old game on a competitor platform, is that really so bad? Some will say that Xbox was forced into this play, which is hard to disagree with. But sentiments don’t really matter for shareholders and executives.
With these sorts of numbers, it’s safe to say that Forza Horizon 6 will eventually make its way to the PS5 sometime down the line. It certainly won’t launch on the platform the same day as on Xbox, but you won’t be waiting 4 years this time around.
