Talking Point: Is Forza Horizon About To Become Xbox's Main Forza Franchise?

It already has.

Yep.

Obligatory "make the comment long enough so that Pure Xbox let's me post it" words.

As much as I love forza motorsports I don't see it returning. I had a decent time with the series version, but I was disappointed at the time of release. Maybe it's better with patches idk.

I enjoy Forza Motorsport and would like them to keep updating it, but the forced live service feel to it did a lot of damage to the brand. Forza Horizon is just too simplified and throws gifts and money at you so often there's little to no edification, it's dull. Loved the first 2, 3 was good, 4 had some greatness, but by 5 it's so watered down now.

I hope not, both are great. Both serve very different means. Both games are kind of stuck in their formulaic gameplay though. I'm worried about the future of both of them.

IRacing has kind of taken over the Sim racing world as the clear leader. Forza horizon has changed very little even from the fifth iteration all the way to the original. It is still fun but each time a little less so.

As someone who plays arcade-racers over sim-racers, yeah, it already has. For a looong while now. There has NEVER been a bad Horizon game (even the standalone F&F tie-in was good), but the fairly recent Motorsport games have been Meh. 5 is just the worst, no clue about 6 & 7 other than the loot boxes, and 8 was just barebones at launch for the sake 'live-service drip feeding'.

Basically yes.

I think this goes by fads, right now driving simulators, which was already a niche genre, are in the doldrums.

But the least expected day, when nobody remembers them anymore, one will appear that will make the genre popular again, as it happened with Flight Simulator.

Just going from how many of the dev team are being let go, it’s hard not to conclude that FM’s days are numbered, which is very sad. Forza Motorsport is still the best feeling driving game of the current gen, for me, though I know I’m vastly in the minority for thinking this.

I’d love for it to receive one last decent update, perhaps with a newly remastered track, that’s still missing from earlier games, just as a ‘thanks for the memories’.

Before having my first Xbox I didn't even know Forza Motorsport existed. But I did know Forza Horizon at least from name.

I prefer Motorsport to Horizon, but I enjoy both to some degree, My son is in the top 1% of Motorsport players in the world, yet he barely touches Horizon.

The thing is, Motorsport has not really evolved for a few games now. You get the same tracks, and they feel much the same, but with prettier graphics. Really, it is (just like Fifa) a game that could survive on updates rather than new releases.

Horizon, on the other hand, benefits from being set in a different Country each time, which does give it some variety, although mostly they are pretty much the same game each time, just in a different setting.

Ultimately, I would like to see Motorsport receive annual (or bi-annual) updates, and keep receiving a new Horizon at the cadence that we do at present...

About to? I'd argue it took over since Forza Horizon 4 released and I think it'll be difficult for Motorsport to recover after the huge disappointment that the current game is.

Right now there are less than 700 players on Motorsport through Steam but over 13,000 on FH5 and 5,000 (higher than FM all time peak) in FH4, which you can't even buy anymore.

I'd argue that Forza Horizon and Sea of Thieves are actually Xbox's 2 biggest IP these days (outside of those they bought)

I find it amusing that folks say Motorsport doesn't do anything different but give Horizon a pass for offering the same events, race styles and even repeat dlc. Literally the only thing that changes between Horizon games is the scenery.

I fully admit I am mostly done with open world racing games and much prefer closed track racing. So I hope they don't give up on the Motorsport franchise and give it another go.

There's no "about to" about it. Motorsport is practically dead with MS wiping out the team and moving them over to the Horizon side.

Already did! Horizon has been more successful and probably has a higher engagement too. I also think that Motorsport is not as commercially viable on other platforms - especially Sony hardware as they have a Loyal and dedicated Gran Turismo fanbase. Therefore I don't expect Motorsport to be worth porting which again limits its reach and profitability.

All that would indicate that Horizon is their top Racing game. I actually preferred Gotham Racing to Forza and Rallisport Challenge too - both of which I'd have preferred to see as MS's flagship Racer

One of the first games I got as part of getting a new XBOX was Forza Horizon 4. It's always had something new to find, the open world nature means that you don't have to do anything in a particular order and there's always something new to find.

I find both Asphalt and Speedstorm to be brain-dead racing, and Motorsport is not much better. Once you've mastered the circuits in a circuit racer, you'll never lose.

@BAMozzy I was a huge fan of Metropolis Street Racer which in turn became Project Gotham when moving over to Xbox and PGR2 is in my top 3 all time racing games. Forza Horizon may have borrowed some of it's mechanics but it's never been quite as good at the actual racing bit as Gotham was

They should have called it Forza Motorsport 8.

I loved FM4, my first Xbox racer. I was very late to the FM7 party but it was/is really good. I've played FM8 recently & it's not bad. It has clearly tried to follow GT7, but they both botched the SP. I don't play these games online so the SP needs to be good and it's quite barebones. GT Sport was barebones on launch, but that game was stacked with classic SP cups after 2-3 years. FM has always had a decent fan base, the only thing that makes sense is Sony told MS they'll release GT on Xbox.

@carlos82 Yeah - PGR2 was my Favourite Racing game of that era - just enough reality with the right blend of Arcade as well Trying to earn enough Kudos or nail a perfect run to get the Platinum kept me playing and playing and it looked Great for its time too. Forza felt too 'Sim' like which to me takes some of the 'fun' of racing 'games'.

I think Horizon Blends Arcade into its Racing Game very well - even if it aims for Sim style Physics and realistic looking Cars (until DLC introduces toy brands) and Environments. That's why I think it also has wider appeal which puts more Pressure on the 'Flagship' which often sold as much because it was a 'Graphical Showcase' but also Runs well and bundled with Consoles at times too so 'inflated' sales. But its 'niche' - too Sim like and it becomes 'too serious' for gamers to want to play to relax - sometimes they want to go speeding through villages in expensive sports cars racing aeroplanes or seeing how far you can jump a Ferrari...

Point is Forza Motorsport maybe the 'best' Sim Racer on Xbox, it's not the best Sim Racer on PC and unlikely to make enough competing with GT on Playstation and their loyal fanbase. Horizon is different enough to be 'successful' and MS know it.

With so many Sim Racers in the PC space, some that are more accurate and so far less forgiving than Forza is, to them it still feels to 'gamey' but otherwise decent Racer. With MS opening up and/or exposing their Xbox Market to other Markets like Steam, Epic etc, they can basically keep 'Forza Motorsport' Relevant for years to come with updates, add new tracks/old tracks remastered, add new vehicles annually with each new 'year' of cars etc etc as long as people keep wanting that FM experience without necessarily needing to 'remake' a game again from scratch that may not compete with whatever else is available....

It has for years, Motorsport 5-7 were decent but down in quality despite all the things they were pushing and down in popularity too I think.

Otherwise yeah Horizon always made sense why, it's not as tied to a thing most people don't care about, unless into those cars/tracks or the sense of motorsport why would you bother with it?

I don't care for motorsports but I still enjoy these types of games, Horizon to me was just boring missions of the modern era and insert location to set it in. Pass.

I don't play open worlds for their locations, I do their missions/movesets and progression, if they suck, I don't buy them. Which happens a lot.

PGR used streets, locations and track design or car selection or progression/event types well. It's why I never got bored of it.

The walk around dealership of 2, the garages of other entries, the menus, the Geometry Wars inclusions. It's personality was so good. Even PGR2's career/arcade did go too far for restrictions people hated it that want their quick race easy fast car access but it was so well designed you wanted to progress in it. Not FM6 that's kind of like PGR2 but worse and even then gives out candy cars. It's a joke. FM5 & 7 at least handled things a bit better.

But anniversary games always suck anyway, or they happen to have the worst ideas in the series, that line up with the anniversary date timing.

Horizon I got bored by the first game. I hadn't played Burnout Paradise back then but have now, and even then I found Burnout Paradise/NFS Carbon or others way more exciting then Horizon due to their structure and good ideas back then.

Modern era games don't have compelling mechanics, event types or otherwise just cars, fair destinations and the other stuff I never cared about in them that are so forgettable yet important, the festivals and other stuff.

At least NFS Prostreet was a decent game tackling it, the others, aren't.

All they had to do was make a proper Forza Motorsport 8 like the past Forza Motorsport games. But no, they couldn't, they wouldn't. They had to go all-in on trying to turn Forza into a live services deal for reasons I will never quite understand. Surely they have to realize they screwed up there first and foremost.

I think the bottom line is their slot machine loot box monetisation nonsense doesn't fit. And they handled the launch terribly. What people want from motorsport is a lot of tracks and cars with a lot of cash to play with. Minimal interference. As few restrictions on what you're allowed to do as possible. That's basically it.

Given the popularity of FH cross platform, it wouldn't at all surprise me. FH should be multiplat day one now IMO. FM (or sim racing) has just got too samey samey. I imagine without the cost of track measuring and all the licences and complexities that come with sim racing development, it's much cheaper to stick to FH.

I had lots of fun with FM3 en FM4. I don't like thegraphical style from FM nowadays. The new FH next year will be played on my PS5 because of my sim set for GT7.

Forza Motorsport is done. I think Xbox wanted Forza Motorsport to be a GamePass type of game where they will keep updating it due to the income from subscribers in the years to come. This is why they didn't give it a number such as Forza Motorsport 8.

But now since Microsoft is an AI company and want to be a formidable player in the AI race, Forza Motorsport will no longer exist. This was the same with Halo Infinite, which also did not get a number such as Halo 6. Xbox was hoping the same with Halo, updates and more content based on the subscribers, but Halo Infinite didn't turn out to be the hit they and everyone else for that matter were expecting. If the GamePass subscriber count would've been 75 million by now, I don't think the mass layoffs at Xbox would've ever happened. But there are less than 40 maybe 35 million subscribers now.

I read that as "Is Forza Horizon About To Become Xbox's Main Franchise?" (not "main Forza franchise"), and the scary thing is... it actually made sense?

MS has been shutting down all their other studios and franchises, so Forza Horizon being their main (or only) active one isn't even that far-fetched. (Okay, some of their ABK acquisitions, like CoD, are too big to die. But still.)

Honestly, I think Horizon is just way more fun and approachable for most people - even if you’re not really into racing games. The arcade vibe, open world, and all the different things you can do make it easy for anyone to get into. I’ve said it before: Forza Motorsport is an amazing simulator, but it just doesn’t have that same widespread appeal, no matter how much they try to broaden it. Gran Turismo is really the only racing series that’s managed to hit those crazy sales numbers, and that’s mostly because of its huge install base and well-known brand. The fact that GT has sold over 90 million copies by 2022, while Forza is still under 20 million, kind of speaks for itself about what people are looking for.

Now is the time to revive “Diddy Kong Racing.” Xbox owns the rights to characters other than Diddy.