Topic: Forza Motorsport (8) Release date speculation

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@KromCompany I think we will see Forza in July/August, if not then perhaps Oct/Nov. October would be 6yrs since FM7 released and around the time Forza has often released. 6yrs (considering the numerous difficulties of developing games over this time with lockdowns etc) isn't unrealistic to build a game from Scratch as they have with this new game.

I don't really expect Forza to be a 'buggy' mess - Turn 10 have never released any Buggy mess of a Forza game - at least not on Consoles anyway. FH5 wasn't in a 'bad' state at launch (on Consoles) and was many peoples Game of the Year.

At some point, a Company has to decide whether its worth investing 'more' money into a Project, whether its better to cut their losses or to just get something out and at least start bringing in 'some' money.

Take 'Scalebound' as an example - if they thought that it needs another year+ to be ready, another year of funding the Studio, paying them to make a game that won't sell 'more' than it was expected to sell just because you delay it and may 'lose' some sales, spending more just makes it more difficult to break even - especially if you don't have a 'large' user base. If only 5% buy, then 5% of 20m is not a LOT of sales and therefore the decision to 'cancel' as the additional costs made the project unviable to continue.

You can say the same with Halo:Infinite - a LONG time in development, complicated by pandemics, new hardware etc. In the end, they decided to get something out 'sooner' because they have already spent a massive amount on it and another 'year' waiting for Forge, co-op, bug fixes etc is another year of additional costs that won't necessarily equate to more money coming in to recuperate those costs.

Redfall and Ghostwire are both 'legacy' games. What I mean by that is that both were in development for Zenimax before MS took over and perhaps MS didn't think Redfall was worth yet another delay (having already delayed it from 2022) as they didn't think it would 'recoup' that extra cost - bring in 'millions' of players to Game Pass or sell 'millions' more copies to justify another 'long' delay.

A game like Horizon:FW for example cost an estimated 100m over 5yrs to make - 20m a year or nearly 2m a month. If that is 'average' for a Studio with a LOT of staff wages, high electric bills and overheads, delaying a game an extra year could mean an extra 20m needed. If the game was 'expected' to sell just 5m copies, assuming its 'perfect', but if they released today, they may break even, they aren't going to spend another 20m and risk losing money. They may not 'break' even with a buggy mess either, but they can recoup a big chunk of that money and over years, maybe it will end up profitable eventually.

Its all about balancing the 'costs' you put in to the potential money you can make. You wouldn't sell a Product that costs you £100 to make for £50 as you'd end up losing money. If you can't make it for £35, or sell it for £130+, you would deem it too 'expensive' to make. Its the same with Games - except Games are not consistently the exact same costs. So as a Publisher, you have to have an 'expectation' of how well you think a game can sell, therefore an idea of how much 'money' it could make and therefore an idea of how much money you are willing to put in. Lets say 'Redfall' is predicted to make around £100m and it's already 'cost' £100m due to the 'first' delay and now faced with having to delay (increasing the 'costs') or pushing it out to start recuperating some of that cost, what would you do?

I know as Gamers, we don't care about the 'business' side, we care more about the Experience. But as costs keep going up (wages, utility bills etc), that means that 'every' day a game is in development, its costing 'more' money than ever to make with stiff competition from ALL the other games on the market, they have to try and 'balance' the costs with the potential 'rewards'. Every delay is eating away their Profit margin. It was 'predicted' to sell a certain number based on it being 'perfect', so delaying it to make it 'perfect' isn't going to increase the sales, therefore its just adding to the costs making it 'less' profitable and the longer its delayed, the smaller the profit margin...

Its the same with Others too - inc Sony (although they really only have '1' platform to build games to and optimise for) but also have a 'bigger' install base and therefore expect higher sales. 10m+ instead of 3-5m for example. As we see from countless Publishers - EA (Star Wars: Jedi Survivor), WB (Gotham Knights), CDPR (CyberPunk) etc - games releasing before they are what we as gamers consider 'ready' to release - either because the Publisher won't spend more time/money on a Project - especially without 'money' coming in from Sales and they know that they can patch it afterwards. It maybe will be profitable over time - but you haven't increased the 'costs' massively by delaying. If the money doesn't come in in the quantity/time frame expected - scrap it (EA's Anthem, Marvels Avengers - cut your expenditure on that project so it may break even/become profitable eventually due to people buying in sales)

According to Windows Central, Arkane is NOT an Xbox Studio, managed by Matt Booty etc as Zenimax are a 'separate' group and have their own 'group' manager. https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/xbox-wasnt-involve...