Forza Motorsport Reportedly Racing Ahead With New Launch Records

Really don't do racing games....but this looks and feels superb

I'm not sure why but I wasn't really impressed. It just didn't wow me for whatever reason like Horizon did.

I'm not sure if I just don't enjoy simracing games anymore or if this is just not that great

Kinda hard to believe. Maybe just from people downloading it and checking it out.

Even on Xbox it is commanding a 2 and 1/3rd star score, out of five.

It fees like a free to play game in all the worse ways. Especially in the form of having to grind levels on a car to even buy upgrades.
And has had a huge graphic reductions form last time the showed it off. Likely due to the Series S. Even feels less sim like than Forza 7 with all assists off.

Was looking forward to playing this with my wheel, pedal, and shifter setup. Instead I was left with with something I'm probably never gonna go back to after putting a couple hours in.

I bet you the numbers have fallen off dramatically after playing the first couple of hours of career. It's a broken mess...I think Xbox should evaluate Turn 10 after taking 6 years to put something like this out.

I don't know how it feels like free to play when all the content is unlocked bar the usual entry packages which add a tiny fraction to the car list. You can play every car and every track in a variety of ways. There's no pay to win on the levelling but yeah I agree that it is a bit wierd. It's faster than I was led to believe. Didn't bother me much in the opening hours. But tedious in the mid game.

@Dround87 i think some poeple mix up f2p with rpg element in games...big mistake by a gamer

It depends how you look at the numbers, we don't really know how many are playing on Xbox but looking at Steam this is well below the current players of both Forza Horizon 4 and 5.

I tried this on PC and it had quite a few issues even if the underlying game seems pretty good and I'll return to it when they fix its performance

@InterceptorAlpha It's believable as it's the only Forza Motorsport that's been day 1 on Game Pass but day 1 player count is a rather meaningless figure for subscription models (you can just download the game, play for a small amount of time and then decide to just not play again), retention rate has a lot more meaning.

I can well believe that. Sim Racing does seem somewhat more 'niche' than Arcade racers, going more for stricter racing rules than 'fun' will have more limited appeal amongst 'Gamers'.

Therefore I would expect these games to 'sell' to the dedicated, but ultimately smaller user base so offering it to EVERYONE on GP to be able to try will likely see a huge jump up in 'day 1' players as there is no financial barrier.

Some people can't afford to buy Day 1 (whether it's because they bought other great games recently or find the launch price too high), waiting for Christmas/Birthdays, waiting for the inevitable sales etc which obviously will impact Day 1 player count normally - but with GP, these gamers can jump in - even those who'd never really play a 'Racing Sim' may try it and a portion will not play much at all - but these would never have bought the game anyway so wouldn't ever contribute to sales or player counts.

I MUCH prefer the Forza Horizon games - but then I have always preferred more Arcade racers. I'd take Burnout Paradise over ANY Forza Motorsport game for example too. So whilst I do own and have played every prior Forza game (4 was still my Favourite), I am in no rush to 'try' the new one yet...

@Grumblevolcano Both Sales and Player Counts can be manipulated to boost the perceived popularity of something. Games sold doesn't give any indication on whether those players actually played the entirety or got 'bored' within an hour and never played again either. Its more reliant on pre-release hype & marketing to be a sales success - even if the game is a broken mess at launch. Bundles too also add to Sales - Kinect Sports was a massive seller according to sales record - but what engagement? How many actually played? Was the engagement high?

Of course Player engagement is important but you also have to understand when giving games away in a sub service, that a certain percentage are only playing it because its 'new' on Game Pass, to check out the Visuals themselves but would never buy or play more than an hour or two regardless. You are offering a chance to try out the 'new' Sim Racer for 'nothing', no obligation to buy or even stick around if it's not really for you with 'no risk' or loss of money.

Therefore these gamers would never engage anyway - but at least MS still got Revenue coming in from these gamers. They wouldn't buy Forza at launch and probably wouldn't buy in a Sale either but month after month they keep paying for Game Pass and 'engaging' in the Xbox Ecosystem....

This kinda 'news' is pretty pointless. As GP subs rise any game on GP will have record numbers as most people will at least try a new AAA release if they can do so without cost.
It's only by looking at engagement and how many players actually play it that we get any meaningful figures, so this kind of 'pat your self on the back statistics' release is disingenuous.

This game is a good case in point. Very many people who have been motorsport fans all through the series are not at all happy with this release. The Forza forums are full of such people raising their concerns. Its a little disappointing to see fans with such valid concerns being over looked while they celebrate meaningless figures as if the game is an unqualified success.

I've put my hours in (driver level 70) and do agree with many of the criticisms. Even installed it on PC and played there in case full ray tracing at 60fps would help me 'feel it'. Sadly, I need to put this away for another look after several more patches in the hope that improves the gameplay loop which is frankly boring AF. The AI in particular is the worst I've ever seen in a driving game and I have to keep the rewind feature on just so I can undo stupid AI moves, like every car trying to ram you off in the first lap and cars needlessly breaking in middle of a long corner.
FM7 was a better game, and I'm disappointed to say that.

I kept the GamePass subscription I activated for StarField going long enough to get onto Forza as soon as it was available, but I genuinely was hugely disappointed with the release. I was so looking forward to this, but it just didn’t hit it off like I was expecting and actually felt boring for the most part. Spend the remainder of my GamePass month playing the Horizon titles, especially 4. Safe to say that Playground have made far more enjoyable driving games than Turn 10 did. Gran Turismo was also far superior and up till now I have always preferred the Forza mainline series… Very disappointed. 🙁

@InterceptorAlpha Series S is an absolute detriment to Xbox this generation. Horrible idea. Only released for cash grab. Completely holds the Series X back.

There was no game pass in 2017 when the last game came out ,stories like this make my head hurt.

@Bionic-Spencer I tried it last night ,looks great ,plays like any other racing game,all that talking at the begining was annoying me so turned it off and played fallout 4 ,which I was suprised that it actually doesn't look that much different to starfield.