Former Xbox Dev Claims Turn 10's Forza Motorsport Team 'Is No More'

To much negativity with this and the Jota and Michael madsen news I'll be back when it's more positive!!

Shame. Whilst Motorsport wasnt as popular or easy to get in to (appeal to the masses) than the Horizon series is was far and away the better game imo but i just prefer track racers over open world. Forza motorsport 1-4 were peak, premium racing games imo and i had many a night with friends playing these sublime games. Good luck to anyone who has lost their jobs due to MS and i hope they all manage to get on their feet soon.

Outside of Activision and Call of Duty nothing at Xbox is safe anymore.

Anytime your game doesn't meet expectations you can expect to be next on the block.

This is a real shame if its confirmed. While Motorsport got a rough reception and rightly so it really did feel like they were trending towards a more positive vibe with the last couple of updates.

FM is one of the better circuit racers out there. For it to be confined to the annals of history is terrible shame.

Is there any more news on the contraband trailer being taken down? What it means for avalanche? Or the rumours of undead labs being affected too?

Huh, so it's likely that the remaining team (if this is true) are aiding FH and tech support. I guess that means, as many of us suggested, Playground is safe. Silver lining and all. There's nothing stopping Playground from having a poke at track racing further down the lines. They're alongside Obsidian, one of MS' best IMO.

Let's face it though. FM was on the decline, and has been for a while now. Sure, it was the only of it's kind on Xbox, but given the hype of the latest entry and the lows of its release, FM wasn't looking bright.

@FraserG Hey you gotta report the gaming news it's all good 👍 the show must go on!

From being one of the headliners during the X1X and series X/S reveal , to closing the studio in a couple of years. My god Xbox , what is gods name are you doing ? Invest some more in DOA MP , casual party games and community *****. It is like they want you to switch to PlayStation.

Specifically with FM i wonder if MS saw little opportunity for third party sales on PS and Nintendo platforms.

GT is king on the PS and that probably won't change and Switch doesn't seem like the sort of platform for this sort of game.

With no additional sales potential they may have just felt it was not worth it any more.

This Fred Russel guy hasn't worked at Turn 10 for nearly a decade. While I don't doubt there have been cuts at Turn 10, yeah... not the most reliable of sources.

Let's face it, Motorsport was always at risk, whereas Horizon was not. The reason? Gran Turismo. The PlayStation has a game already that is much like Motorsport, and, naturally, Gran Turismo is already very well established on the PlayStation meaning that Motorsport would have faced very stiff competition there, maybe even annihilation.

Horizon though, there is nothing like it on the PlayStation, and thus the future of that game is bright.

For me personally, the shuttering of Motorsport is a shame because whilst I am not big on my racers, I much prefer that game to Horizon. However, I think much of the thinking of the management as to whether to shutter Motorsport was about how well the game would sell on the PlayStation...

@Fiendish-Beaver

Speaking specifically about the games themselves, GT is a sterile experience devoid of personality when put up against FM. I think it would've had a far better chance on PlayStation than you perhaps give it credit for.

@Medic_alert I think it's clear that Forza Motorsport will be Xbox's Gran Turismo 7. In that, in spite of the multiplatform pivots of both Xbox and PlayStation, these games will conspicuously remain exclusive to their respective consoles forever and will never get ported.

Gran Turismo 7 should be on PC by now, but it seems like the port has been cancelled for unknown reasons.

Likewise, Forza Motorsport should be on PlayStation by now, but since the game wasn't that well-received and it probably won't sell that well on PlayStation, Microsoft probably isn't going to invest in a PS5 port for the game.

@FraserG thanks for the update!

I do feel like that as a genre these racers peaked when graphics reached realism and nailed the physics. Ever since then its had this "if you zoom in you can see its 5% better" or "the suspension is 10% more realistic." Sort of feel. That we're past the point of new entries being transformative.

Which speaking as a fan sucks. Forza Motorsport got me into racing games.

The likes of Forza Horrizon and Need For Speed get to be creative and use that to sell their next entry. There just isn't really anywhere for the core series to go anymore.

Remember even 5 years ago the pillars we expected were: Halo | Gears | Forza

I guess now we can say the brand officially transitioned to these games as pillars: Minecraft | COD | Horizon

The Xbox of the past and its games we knew is gone, Gears and Halo are niche titles at this point and are not primary focus anymore due to $.

There's a pattern here:

• Forza Motorsport (2023) took at least six years to make since Forza Motorsport 7 came out in 2017.
• The new game from ZeniMax Online has supposedly been in development since 2018, i.e. at least seven years.
• Perfect Dark has been in development for seven years.
• Everwild has been in development for at least six years.

In the case of Turn 10, how did Forza Motorsport go from a bi-yearly series to taking six years for a new entry that inherently doesn't offer anything new?

It's not necessarily these studios' fault as it's been known that Phil Spencer wanted to give first-party studios more creative freedom. But it seems that these four studios abused that freedom and took way too long to produce a new title.

I've complained in the past that Xbox studios are taking way too long to release games that aren't even anything special. Same could be said about Ninja Theory and Hellblade II too. It took at least seven years to make a 7 hour beautiful but boring and uninteresting game. Now that I think about it, even Compulsion Games took way too long with South of Midnight (at least seven years). It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if these two are the next studios on the chopping block.

It's unfortunate that people have been let go, but a change was needed to be made. Xbox studios need to be more efficient.

I remember when Forza Motorsport was the premier racing franchise. They were doing things Gran Turismo wasn't, and made a big name for themselves in the space. If it's true and we don't see another Motorsport entry, all we've got from Xbox is Horizon, which isn't a simulator.

We're in strange and dangerous times for Xbox.

@Sol76 Hitting the next trillion along with margins to keep someone sat at a desk happy is their main priority unfortunately.

With each passing days news, it’s more and more evident that GamePass is a complete mess for Microsoft. They banked on getting a 100 million subscribers on Gamepass, they spent big to do this and it’s just not worked for them. When you are putting out games that are AAA level and not charging properly for it, with everything going day and date to a subscription platform, of course it’s going to result in things like this happening.$70 odd billion dollars has to be made back somehow. A game worth $69.99 going to game pass means that they have lost millions upon millions in sales revenue on their own platform. The Gamepass charges are spread across the whole platform, so when a big AAA hits the service, the monthly sub paid by everyone isn’t covering the costs at all. And turning to PlayStation fans isn’t going to work either really. Apart from Forza horizons and Sea of thieves, nothing has really sold massively on the console. And with Microsoft upping their prices to $80 a game, it’s going to make selling on PlayStation even less of a guarantee. Hell, the games that are getting released on PlayStation are not even on the discs… what are people really paying for? All the Xbox fans who gloated about PlayStation players basically subsidising Xbox studios so that they could reinvest in new games for gamepass need their heads looked into. Microsoft isn’t a charity, they want money. And unfortunately they aren’t seeing money like they anticipated. Really great games are getting cancelled. Studios shut down and everything in between is a total mess. And all we have is Phil Spencer coming out telling everyone about hard times when the parent company is taking in billions a quarter. The way this is going, all that’s going to be left is COD.. everything else just won’t make money back like Microsoft intended. Worst thing that Microsoft ever did was buying publishers like Activision.. If Microsoft can somehow streamline Gamepass, things might improve short term. They have an incredible catalogue of games that they could put on the service and have literally only games form their studios on the device. Not paying 3rd party developers money to put their games on Gamepass will likely drop the value of the service for gamers, but it’s unsustainable as it is right now anyway. Forza is one of my most favourite IPs. To see the news today is absolutely awful. But since PlayStation has Gran Turismo, there is no need for motorsports to go multiplatform and that is probably why it’s done as an Ip outside of Horizons, which is shocking really.

Here’s the Xbox defense force yet again trying to justify almost closing the only Xbox OG studio that’s left, yes the last Forza Motorsport fell short but throughout 20 years they delivered consistently good games, now it takes just one miss to be in the chopping block no matter the legacy you have as a studio, literally no studio is safe at Microsoft Gaming.

The Forza Motorsport series was a really good game. It stumbled with microtransactions in 7, and I didn't really understand the new Forza. It's too late to improve it with updates. It's really disappointing.

@Ricky-Spanish stop being so sensitive to real issues with a brand . People like you are too blind and want to be fed bs

@TheSimulator You have a wonderful day your ever so nice and polite I wish you the best🤣😂😉😚👍

This pisses me off. I love the motorsport series

Damn I was really hoping there’d be another Motorsport.

This reminds me of when MS shut down the Project Gotham team and franchise. Such a ruthless shame.

The assumption with the game is that they had certain ideas, worked on it until the live service/GaaS trend had upper management force them to make it online heavy in that annoying way, then they rushed to get it out despite 18 month contracts rotating staff throughout that period.

I will be genuinely gutted if Microsoft has just killed off Forza Motorsport. I know the recent reboot didn’t set the gaming world on fire, but I’ve played it regularly and it’s my “go-to” game between other games. I also have a PS5 and GT7, and can tell you I’ve played FM way, way more than GT7.

If there will be no more Forza Motorsport content or games, I'll be INCREDIBLY pissed.

@Medic_alert raven (one of the COD studious) also had layoffs.
So no one is safe.

Forza Motorsport 7 is still to this day one of my favorite racers (games ?) ever. I'm still playing it regularly, it's just immediate fun and its graphics are still very clean, very bright.

I never managed to like the new service iteration.

But the 7 one ? I remember how it amazed me when I launched it on my brand new Xbox One X...

Such a great game.

Live service just kills everything, god damn it...

@Bobobiwan Agreed. They decided to fully “reboot” Forza MotorSport instead of building on top of what actually worked. What resulted was:

• A 6 year wait instead of the usual 2 years.
• Visuals that weren’t much better than 7 despite being on much more powerful hardware.
• Live service elements meaning very little single-player career content.
• Forced “RPG” and starting grid mechanics that killed the realism and fun of the previous cups/GP’s from previous games.

And when people complained and the game didn’t seem as well, the high-up directors just double downed on their decisions and now the studio is (effectively) no more.

Man, I really like modern gaming but Microsoft has just been upsetting me so much recently.

It's hard to feel bad for the devs when the last Forza Motorsport was a soulless, boring shell of what the series used to be. I was a huge fan ever since the first one on the original Xbox, and I played a few hours of it and was bored to tears. It offered literally nothing you couldn't get in Forza 4, a game that was released 14 years ago.

@kuu_nousee “ I guess now we can say the brand officially transitioned to these games as pillars: Minecraft | COD | Horizon”

Horizon is still Forza…. It call Forza Horizon. So Forza is still a pillar franchise for Xbox.

@Fiendish-Beaver
I think all companies rightly or wrongly really look at cost and what return on investment they are going to get.
Then as development time passes by, decide to keep the game developing or cut the game, relating to financial assessment.
It’s the same on the high street in the UK every month we hear of shop chain closing some or all of their high street stores in favour of better return on line or the shop is not making any money after rent and employee costs.
I think in gaming of course we get more attached rather than we do with a shop.

@Ernie

"Microsoft are clearly going forward into the next gen with a much firmer grip on the gaming side of their company."

Riiiight.

We have to unbderstand that layoffs is not about most projects not being profitable. The XBOX Division and Game Pass are profitable with record revenue. This is about corporate greed to maximize profits for short term returns for the shareholders without any long term strategy or vision about XBOX.

Nadella is literally layoff people to cut costing and invest more on AI bubble to please shareholders. He has the delusion that AI agents will make game development more cost efficient without giving a damn about the quality of the content.

I read an interesting opinion at the Verge from an ex- employee of Microsoft who lost his job in the recent layoffs. I think everyone should read this:

"I worked at Microsoft for over 30 years until yesterday. In those 30+ years, I did not have a single negative performance review, and I was usually rated above average. I have been awarded and recognized several times over the years.

I say all that because it's important to understand that Microsoft is laying off really strong performers. The company doesn't want to do the work or take the risk of targeting under-performers. Perversely, it means with each round of cuts, the average competence of the Microsoft employees goes down.

In the US, being fired for performance takes effort on the part of managers, and leaves the company vulnerable to a lawsuit.

I think anyone who was let go would understand performance-based layoffs, or shutting down an unprofitable business unit. But Microsoft doesn't do that. Instead, it's a person here, a person there, with no regard to the quality of the person, and no consultation with the managers closest to the employee.

Microsoft is also breaking every basic business rule with dribs and drabs layoffs now spanning four years. A basic rule of layoffs is get them done once and move on. The morale among the remaining employees is in the toilet as they now must cover for the missing person, and no one feels safe in their job. Everyone expects to be fired next week.

Lastly, I don't think Satya Nadella is actually running the company. Or, he is paying a lot of attention to the engineering (his background) and not the people and policies. He makes speeches and writes books about company culture and valuing employees, and then he oversees the firing of seriously good talent. (I'm not just talking about me. I survived the first 10 rounds of layoffs since 2021, and I saw quality walk out the door while idiots remained.)

Our best enterprise customers are absolutely stunned by these moves. People they know and trust are suddenly gone, with no replacement because the position was eliminated. (See above.) Microsoft is building an amazing cloud and amazing AI, with no one to sell or support it.”

Layoffs like this seem to be rampant right now and it is all not making the news. You hear about this but in my company and people I know are seeing tons of layoffs and not a blip about it anywhere.

At this stage ***** MS and the so called Xbox leadership. They have done nothing but destroy the industry for the last 15 years. I am done. I cannot support this ***** any longer.

I don't see this as great. Wasn't a fan of the latest Motorsport as it felt lacking any kind of personality almost like it had it's identity ripped out from it. But it was always a good rival the Gran Turismo and was definitely a reason to get an Xbox is you like racing games. I can understand that the Horizon series has probably started to overtake it in terms of sales over the past several years but for the studio that made the series to be turned into support for an offshoot of that series seems like it would be hard for anyone left there to not struggle with that. That's if these is anyone senior left.

Bummer. Loved FM7, and the latest Forza Motorsports was starting to really take shape with tracks and cars being added. What a shame Microsoft, one of the main reasons I love Xbox has just been gutted.

I think racing simulations reached their peak innovation about three iterations ago. Although this is not good for the people, it is something that was probably inevitable.

I feel for the people losing their jobs here.

The last Forza Mortorsport game was supposed to be the start of a new Forza Motorsport without the numbered games that was done in the past. I think also that was the same goal with Halo Infinite, having these games be a new long term gaming strategy for Xbox by constantly upgrading them and having GamePass subscribers keep subscribing every month to play these games 'forever' per say.

Now that is all out window, and if there are no more Forza Motorsport games, which seems to be the case here, then I have no reason to own an Xbox in the future. I will go back to Playstation after 15 years of just owning Xboxes to play Gran Turismo and whatever Xbox first party games get ported over to Playstation...