Forza is Now a Billion-Dollar Franchise
- Thread starter GTPNewsWire
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- 388
- Antwerp, Belgium
I'm not ignorant as to the difference between Motorsport and Horizon. I'd argue out of the all games calling themselves simulators, the Motorsport games are the lightest on simulation and most heavily invested in accessability. Which I don't consider a negative, just to be clear. What I meant was that they are comfortable enough with where they are to share its name with the Horizon franchise, which is firmly in arcade territory.Forza Motorsport ≠ Forza Horizon. It's two completely different teams with two different studios working on two different games that only share modeling assets and a part of the name. Also, keep in mind we're on a forum that mainly discusses a simcade (or full-on arcade game if we're going by today's physics engines) that used "The real driving simulator" as a tagline.There's not a full-on sim out there anyway, aside from strapping yourself in an actual car.
But I disagree they should move into the pure simulator market, I feel like games should stay true to their origins in some way. There's already a bunch of full on hardcore sims out there, no need to saturate it with another failed attempt at being the most hardcore game out there. T10 has made the series a household name with what it is, they should just keep on polishing it and make it better, but shouldn't change the general formula.
And yes I'm aware of GT's questionable tagline. You could argue it stems from a time when full on arcade racers were the mainstream and GT really popularized a more serious type of racer and so used that tag to distinguish itself. I look at it more as a tradition rather than a genuine statement. Taken at face value it's a pretentious and false statement of course.
And I agree with you on your last point, Forza Motorsport should stay Forza Motorsport. They need to continue to build on accessible but substantial driving physics, excellent gamepad support, an involved career progression and online services. It's certainly in a much better place than Gran Turismo at the moment, at least in my opinion.
- 2,118
- Sunderland
- 377
You missed Forza Motorsport 4, in my opinion thats the best Forza of them all. Perfect carlist, excellent tracklist, storefront, auction house, great multiplayer modes, etc. Forza 6 is good but still missing in carlist and the tracklist went too focused in real tracks, Turn10 is great making fantasy tracks, I hope they come back in Forza 7.
Forza 6 is the best on track experience.
- 4,741
- Bogota,Colombia
- GTP_ARP93
That's what you get when you actually give a 🤬 about what your customers want and don't take half a decade developing a half-arsed game.
Well done there, Turn 10. At first I was a hater but now I'm a believer and, if I could get my hands on a proper PC or that Scorpio XBone thingy is any good, I'd be a paying customer as well. Sit on it, Kazunori.
Well done there, Turn 10. At first I was a hater but now I'm a believer and, if I could get my hands on a proper PC or that Scorpio XBone thingy is any good, I'd be a paying customer as well. Sit on it, Kazunori.
I agree with this sentiment. T10/PG's clear unwillingness to address "accessible" aspects of the physics, which have been a turn-off to me since FM4, left me with nothing to look forward to, so I'm out and done with Forza and Xbox. But it's a model with mass appeal and is much more refined than anything Polyphony or EA ever came up with.
And Horizon is still a simulator, especially among the arcade and street racing genres but also compared to plenty of games that have deemed themselves simulators; just not one that excites me because they tamed the handling that made FH1 more rewarding to play.
- 1,062
I got frustrated with The Gran Turismo franchise after number 5 as it just felt so half hearted.
I jumped over to Forza during this new generation of consoles and I don't regret it.
I love the Car Roster in this game and just the variety it has.
Yes there are little things here and there they could do to improve the games even more, but overall I am pleased for their success.
My one regret is I wasn't around for Forza 4.. I was going to purchase an old X Box 360 and a copy but then I heard the dlc had stopped so for me it's all or nothing.
I look forward to Forza 7
I jumped over to Forza during this new generation of consoles and I don't regret it.
I love the Car Roster in this game and just the variety it has.
Yes there are little things here and there they could do to improve the games even more, but overall I am pleased for their success.
My one regret is I wasn't around for Forza 4.. I was going to purchase an old X Box 360 and a copy but then I heard the dlc had stopped so for me it's all or nothing.
I look forward to Forza 7
- 25,063
- Somewhere.
Well there's that obviously, but for the time it came out, the car list was pretty varied, the DLCs were interesting, and I feel like 4 is the high point as far as car sounds went. And it wasn't as excruciatingly difficult for the sake of being difficult like GT4 was at some times, which is also a plus (looking at you, New Beetle Cup). 6 is definitely the best game as far as feeling and visuals goes, though, and hopefully FM7 keeps going that way.
I suppose it depends on whether one considers oversteer-on-demand to be tamer than FM-style understeer. I appreciated how FH1's extra bite on turn-in made the physics more dynamic (and more convincingly balanced) by brute force. But actual drifting was still all wrong, as it has remained in every FM/FH game since.
- 1,126
- United States
- Jake-Racer1221
Ok, so I bought Forza 2, 4, and not to mention Horizon 2 for the free roam aspect and such. I would say FM4 is the most fun I had from a simcade, and the freedom you have in the game when it comes to vinyl making with the variety of cars without the DLC (I play offline), which is fun to do. I'm fine with good visuals to a point, but you may have to mix up the formula a bit to make it more exciting for everyone, which is why Horizon was going towards that free roam while GT does not do that because they are trying to keep the "simulator" name.
I have to admit, when FH3 came out I wasn't as excited for the new release. FH2 offers almost the same thing, except a few features are left out that the old Forza's mastered. When I was playing Forza 2 I couldn't help but feel like I had the better "GT" feel that I miss, it's odd to say the least since it's not my main system. Including that Forza Motorsport 2 has much more customization than Forza Motorsport 4 - Horizon 3. It may be licensing rights to the part manufactures, but since they are a billionaire franchise I couldn't see the excuse for that.
I haven't been playing the Xbox 360 long, but I do enjoy it a lot. With the Forza series I bought with my own money, FM4 as the good feels of earning money legitimately and such.
They can improve it so much more, but yet I am still lacking the trust in Turn 10 and the other studio, and it could be worse like the COD series. They could try even more new things like eSports, better Career Mode, improvements in the UI (I don't like the UI in FH2), and make further improvements to the car variety, which beats GT all the way home (FM4 does for me).
Those are my qualms about the big franchise, but they are not major like in GT.
I have to admit, when FH3 came out I wasn't as excited for the new release. FH2 offers almost the same thing, except a few features are left out that the old Forza's mastered. When I was playing Forza 2 I couldn't help but feel like I had the better "GT" feel that I miss, it's odd to say the least since it's not my main system. Including that Forza Motorsport 2 has much more customization than Forza Motorsport 4 - Horizon 3. It may be licensing rights to the part manufactures, but since they are a billionaire franchise I couldn't see the excuse for that.
I haven't been playing the Xbox 360 long, but I do enjoy it a lot. With the Forza series I bought with my own money, FM4 as the good feels of earning money legitimately and such.
They can improve it so much more, but yet I am still lacking the trust in Turn 10 and the other studio, and it could be worse like the COD series. They could try even more new things like eSports, better Career Mode, improvements in the UI (I don't like the UI in FH2), and make further improvements to the car variety, which beats GT all the way home (FM4 does for me).
Those are my qualms about the big franchise, but they are not major like in GT.
- 2,895
- Columbus, Ohio
Forza 4 was the initiation into the "serious" racing genre for a lot of people who didn't really care about console racing games before. It has enough structure to it that people who knew little about real cars could keep progressing without feeling lost or overwhelmed, but it's also open enough that those of us who run hotlaps for an entire afternoon just to shave that extra .01 second off a laptime were comfortable too. A lot of it may just be nostalgia goggles at this point, but Forza 4 definitely brought in a lot of people who considered simulation games "too hard to be fun".
- 1,829
- England
- Player_7421
- Player 7421
As much as I find Forza to be boring in my brutally honest opinion, Forza/T10 deserve to be where they are at. They listen to us, the customers and deliver great content. So congrats to Forza/T10! 
- 982
GT, NFS and MK are leagues ahead of Forza. Forza has just reached a billion, the former are $5 billion+ franchises, to put things into perspective and GT and MK have yet to release their new edition.
You mean how GT5 and GT5P has generated more revenue than the entire Forza franchise up to this point
76 million sold, with DLC probably nearing $5 billion.
- 24,612
- Anoka, MN
cutmeamango
(Banned)
- 672
- Brazil
They've counted hardware for Halo 5.
"Microsoft has announced that Halo 5: Guardians generated more than $400 million in global sales during its first week, meaning the Xbox One game is now the "biggest Halo launch" of all time. The figure includes sales of games and hardware, and drives Halo franchise lifetime revenue to over $5 billion."
I don't know if they counted before Halo 4.
"Microsoft has sold more than 46 million copies of Halo games worldwide, and the franchise has brought in nearly $3 billion in sales, according to the company."
Or Gears of War before GoW4.
"· $1 billion gross revenue.
· 45 million unique users.
· 27 million copies sold."
Date of first releases:
Need for Speed - 1994
Mario Kart - 1992
Gran Turismo - 1998
Forza Motorsport - 2005
I'd sure hope the other 3 have made more given the fact they've been around a hell of a lot longer.
Any more nuggets of wisdom for us?
Instead of thinking "how long have they been around", think "how many titles and units sold".
* Forza has 9 titles.
* Gran Turismo counts 10 (with all concepts being one). It has sold 76mi.
* Mario Kart has 8 (or 10) with some appearing in multiple platforms. It has sold over 100mi not counting MK8. ~110 with MK8.
* Need for Speed has 22 titles according to wikipedia, most in multiple platforms. In 2013 it had already crossed the 150mi units mark according to EA.
So yeah.
Where's the math though? I'm
, pls.Math is certainly not here because 1.000.000.000 divided by 17.000.000 is 58,82!
And it's worth pointing out that the majority of these statements about gross revenue is not about what publishers or devs have made themselves, but about how much money their product moved at retail. Fine difference.
-> But no, GT5+P wouldn't make a billion like that (that being just looking at individual units sold).
Looking at just a slice (Europe) you'll see that games that are a 6mo to 1yr old are averaging at 35-40 euros (for a semester) at retailers.
If you know a smidge about sales distribution over time and how averages work, you can safely infer that, when accounting life-to-date in a 2-3yr cycle, for a normal full-price game it should average at 30-35 per copy.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=873824&page=1#post125185463
Anyway... If you do a simple-minded tots for tots, GoW with 27mi copies = 1bi should be really close to Forza's reality.
Franchise highest point in sales was Forza 3, and data guy ZhugeEx said the franchise as whole was not far off from PGR, so a 3mi average seems on point.
There's no reason to believe Forza games sell at a much higher (or much lower) average price than GoW or GT, so you'd have PS3 GT (GT5+P+6) games at 22.2mi, probably hauling near a billion in gross revenue as well.
And when you look at Halo numbers, 70mi+ copies, 5bi+ revenue (with or without hardware), Gran Turismo as a franchise should be at a similar leg.
It's hard to find Sony blabs about that, we know Uncharted series is at 36mi+ but there's no PR statement on how much money it moved.
- 24,612
- Anoka, MN
The longer a game series/brand has been out the more market share it's likely to have. That's why it's so hard for start-ups to be successful.
Even at 58.82 is ludicrously high considering the developer only sees a small percentage of what games sell for, not to mention they only sell at full price for a limited amount of time.
Not so sure about that considering how much DLC there is for the Halo series compared to GT.
cutmeamango
(Banned)
- 672
- Brazil
Forza is a decade plus old being the sole driving game, first party title, of a console manufacturer.
And they mostly compete in different pools, I can't find NPD statement but the percentage of people that had multiple consoles wasn't high, like a tenth I think.
And for what is worth, Ian Bell corroborated with the idea that genre consumers acquire all products.
I'm just having a laugh, you can see I say the same right after.
DLC attachment rates would have to be really above the average to make a large difference but yes.
- 40,751
If only there was another set of numbers in the post Imari quoted that could be divided into one another to get ~65.
If only.
cutmeamango
(Banned)
- 672
- Brazil
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