6 months to fix the mess is fairly optimistic. Hoki said it'd take 2 years.
Comparing GT7 with FM, GT7 launched slim on content, but it was far more polished, which gave PD the room they needed to add content. T10 on the other hand has to fix FM while adding content, at risk of breaking the game further, and this is without mentioning their long list of "by design/won't fix" topics which includes all those outdated models and the general artistic vision for the game, nor the fundamental issue with the very core of the game (the progression).
Alan Hartman as head of XGS will try his best to save his baby, but the numbers don't lie, it's yet another DOA game carried by Microsoft's bottomless pockets. Steam raw numbers aren't representative, but they show a trend that's also happening on Xbox. Not to mention Microsoft is unable to phase it out and keep only Horizon (the logical move, as FH has all but cannibalized Motorsport) due to the PR disaster that would follow if the (assumed) main competitor to Gran Turismo was discontinued.
Back in 2018 there was actually hope for Xbox, fast forward to today and all Microsoft can do is add as much exclusive bloat to Game Pass as possible. No wonder FM turned out this bad. It's a shame, because Esaki didn't do a bad job when fixing FM7 at all, but he failed when given a full game to develop.
I've spent the last few days playing GT7 as we're going through open homes and my PC is in storage so playing GT7 on my wheel.
GT7 still has less meaningful content to me than FM, the staggered starts are truly awful, it's a chore going through the "career" mode of GT7, not only because the races are pretty terrible, but because you have to fast forward a bunch of meaningless menus and subtitles to advance the cafe menus. The licence tests are filler, I know many people like them, but I can't think of anything more dull to do in a racing game
Even disregarding the FM AI, the races in the career are far more enjoyable than in GT7, and they will only get better as the AI issues are addressed.
The views suck, it's 2024 FFS, can't they give us a bonnet cam instead of the godawful hood camera that also makes every car sound like a vacuum cleaner again like in GT5/6.
What GT7 does have going for it are some of the assists they have to help keep races clean, but these are pretty immersion breaking in single player mode. By this I mean the crash physics, when you hit a wall you get bumped off back onto the road, with a dull thud coming though your speakers, getting hit by another car gives you a bit of a shunt but the game definitely has some assists to put you back on track, it's all pretty immersion breaking in single player, but is certainly helpful in ensuring online is less crashy than Forza.
Multiplayer is an area that while more consistent in GT7, there is no variety, 3 daily races are pretty limiting in their track/car choice already, but to make it worse the meta is known at the beginning of each week, I watched Rory's stream last week where he was racing a one make race of Ford GT's in Daytona all week, how dull!
Despite its issues, I find myself turning on Forza more than I do GT7, so for a game that is "DOA" I'm sure getting a lot of fun out of it. I really don't care either for some of these content creators putting out their videos on Forza, it seems like a bit of a boys club, they all engage with each other on twitter to have their little giggles about the games struggles.
My guess is things will move on, the game will only get better with time, some of the creators that are stuck putting out negative engagement vids will get overtaken by those that keep playing and enjoying the game, and even when steam has 0 daily active users, you'll still be able to log online and get yourself a full lobby to do some online racing.