More Than Five Million People Play Forza Each Month

[ImaRobot]

Still unremarkable considering no other racing franchise has released 5 games this generation. Forza individual title sales are nothing remarkable (1-2 million noted). FH3 being the outlier with 2 million+

What exactly makes it unremarkable? What other current gen game are you comparing it to?

 

[Milouse]

Unless you're going to claim that every Xbox player had a PC as well...

A player that plays on both PC and Xbox count only as one sell anyway, and appears once in leaderboards

 

[GT6mebe]

It's still the UK's third best seller a year after release so I'm not sure what the significance of "Feb 2017" is.

I fail to see how this goes against the reported 2.5 million from Feb.2017. What is your point here?

What exactly makes it unremarkable? What other current gen game are you comparing it to?

The racing genre: 1-2 million is middling. Remarkable sellers would be GT and Mario Kart. FH3 to a lesser extent.

 

[UKMikey]

I fail to see how this goes against the reported 2.5 million from Feb.2017. What is your point here?

See below:

Forza Horizon 3 is nearing 5,000,000 players on its own.
It's a successful title with enough DLC to have mass-market appeal (Hoonigan, Hot Wheels etc.), and is frequently bundled with Xbox One S consoles.

2.5 million < 5 million. You're deliberately understating FH3's success in order to make it appear "middling" in comparison to franchises from other developers who don't work on a bi-annual schedule and have next to no presence on machines of this generation. It's like you're hardly trying, dude. Troll harder.

 

[ImaRobot]

The racing genre: 1-2 million is middling. Remarkable sellers would be GT and Mario Kart. FH3 to a lesser extent.

So, again. Compared to what current gen game? Even compared to what last gen game? It still sold just as much, if not more, than most of the competition. The fact that GT sold more doesn't mean that this is a small amount of sales. It just means that GT5 sold a remarkable amount, and then lost almost all momentum upon release of GT6. They wouldn't continue making 10 games if the franchise was dwindling.

Even more so, If we're going to say that because one thing sold a lot, means everything else sold a little, than GT6 lost nearly 50 percent of it's sales, while T10 seem to be at an even ground, and going up with the Horizon as of late. Losing 50% of it's previous sales is middling.

 

[GT6mebe]

See below:


2.5 million < 5 million. You're deliberately understating FH3's success in order to make it appear "middling" in comparison to franchises from other developers who don't work on a bi-annual schedule and have next to no presence on machines of this generation. It's like you're hardly trying, dude. Troll harder.

You see to lack the ability to differentiate between copies sold and player accounts. Hint: you can have multiple accounts with one copy.

Like I said, active player counts is what pubs do to try and make their game see successful but are too scared to release actual sales info because its nothing remarkable.

FH3 did notably well and we have sales info: 2.5 million as of Feb 2017.

So, again. Compared to what current gen game? Even compared to what last gen game? It still sold just as much, if not more, than most of the competition. The fact that GT sold more doesn't mean that this is a small amount of sales. It just means that GT5 sold a remarkable amount, and then lost almost all momentum upon release of GT6. They wouldn't continue making 10 games if the franchise was dwindling.

Even more so, If we're going to say that because one thing sold a lot, means everything else sold a little, than GT6 lost nearly 50 percent of it's sales, while T10 seem to be at an even ground, and going up with the Horizon as of late. Losing 50% of it's previous sales is middling.

I said racing genre. Driveclub, The Crew, Forza, Asetto and Pcars have all had sales in the 1-2 million region, hence Forza being nothing remarkable. Sorry if the truth displeases you.

GT continues to be a remarkable game sales for the racing genre, even with GT6's decline lol

 

[UKMikey]

You see to lack the ability to differentiate between copies sold and player accounts. Hint: you can have multiple accounts with one copy.

Like I said, active player counts is what pubs do to try and make their game see successful but are too scared to release actual sales info because its nothing remarkable.

FH3 did notably well and we have sales info: 2.5 million as of Feb 2017.

You're alleging that each copy is played by an average of 2 people? All two and a half million copies? Also that no copies were sold between Feb 2017 and now? Hmmm...

 

[ImaRobot]

I said racing genre. Driveclub, The Crew, Forza, Asetto and Pcars have all had sales in the 1-2 million region, hence Forza being nothing remarkable. Sorry if the truth displeases you.

The truth doesn't displease me, not sure why you'd pretend it would, if only to make yourself feel better I guess.

Driveclub released 3 years ago and sits just around 2 million. In Feb 2017(5 months after it's release) Forza Horizon 3 sold 2.5mil copies.

The Crew released a little over 2 and a half years ago, and sits around 2.5 million from two different consoles. In Feb 2017(5 months after it's release) Forza Horizon 3 sold 2.5mil copies.

Asseto Corsa looks to have sold well under a million(even under half a million) and it released one month before FH3 on two different consoles. In Feb 2017(5 months after it's release) Forza Horizon 3 sold 2.5mil copies.

Project cars sold under 2 million in two years on two different consoles. In Feb 2017(5 months after it's release) Forza Horizon 3 sold 2.5mil copies.

Time paints a better picture. So again, it's doing bad compared to what current gen game?

GT continues to be a remarkable game sales for the racing genre, even with GT6's decline lol

Oh it very well does, but again, that game sold a lot, but these games also sold millions. They aren't doing bad just because one game sold so much more.

 

[UKMikey]

What I don't understand is how come all those other current gen games which sold as well as FH3 aren't still in the charts? What happened to all the copies sold between Feb 2017 and now that Mebe is discounting if 2.5m of the MAUs don't count as extra sales?

 

[cutmeamango]

What I don't understand is how come all those other current gen games which sold as well as FH3 aren't still in the charts? What happened to all the copies sold between Feb 2017 and now that Mebe is discounting if 2.5m of the MAUs don't count as extra sales?

FH3 has been charting regularly on UK and somewhat US due bundles (nothing wrong, just the reason). It's weekly sales should vary from anywhere less than 10k (costumary for under ~10th) to 15k (like a couple weeks ago where it broke into the top 10 again) It ended 2016 with 400k+ there, and now it could be around 600k. We recently learned that it just passed 200k in Germany, which is the second biggest market for the Xbox in Europe.
Which means that while it's a sought bundle game, it's doing above average in two major markets only.

All in all, it should be around 3mi by now, if not passed that mark.

As I said in my first post, last time Forza/MS talked about (unique!) users, it didn't match sales for that amount of unique users and soon people noticed the numbers matched perfectly with available in-game stats, meaning they weren't unique "unique".
Given that 5mi users would require: the majority of F6 buyers to be different from FH3 (since they should total ~6mi together at best), or FH2-1/F5-1 still have largely active communities, or Forza Apex counting and is really active too, the 5mi users probably overlap between games: That is you are counted twice for still playing Forza 6 and Horizon 3.

What GT6mebe said about using MAU in PR statements instead of sales is sort of true. MS abandoned console sale numbers in favor of MAU statements. It's another way to prop up positive numbers, while avoiding less favorable ones.

But I don't think it's unremarkable at all.
Repeating myself but, even at worst case scenario of huge F6-FH3 overlap, 2-3 million starting your game at least once a month is a great thing.

I think the problem in terms of sales, and it doesn't seem to be a financial one for the studios, is that a game with great reception, good direction and content fails to handily surpass its predecessors.

 

[UKMikey]

All in all, it should be around 3mi by now, if not passed that mark.

As I said in my first post, last time Forza/MS talked about (unique!) users, it didn't match sales for that amount of unique users and soon people noticed the numbers matched perfectly with available in-game stats, meaning they weren't unique "unique".
Given that 5mi users would require: the majority of F6 buyers to be different from FH3 (since they should total ~6mi together at best), or FH2-1/F5-1 still have largely active communities, or Forza Apex counting and is really active too, the 5mi users probably overlap between games: That is you are counted twice for still playing Forza 6 and Horizon 3.

What GT6mebe said about using MAU in PR statements instead of sales is sort of true. MS abandoned console sale numbers in favor of MAU statements. It's another way to prop up positive numbers, while avoiding less favorable ones.

So we have 5 million players on 3 million copies of the game? 2 million players are piggybacking on someone else's copy? Or is the link erroneous? It doesn't say it includes Forza 6 players. And this doesn't really address my question of why those other games aren't still in the sales chart. I'm not sure who to believe or disbelieve here but only one side has actually provided a link of any kind.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

I took it to be saying that 5 million players play Forza. I would guess that includes FM2,3,4,5 and 6 as well as FH1,2,3 and also counts a player with two accounts as two players and quite likely counts a player who logs into FM5 and 6 and FH2 and 3 as 4 players instead of 1. I am sure there are plenty of people who have only one account and I know there are plenty with two or more.

I remember back in FM4 I saw a big claim about how many people were still playing it and the funny part was that when you first play the title you ran a specific race in a specific car. Everyone who played the game with an internet connection ran this race and posted a time on that track in that class and of course many people had more than one profile so they posted more than one time yet the total of all the profiles who had ever driven the track since day one was less than the number of people they said were still playing it

 

[CSLACR]

Call it whatever you want, there are 2.7 million listings(rankings) for a speed trap in FH3.
I never saw anything from the great GT that had more than 1 million.

I would say clearly Microsoft's count is a total of all logins from all Forza games.
It's mightily impressive and trumps any other racing game in the world.

 

[willbsn13]

Call it whatever you want, there are 2.7 million listings(rankings) for a speed trap in FH3.
I never saw anything from the great GT that had more than 1 million.

I would say clearly Microsoft's count is a total of all logins from all Forza games.
It's mightily impressive and trumps any other racing game in the world.

If you look at the first showcase event for FH3, there are over 5 million entries for it. It's performed the best (critically and commercially) of any Forza game this gen.

 

[CSLACR]

If you look at the first showcase event for FH3, there are over 5 million entries for it. It's performed the best (critically and commercially) of any Forza game this gen.

It's an absolutely amazing game, I can't say that's even surprising.

I won't get into details on sales vs claimed logins, but the fact you point to 5 million entries indicates there are easily enough.

Sonething else, is that used sales, don't get counted in sales.
So a game selling 3 million copies can easily have 4 or more million people purchase and play it.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

Call it whatever you want, there are 2.7 million listings(rankings) for a speed trap in FH3.
I never saw anything from the great GT that had more than 1 million.

Well one reason for that would be that GT leaderboards are only active for two weeks at a time and are very limited as to car and track combo so those are no indication of how many people have played GT or even how many have played during that two week period.

I would say clearly Microsoft's count is a total of all logins from all Forza games.
It's mightily impressive and trumps any other racing game in the world.

Impressive yes, trumps all others no way to tell, but the fact that they keep their older titles active online longer than anyone else does allow them to log more activity as a lot of us will still go back and run a race or two on the older titles from time to time where as with say GT5 you can't do that because the online portion has been offline for a long time already.

I have no real data but I would say that if you were to look at all the games in the series and the total number of players across all of them NFS might very well trump everything out there in terms of shear numbers given that it has been around the longest, has the most titles and has been multiple platform for many years.

 

[CSLACR]

Well one reason for that would be that GT leaderboards are only active for two weeks at a time and are very limited as to car and track combo so those are no indication of how many people have played GT or even how many have played during that two week period.



Impressive yes, trumps all others no way to tell, but the fact that they keep their older titles active online longer than anyone else does allow them to log more activity as a lot of us will still go back and run a race or two on the older titles from time to time where as with say GT5 you can't do that because the online portion has been offline for a long time already.

I have no real data but I would say that if you were to look at all the games in the series and the total number of players across all of them NFS might very well trump everything out there in terms of shear numbers given that it has been around the longest, has the most titles and has been multiple platform for many years.

MmmmmNo.

Again, Im not debating it all, at all, but sone quick pointers.
NFS sales last I saw weren't comparable.
Internet play hasn't been available as long as NFS, so a lot of their titles couldn't count.
NFS games get cheap quickly, like GT games, because people sell them quickly. You can't sell a new copy for 50 bucks when used ones are everywhere for 20.

And lastly, anyone thinking people playing old games is making up even a small portion is kidding themself.
There aren't millions of people logging in to 10 year old Forza, NFS, or GT games, they're just not.

GT also had license tests, with keaderboards, didn't it?
I didn't see 5 million, or even 2, but maybe over 4 years that finally changed.

Forza is the dominant game now. Not because I wish it or want it, because people actually play it. Not like a hundred thousand, not like a million, but millions.
You can't buy Forza for 15 bucks 3 months after it comes out. Hell, not after 3 years.
Because people don't sell it. (They do but not nearly enough to lower prices)

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

And lastly, anyone thinking people playing old games is making up even a small portion is kidding themself.
There aren't millions of people logging in to 10 year old Forza, NFS, or GT games, they're just not.

10 year old? Yes probably not millions but several. I know when I log in it is not uncommon for me to see friends playing Forza 4 or even Forza 2, I do it myself sometimes as well.

GT also had license tests, with keaderboards, didn't it?
I didn't see 5 million, or even 2, but maybe over 4 years that finally changed.

Yes GT had some license tests, honestly I never looked at the leaderboards, in GT5 they were totally optional and many of the players I played with did not even bother running them.

You can't buy Forza for 15 bucks 3 months after it comes out. Hell, not after 3 years.
Because people don't sell it. (They do but not nearly enough to lower prices)

People do sell it but the game shops still try to rip you off by charging to much. I bought a used copy of FM2 back in the day $20 then I bought the DLC another $20 only to find out that same day I could have got the newest version which included all the DLC for $20 total retail.

Yes Forza is a good game and is very popular now, especially on the new gen consoles as the other big boy does not yet have a offering on the latest consoles. It would not surprise me if more people are playing Forza than other titles over the last year. They have inflated their stats a bit to make it look more impressive than it really is though.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

MmmmmNo.

Again, Im not debating it all, at all, but sone quick pointers.

Er, which is it?

NFS sales last I saw weren't comparable.
Internet play hasn't been available as long as NFS, so a lot of their titles couldn't count.
NFS games get cheap quickly, like GT games, because people sell them quickly. You can't sell a new copy for 50 bucks when used ones are everywhere for 20.

Up until recently, NFS was a yearly, multi-platform franchise. It was a sales beast a decade ago:
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/need-for-speed-series-sells-100m-shift-moves-309k/1100-6237491/

By dint of being available on so many platforms, NFS is usually the better seller in terms of racing games each year. The exceptions have typically been when a GT game launches, or NFS2015.

And lastly, anyone thinking people playing old games is making up even a small portion is kidding themself.
There aren't millions of people logging in to 10 year old Forza, NFS, or GT games, they're just not.

They're probably not, no. But there are four Forza games available on the current system, and soon to be a fifth. Those aren't that old — I played a bunch of FM5 last month to hunt achievements and there was still a fairly active online community.

GT also had license tests, with keaderboards, didn't it?
I didn't see 5 million, or even 2, but maybe over 4 years that finally changed.

Probably because you can only compare with friends.

You can't buy Forza for 15 bucks 3 months after it comes out. Hell, not after 3 years.
Because people don't sell it. (They do but not nearly enough to lower prices)

Yeah, I'm thinking this is anecdotal at best.